android-studio

#android-
studio
Table of Contents
About 1

Chapter 1: Getting started with android-studio 2

Remarks 2

Versions 2

Examples 3

Installation or Setup 3

Windows 3

Mac 4

Linux 4

Notes 5

Problem with downloading 5

Useful shortcuts 5

Navigation Shortcuts 5

Navigation Shortcuts - Mac OS X 6

Programming Shortcuts 6

Preview Different Screen Size (Devices) and Orientations 6

1. Preview Different Devices 6

2. Switching Orientation 8

Use your favorite tool shortcuts in Android Studio 10

Chapter 2: Android Studio optimization 11

Parameters 11

Examples 11

Customize the VM Option 11

Windows: 11

Mac: 11

Linux: 11

Default setting for Android Studio 64-bit 11

Optimized Setting 12

Chapter 3: Android Studio Tips and Tricks 13

 Examples 13

Emulator for testing 13

Custom Live Template 13

Example : 13

To achieve this purpose , you should add a custom Live Template: 14

Use Custom Code Styles, Share with other Team Members and Auto Format with Shortcut 17

Chapter 4: Android Studio updates 20

Examples 20

Updating Android Studio in Ubuntu 20

Android Studio update channels 20

Overview 20

Selecting an Update Channel 20

Credits 22
About
You can share this PDF with anyone you feel could benefit from it, downloaded the latest version
from: android-studio

It is an unofficial and free android-studio ebook created for educational purposes. All the content is
extracted from Stack Overflow Documentation, which is written by many hardworking individuals at
Stack Overflow. It is neither affiliated with Stack Overflow nor official android-studio.

The content is released under Creative Commons BY-SA, and the list of contributors to each
chapter are provided in the credits section at the end of this book. Images may be copyright of
their respective owners unless otherwise specified. All trademarks and registered trademarks are
the property of their respective company owners.

Use the content presented in this book at your own risk; it is not guaranteed to be correct nor
accurate, please send your feedback and corrections to [email protected]

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Chapter 1: Getting started with android-
studio
Remarks
Android Studio is the official IDE by Google for Android app development, based on IntelliJ IDEA.
[1]

It utilizes a Gradle-based build system through the Android Plugin for Gradle. [2]

Versions

Version Release Date

0.1.x 2013-05-01

0.2.x 2013-07-01

0.3.2 2013-10-01

0.4.2 2014-01-01

0.4.6 2014-03-01

0.5.2 2014-05-01

0.8.0 2014-06-01

0.8.6 2014-08-01

0.8.14 2014-10-01

1.0 2014-12-01

1.0.1 2014-12-02

1.1.0 2015-02-01

1.2.0 2015-04-01

1.2.1 2015-05-01

1.2.2 2015-06-01

1.3.0 2015-07-01

1.3.1 2015-08-01

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 Version Release Date

1.3.2 2015-08-02

1.4.0 2015-09-01

1.4.1 2015-10-01

1.5.0 2015-11-01

1.5.1 2015-12-01

2.0 2016-04-01

2.1.0 2016-04-02

2.1.1 2016-05-01

2.1.2 2016-06-01

2.1.3 2016-08-01

2.2.0 2016-09-01

2.3.0 2017-03-02

2.3.1 2017-04-02

Examples
Installation or Setup

Windows
1. Verify that you have the correct JDK. You can check it by opening command prompt (press
windows key and write cmd). In the command prompt type javac -version, this will show the
current version of JDK installed on your matching or an error* if Java is missing. If the JDK is
not available or the version is lower than 1.8, download the Java SE Development Kit 8.

2. Download the latest Android Studio.

3. Launch the downloaded .exe file.

4. Follow the wizard to install Android Studio

5. After installation completes, open Android Studio from the shortcut that has been made on
Desktop during the installation process.

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 6. When you open Android Studio for first time, it may ask you to copy your previous settings,
but as it is your first time you can simply choose not to copy anything.

7. Then Android Studio ask to download the required API's to develop Android apps. Download
those, after downloading the IDE will open and you will be able to write your first app.

Mac
1. Verify that you have the correct JDK. You can check it by opening terminal (press command
+ space and write terminal). In the command line type javac -version, this will show the
current version of JDK installed on your matching or an error* if Java is missing. If the JDK is
not available or the version is lower than 1.8, download the Java SE Development Kit 8. **

2. Download the latest Android Studio.

3. Launch the downloaded .dmg file.

4. Drag and drop Android Studio into the Applications folder, then launch Android Studio.

5. Open Android Studio.

6. When you open Android Studio for first time, it may ask you to copy your previous settings,
but as it is your first time you can simply choose not to copy anything.

