ADT Plugin for Eclipse
In this document
See also
Android Development Tools (ADT) is a plugin for the Eclipse IDE that is designed to give you a powerful, integrated environment in which to build Android applications.
ADT extends the capabilities of Eclipse to let you quickly set up new Android projects, create an application UI, add components based on the Android Framework API, debug your applications using the Android SDK tools, and even export signed (or unsigned) .apk files in order to distribute your application.
Developing in Eclipse with ADT is highly recommended and is the fastest way to get started. With the guided project setup it provides, as well as tools integration, custom XML editors, and debug output pane, ADT gives you an incredible boost in developing Android applications.
This document provides step-by-step instructions on how to download the ADT plugin and install it into your Eclipse development environment. Note that before you can install or use ADT, you must have compatible versions of both the Eclipse IDE and the Android SDK installed. For details, make sure to read Installing the ADT Plugin, below.
If you are already using ADT, this document also provides instructions on how to update ADT to the latest version or how to uninstall it, if necessary.
For information about the features provided by the ADT plugin, such as code editor features, SDK tool integration, and the graphical layout editor (for drag-and-drop layout editing), see the Android Developer Tools document.
Revisions
The sections below provide notes about successive releases of the ADT Plugin, as denoted by revision number.
For a summary of all known issues in ADT, see https://www.sodocs.net/doc/832102162.html,/knownissues.
ADT 16.0.1(December 2011)
Dependencies:
?Eclipse Helios (Version 3.6) or
higher is required for ADT 16.0.1.
?ADT 16.0.1 is designed for use
with SDK Tools r16. If you haven't
already installed SDK Tools r16
into your SDK, use the Android
SDK Manager to do so.
Bug fixes:
?Fixed build issue where the
9-patch could be packaged as
normal bitmap in some cases.
?Fixed minor issues in the Lint tool.
?Fixed minor issues in the SDK
Manager.
ADT 16.0.0(December 2011)
Dependencies:
?Eclipse Helios (Version 3.6) or
higher is required for ADT 16.0.0.
?ADT 16.0.0 is designed for use
with SDK Tools r16. If you haven't
already installed SDK Tools r16
into your SDK, use the Android
SDK Manager to do so.
General improvements:
?Added Lint tool to detect common
errors in Android projects. (more
info)
ADT 15.0.1(November 2011)
Dependencies:
ADT 15.0.1 is designed for use
with SDK Tools r15. If you haven't
already installed SDK Tools r15
into your SDK, use the Android
SDK Manager to do so.
Bug fixes:
?Fixed how source files are
attached to library project .jar
files.
?Fixed how the bin/ folder for
library projects are refreshed. This
ensures that parent projects pick
up changes in library projects.
?Fixed how a parent project's library
container is updated when a library
project is recompiled. This ensures
that parent projects are recompiled
when code in a library project
changes.
?Fixed how res/ folders are
checked in library projects. This
ensures that all res folders are
properly included even if Eclipse is
not aware of them due to refresh
issues.
?Fixed issue that prevented aapt
from running when editing certain
XML files.
?Fixed minor XML formatting
issues.
ADT 15.0.0(October 2011)
Dependencies:
ADT 15.0.0 is designed for use
with SDK Tools r15. If you haven't
already installed SDK Tools r15
into your SDK, use the Android
SDK Manager to do so.
Bug fixes:
?Fixed build issue when using
Renderscript in projects that target
API levels 11-13 (Issue 21006).
?Fixed issue when creating projects
from existing source code.
?Fixed issues in the SDK Manager
(Issue 20939, Issue 20607).
?Fixed scrolling issue in the new
Logcat panel of DDMS.
ADT 14.0.0(October 2011)
Dependencies:
ADT 14.0.0 is designed for use
with SDK Tools r14. If you haven't
already installed SDK Tools r14
into your SDK, use the Android
SDK Manager to do so.
Build system:
?Changed
default.properties to
project.properties and
build.properties to
ant.properties. ADT
automatically renames these files,
if necessary, when you open a
project in Eclipse.
?Changed how library projects are
built in Eclipse.
?Changed output of javac from
bin/ to bin/classes in
Eclipse.
?Improved incremental builds so
that resource compilation runs less
frequently. Builds no longer run
when you edit strings or layouts
(unless you add a new id) and no
longer run once for each library
project.
?Introduced a "PNG crunch cache"
that only runs on modified PNG
files, instead of crunching all
existing PNG files, all the time.
?Modified resource compilation so it
no longer happens for normal save
operations. It only happens when
running or debugging (the build
option that lets you disable the
packaging step, which was
introduced in ADT 12, is now on by
default.)
For a complete overview of the
build system changes and what
you need to do to support them,
see the Android Tools Project site. General improvements:
?Added a Welcome Wizard to help
with the initial setup of the Android
development environment (more
info).
?Integrated the Android Asset
Studio, which helps you create
icons for things like the launcher,
menus, and tabs. (more info).
?Revamped the Logcat view and
added support to display and filter
logs by application names as well
as PIDs (more info).
?Revamped the SDK Manager UI
(more info).
?Revamped the New Project and
the New XML File wizards to have
multiple pages. Sample projects
are now copied into the workspace
such that they can be modified and
deleted without affecting the
master copy (more info).
?Removed the dependency on
Eclipse GEF.
XML and Java editors:
?Added a new XML formatter that
formats all XML files according to
the standard Android coding style.
The formatter can also reorder
attributes to follow a recommended
order and processes any changes
made in the Layout editor. (more
info).
