Getting Started (Part 1): Setting Up Your Machine for Android Development

SO one day, you woke up and out of habit, you checked your smartphone for new messages and Facebook updates. Quite common, right? But what if you decided that the phone you were holding in your hand had so much capabilities that weren't utilized yet. You decide to take matters into your own hands, and proceed to learn Android development!

For this post, I'll walk you through setting up your machine so that you can start hacking away the next great Android application. Here's what you'll need:

• Windows 7 (recommended)
• Java Standard Edition 6
• Eclipse
• Android SDK

..and a good, stable internet connection.

PREPARING FOR JAVA
 
Most, if not all, Android developers are using Eclipse as the IDE for development - and for Eclipse to work on our Windows machines, we'll need to make sure the Java is installed. As of this writing, the latest Java Standard Edition available is Java SE 7, but Java SE 6 will work as well. You can hit up this link and download a copy appropriate to your machine:

http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/downloads/jdk7u9-downloads-1859576.html

DOWNLOADING THE ECLIPSE IDE

  Truth be told, the Eclipse IDE is more a recommendation than a requirement. However, we will be using Eclipse because (1) Android recommends using Eclipse, and (2) the Android SDK was meant to run on the Eclipse IDE.

People often ask me which Eclipse should I download, since there are a few good versions available. As of this writing, the latest would be Eclipse Juno - I recommend the Classic version for it's easier to use and has all the features that we'll be using. Of course, you can just add other plug-ins if you wish. For now, hit up this link and download Eclipse Classic:

http://www.eclipse.org/downloads/ 

Make sure to use the appropriate bit-version for your Java compiler.

 

After you've finished this download, you'll be given an archive file. Use any archive extractor like WinZip or WinRAR to extract the files into a location on your machine. I recommend placing the extracted folder into your Documents folder - any location will do, just make sure to remember where you saved it in.

 Open the folder and double-click on eclipse.exe to run Eclipse for the first time.

That's it for this edition. On the next part, we'll run through the Eclipse IDE and guide ourselves to download the necessary files to begin coding for Android. See you!

Getting Started (Part 2): Downloading the Android SDK