7. Then Android Studio ask to download the required API's to develop Android apps. Download
those, after downloading the IDE will open and you will be able to write your first app.

Linux
1. Verify that you have the correct JDK. You can check it by opening terminal (press command +
space and write terminal). In the command line type javac -version, this will show the current
version of JDK installed on your matching or an error* if Java is missing. If the JDK is not
available or the version is lower than 1.8, download the Java SE Development Kit 8. **

2. Download the latest Android Studio.

3. Unzip/extract Android Studio in a specific folder.

4. Open terminal and go the path where you have extracted the Android Studio. (Then, use cd
command to go inside the Android Studio folder.) After going in we need to go inside bin
folder so again,use command cd bin and enter.

5. Now we need to change the mod of our required file i.e studio.sh to do so enter command
sudo chmod 777 -R studio.sh , press enter and write your password(if any) and enter. (Also
you can see the list of files present inside bin by command ls.).

6. After changing mod we just have to run the .studio.sh file to do so enter command

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 ./studio.sh

7. When you run above command Android Studio launch for first time, it may ask you to copy
your previous settings, but as it is your first time you can simply choose not to copy anything.

8. Then Android Studio ask to download the required API's to develop Android apps. Download
those, after downloading the IDE will open and you will be able to write your first app.

You may encounter "unable to run mksdcard SDK tool" when you are installing android
studio in 64 bit ubuntu os because studio requires some 32 binaries. To overcome this
error finish and close Android Studio & go to terminal and run sudo apt-get install
lib32z1 lib32ncurses5 lib32bz2-1.0 lib32stdc++6. Once installation is completed for
these binaries again go back to step 6 and resume installation process.

Notes

• If you have already installed JDK and still getting then make sure you have set JAVA_HOME in
your System Variables. You can check this answer on how to setup one.

• There are, however, known stability issues in Android Studio on Mac when using JDK 1.8.
Until these issues are resolved, you can improve stability by downgrading your JDK to an
older version (but no lower than JDK 1.6).

• While the Android Studio download completes, verify which version of the JDK you have:
open a command line and type javac -version. If the JDK is not available or the version is
lower than 1.8, download the Java SE Development Kit 8.

• If you are running a 64-bit version of Ubuntu, you need to install some 32-bit libraries with
the following commands:

sudo dpkg --add-architecture i386

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install lib32z1 lib32ncurses5 libbz2-1.0:i386 lib32stdc++6

• If you are running 64-bit Fedora, the command is:

sudo yum install zlib.i686 ncurses-libs.i686 bzip2-libs.i686

Problem with downloading

• If you would face any issue like message that your system is not compatible with Android
Studio (it may happen when you're using web browser different than Chrome) download
Android Studio from: http://tools.android.com/

That's it!

Useful shortcuts

Navigation Shortcuts

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 Go to class Ctrl+N
Go to file Ctrl + Shift + N
Navigate open tabs ALT + Left-Arrow; ALT + Right-Arrow
Lookup recent files CTRL + E
Go to line CTRL + G
Navigate to last edit location CTRL + SHIFT + BACKSPACE
Go to declaration CTRL + B
Go to implementation CTRL + ALT + B
Go to source F4
Go to super Class CTRL + U
Show Call hierarchy Ctrl + Alt + H
Search in path/project CTRL + SHIFT + F

Navigation Shortcuts - Mac OS X

Go to line number CMD + L

Programming Shortcuts

Reformat code CTRL + ALT + L

Optimize imports CTRL + ALT + O
Code Completion CTRL + SPACE
Issue quick fix ALT + ENTER
Surround code block CTRL + ALT + T
Rename and refactor Shift + F6
Line Comment or Uncomment CTRL + /
Block Comment or Uncomment CTRL + SHIFT + /
Go to previous/next method ALT + UP/DOWN
Show parameters for method CTRL + P
Quick documentation lookup CTRL + Q
Project Alt+1
Version Control Alt+9
Run Shift+F10
Debug Shift+F9
Android Monitor Alt+6
Return to Editor Esc
Hide All Tool Windows CTRL +Shift+F12
Auto generate code(constructor,
getter/setter etc) Alt+insert
Code completion CTRL+Space
Smart code completion
(by expected type) CTRL+Shift+Space
Show quick fix CTRL+Enter
Duplicate Line Ctrl+D
Delete Line Ctrl+Y

Preview Different Screen Size (Devices) and Orientations

2.1.3

1. Preview Different Devices

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There is a preview panel at the right of the android studio. In thispanel there is a button with device
name with which you are previewing the UI of your app like this .