?Added the "Go to Matching"
(Ctrl-Shift-P) feature, which lets
you jump between opening and
closing tags in XML files.
?Added support for the "Select
Enclosing Element" feature on
Mac.
?Added a Quickfix for extracting
Strings when the caret is inside a
String (see more).
?Improved "smart indent", which
allows automatic indentation and
un-indentation when pressing the
Return key in XML editors (more
info).
Layout editor:
?Added tooltip feedback for
dragging and resizing operations.
For example, when dragging in a
relative layout, the proposed
constraints are shown. When
resizing, the new dimensions are
shown (more info).
?Added the ability to suppress
rendering fidelity warnings (more
info).
?Added "Remove Container" visual
refactoring that removes the
children of a container up to the top
level and transfers namespace and
layout attributes if necessary (more
info).
?Added pull-right menus to the
context menu for accessing
properties of the parents, which is
useful when the children fully cover
the parent and make it hard to
select on their own.
?Improved access to properties in
the context menu. The most
frequently set attributes for each
view are listed at the top of the
menu. The Properties menu offers
access to the most recently set
attributes, attributes organized by
their defining view, and layout
attributes only or all attributes
alphabetically (more info).
Bug fixes:
Fixed many bugs and added minor
improvements, in particular some
critical bug fixes on Linux.
ADT 12.0.0(July 2011)
Dependencies:
ADT 12.0.0 is designed for use
with SDK Tools r12. If you haven't
already installed SDK Tools r12
into your SDK, use the Android
SDK and AVD Manager to do so.
Visual Layout Editor:
?New RelativeLayout drop support
with guideline suggestions for
attachments and cycle prevention
(more info).
?Resize support in most layouts
along with guideline snapping to
the sizes dictated by
wrap_content and
match_parent. In LinearLayout,
sizes are mapped to weights
instead of pixel widths. (more info).
?Previews of drawables and colors
in the resource chooser dialogs
(more info).
?Improved error messages and links
for rendering errors including
detection of misspelled class
names (more info).
Build system:
? A new option lets you disable the
packaging step in the automatic
builders. This improves
performance when saving files by
not performing a full build, which
can take a long time for large
projects. If the option is enabled,
the APK is packaged when the
application is deployed to a device
or emulator or when the release
APK is exported (more info).
Bug fixes:
Many bug fixes are part of this
release (more info).
ADT 11.0.0(June 2011)
Dependencies:
ADT 11.0.0 is designed for use
with SDK Tools r11. If you haven't
already installed SDK Tools r11
into your SDK, use the Android
SDK and AVD Manager to do so.
Visual Refactoring:
?"Extract Style" feature pulls out
style-related attributes from your
layout and extracts them as a new
style defined in styles.xml
(more info).
?"Wrap in Container" feature lets
you select a group of views then
surround them in a new layout (a
new view group, such as a
LinearLayout), and transfers
namespace and layout parameters
to the new parent (more info).
?"Change Layout" feature changes
layouts from one type to another,
and can also flatten a layout
hierarchy (more info).
?"Change Widget Type" feature
changes the type of the selected
views to a new type. Also, a new
selection context menu in the
visual layout editor makes it easy
to select siblings as well as views
anywhere in the layout that have
the same type (more info).
?"Extract as Include" feature finds
identical collections of views in
other layouts and offers to combine
them into a single layout that you
can then include in each layout
(more info).
?Quick Assistant in Eclipse can be
invoked from the XML editor (with
Ctrl-1) to apply any of the above
refactorings (and Extract String) to
the current selection (more info). Visual Layout Editor:
?This is the update to the layout
editor you've been waiting for! It
includes (almost) all the goodies
demonstrated at Google I/O.
Watch the video on YouTube.
?The palette now supports different configurations for supported
widgets. That is, a single view is
presented in various different
configurations that you can drag
into your layout. For example,
there is a Text Fields palette
category where you can drag an
EditText widget in as a
password field, an e-mail field, a
phone field, or other types of text
boxes. Similarly, TextView
widgets are preconfigured with
large, normal and small theme
sizes, and LinearLayout
elements are preconfigured in
horizontal and vertical
configurations (more info).
?The palette supports custom views.
You can pick up any custom
implementations of the View class
you've created in your project or
from included libraries and drag
them into your layout (more info). ?Fragments are available in the palette for placement in your layout.
In the tool, you can choose which
layout to show rendered for a given
fragment tag. Go to declaration
works for fragment classes (more
info).
?The layout editor automatically applies a "zoom to fit" for newly
opened files as well as on device
size and orientation changes to
ensure that large layouts are
always fully visible unless you
manually zoom in.
?You can drop in an
pop up a layout chooser. When
you select the layout to include, it
is added with an
Similarly, dropping images or
image buttons will pop up image
resource choosers (more info).
?The configuration chooser now
applies the "Render Target" and
"Locale" settings project wide,
making it trivial to check the
layouts for different languages or
render targets without having to
configure these individually for
each layout.
?The layout editor is smarter about
picking a default theme to render a
layout with, consulting factors like
theme registrations in the manifest,
the SDK version, and other factors.
?The layout editor is smarter about
picking a default configuration to
render a layout with, defaulting to
the currently visible configuration in
the previous file. It also considers
the SDK target to determine
whether to default to a tablet or
phone screen size.
?Basic focus support. The first text
field dropped in a layout is
assigned focus, and there are
Request Focus and Clear Focus
context menu items on text fields to
change the focus.
XML editors:
?Code completion has been
significantly improved. It now
works with