Click on small dropdown indicator of this and a floating panel will appear with all the predefined
devices. You can select any of them to preview your App UI with different devices mentioning their
screen sizes.

Check this image

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2. Switching Orientation
And Next to this button there is another button like

Clicking to its dropdown a floating panel will appear with some options like portrait , landscape etc.
select one of them to preview in different orientations.
Check the this image

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2.2.0

The option to preview all screen sizes is not available from Android Studio 2.2 Beta 2. However,
you can resize the preview screen to see how your layout would look on different screen sizes, as
shown in the attached.

Check: Android Studio 2.2 Preview all screen sizes missing

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Use your favorite tool shortcuts in Android Studio

Go to File > Settings > Keymap and select the Keymaps option from:

• Mac OS X
• Emacs
• Visual Studio
• Eclise
• Netbeans
• Jbuilder

and others, to map the shortcuts to the wanted tool ones.

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Chapter 2: Android Studio optimization
Parameters

Parameter Detail

Xms Initial memory allocate

Xmx Max memory allocate

Examples
Customize the VM Option

You can override the default vmoptions with your own personal settings by choosing Help > Edit
Custom VM Options from the Android Studio toolbar. This will create a local copy which you are
free to edit.

Alternatively, you can edit the default vmoptions directly using the paths given below. Note that this
method is not recommended, and your changes may be overwritten when updating Android
Studio.

Windows:

%USERPROFILE%\.{FOLDER_NAME}\studio.exe.vmoptions and/or
%USERPROFILE%\.{FOLDER_NAME}\studio64.exe.vmoptions
%USERPROFILE%\.{FOLDER_NAME}\idea.properties

Mac:

~/Library/Preferences/{FOLDER_NAME}/studio.vmoptions
~/Library/Preferences/{FOLDER_NAME}/idea.properties

Linux:

~/.{FOLDER_NAME}/studio.vmoptions
~/.{FOLDER_NAME}/studio64.vmoptions
~/.{FOLDER_NAME}/idea.properties

Default setting for Android Studio 64-bit

-Xms128m

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 -Xmx750m
-XX:MaxPermSize=350m
-XX:ReservedCodeCacheSize=96m
-ea
-Dsun.io.useCanonCaches=false
-Djava.net.preferIPv4Stack=true
-Djna.nosys=true
-Djna.boot.library.path=

-Djna.debug_load=true
-Djna.debug_load.jna=true
-Djsse.enableSNIExtension=false
-XX:+UseCodeCacheFlushing
-XX:+UseConcMarkSweepGC
-XX:SoftRefLRUPolicyMSPerMB=50
-Didea.platform.prefix=AndroidStudio
-Didea.paths.selector=AndroidStudio

Optimized Setting

-Xms1024m
-Xmx4096m
-XX:MaxPermSize=1024m
-XX:ReservedCodeCacheSize=256m
-ea
-Dsun.io.useCanonCaches=false
-Djava.net.preferIPv4Stack=true
-Djna.nosys=true
-Djna.boot.library.path=

-Djna.debug_load=true
-Djna.debug_load.jna=true
-Djsse.enableSNIExtension=false
-XX:+UseCodeCacheFlushing
-XX:+UseConcMarkSweepGC
-XX:SoftRefLRUPolicyMSPerMB=50
-Didea.platform.prefix=AndroidStudio
-Didea.paths.selector=AndroidStudio

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Chapter 3: Android Studio Tips and Tricks
Examples
Emulator for testing

If there are no specific needs, choose x86_64 system images with Google APIs to create the
emulator.

It works way faster than armeabi-v7a on intel x86 x64 based computers.

There are some SDK libraries compiled and designed with ARM architecture.

If you try to install them on Intel based emulators you'll get an error message saying

"INSTALL_FAILED_NO_MATCHING_ABIS"

You can go for a 3rd party emulator like Genymotion or Visual Studio's standalone Android
Emulator on such occasions.

Custom Live Template

Example :

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To achieve this purpose , you should add a custom Live
Template:
1. Open Settings [Ctrl + Alt + S ]
2. Type "Live Templates" in the Top-Left search bar.
3. Click the + to add a "Template Group" and type a group name(eg: MyTemplate) to continue

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 4. Choose your custom template group(eg: MyTemplate), then click + and choose "Live
Template".
5. I will take "say" for example:

say -> startActivity(new Intent($from$.this,$to$.class));

6. Type the key that you want to simplify in "Abbreviation" (eg: say),and type the statement in
the "Template Text" (eg :startActivity(new Intent($from$.this,$to$.class));)

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 7. Click the "define" in the Left-Bottom and choose the situation(eg: Java)
8. Click the "Edit variables",define the expression.(see detail:Edit Template Variables Dialog)

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 9. Click "OK" and "Apply". And try to type "say" in your editor.

Use Custom Code Styles, Share with other Team Members and Auto Format
with Shortcut

It's possible to have your own custom code styles, share them with other team members and use
a shortcut to auto format the code in a file.

To create your own custom code style, go to: Preferences -> Editor -> Code Style

There are some general code style settings here. You can also select the language (Java for
Android) and set the parameters as you see fit. There's a lot of settings.

Once you've done this, save your code style. This is just for safe keeping.

Once you've saved it, select "Copy to Project" from the "Manage" dialog. You will be asked
whether you want to switch to this created scheme. Answer yes.

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Once this is done, close the Code Style preferences dialog.

Now, verify that your code style settings have been saved in: .idea/codeStyleSettings.xml

Ensure that this file is not ignored in your version control system so that you can share it with your
teammates.

Once your teammates have this file, they should also have the same settings.

Now, when editing a file, you can format the code by selecting:

Code -> Reformat Code

Shortcuts for Reformat Code (taken from this answer - see answer for details on resolving issues
with shortcut in Ubuntu):

Win

Ctrl + Alt + L

Linux:

Ctrl + Shift + Alt + L

Mac:

Option + Command + L

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When you perform a code reformat, a small dialog should popup informing you of the changes
made. You can click "Show" in this dialog to bring up the "Reformat File Dialog".

You can also bring up this dialog from the Code menu and its corresponding shortcut.

Be warned that "Only VCS changed text" doesn't always work depending on how the code has
been edited (it may ignore a rule if part of the code has not been edited).

You can also select text and show the reformat code dialog to format only the select text.

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Chapter 4: Android Studio updates
Examples
Updating Android Studio in Ubuntu

If you are able to download an update of Android Studio, but after it restarts nothing happens,
check out the following example:

1. After the patch was downloaded and Android Studio closed, open the terminal
2. Go to your android studio folder, e.g. cd ~/android-studio
3. Go to bin subfolder: cd bin
4. Make sure your studio.sh file has run permissions: chmod +x studio.sh
5. Run Android Studio from here: ./studio.sh

After that Android Studio will find the patch and install it. Then you may close Android Studio and
run it the regular way (whatever way you prefer, I run it from Launcher pad).

Android Studio update channels

Overview
Android Studio's built-in update mechanism can be set to receive updates through any one of
these four channels:

• Canary: Bleeding edge, released about weekly. These are early previews released in order
to obtain real-world feedback during development. The canary channel will always have the
latest build, including updates to beta or stable releases. We recommend running canary
builds side-by-side with a beta or stable installation.
• Dev: Canary builds after a full round of internal testing get promoted into the Dev Channel.
• Beta: Release candidates based on stable canary builds, released and updated to obtain
feedback prior to the stable release. The beta channel will be updated with new stable builds
until a new canary build goes to beta.
• Stable: The official stable release, as available from the Android Developer site.

Download the full installations of the build offered in each of these channels: Canary, Dev, Beta,
Stable.

Alternatively, you can build it yourself, following the instructions in Build Overview.

Selecting an Update Channel

To select the update channel for an Android Studio installation go through:

File > Settings > System Settings > Updates

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and choose the appropriate channel on which to check for updates:

When an update is available, you'll be prompted by the IDE:

Selecting update will display the update information dialog with details information on the patch
available, its size and its channel:

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Credits
S.
Chapters Contributors
No

Ajay, Anurag, ARUN.G, Atif Farrukh, CJBS, Community, Daniel

Getting started with Nugent, H. Pauwelyn, Inzimam Tariq IT, kalan, murf, Nissim R,
1
android-studio Paul Thompson, petrumo, piotrek1543, pRaNaY, Rob R.,
SaravInfern, Shashanth, sudo, Valentin Kuhn

Android Studio Kevin Cooper, manfcas, piotrek1543, UmAnusorn, Yury

2
optimization Fedorov

Android Studio Tips Damindu, hellyale, meunicorn, piotrek1543, Shashanth,

3
and Tricks the_new_mr

Android Studio
4 piotrek1543, Yury Fedorov
updates

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