Sunday, June 3, 2012

What is the best IDE to develop Android apps in?


I am about to start developing an android app and need to get an IDE. Eclipse and the android eclipse plugin appears to be the natural choice. However I am familiar with intelliJ and re-sharper so I would prefer use intelliJ.



Has anyone used http://code.google.com/p/idea-android ? Is this any good?



Should I just bite the bullet and learn Eclipse?


Source: Tips4all

14 comments:

  1. IntelliJ now has support for Android. See Enabling Android Support from the JetBrains help page and the Google Code project page for the plugin. The Getting Started wiki page is pretty helpful.

    If you are used to IntelliJ, I don't think it would be beneficial to switch IDEs just for Android tools. You can work on Android with any text editor (I use Vim). If you're more productive with a specific environment I don't see why you'd have to learn a new one. Not worth it in my opinion. Plus I'm a big IntelliJ fan. The IntelliJ plugin lets you make apk files and push the app to the emulator, that's all you need for Android app development. I'd say you're safe sticking with IntelliJ.

    Update: there is now an official free IDE for IntelliJ android dev! http://blogs.jetbrains.com/idea/2010/10/intellij-idea-10-free-ide-for-android-development/

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  2. Eclipse is not that hard to learn (I use both Eclipse and NetBeans, and I switch back and forth pretty effortlessly). If you're going to be learning Android development from the start, I can recommend Hello, Android, which I just finished. It shows you exactly how to use all the features of Eclipse that are useful for developing Android apps. There's also a brief section on getting set up to develop from the command line and from other IDEs.

    You could also check out the sections in the Android Developers guide on Developing In Eclipse and In Other IDEs and compare the two.

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  3. Of the existing IDEs, Ted Neward ranks them this way:

    Best: IntelliJ IDEA
    Second: Netbeans
    Third: Eclipse


    He seems to think that Eclipse throws up a lot of "friction"; hard to say what that means.

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  4. You can try DroidDraw to design UI easily

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  5. Unfortunately, there is no perfect IDE for Android. Eclipse has more features as it is the only IDE google developed plugin for. However, if you are just like me, tired of crashes and weired debug/develop mode swithes, Use Netbeans plugin from http://nbandroid.kenai.com.

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  6. If you do android native code development using NDK, give Visual Studio a try. (Not a typo!!!) Check out: http://ian-ni-lewis.blogspot.com/2011/01/its-like-coming-home-again.html

    and: http://code.google.com/p/vs-android/

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  7. All of the full-featured Java IDE's are good and share all of the same concepts and main features. If you can find your way around one you can probably do the same for any other without much trouble.

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  8. An IDE which supports Android development is Processing for Android: http://wiki.processing.org/w/Android. Processing is its own language but it's easy to learn. Processing for Android requires the JDK and Android SDK to be installed but runs on its own. It runs on Linux, Mac OSX and Windows (on a side note: one can develop a desktop app in Processing and then compile it to target any of these operating systems). Its development is ongoing but it works. It's especially good for quickly sketching up an idea and running it on your Android phone (even if you plan to develop it further in another IDE).

    I've developed this free Android application using Processing: http://www.appbrain.com/app/letter-baby-free-beta/processing.android.test.letterbaby. Or search for Letter Baby in the market.

    There is an active support forum here: http://forum.processing.org/android-processing.

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  9. I Feel Eclipse IDE is more suitable for android applications rather than other IDEs.
    Because its providing us more than five perspectives which will make our project flexible and ease.You may try Eclipse ides starts with 3.6 and above will provide you better performance.

    Eclipse_jee_indigo
    Eclipse_java_indigo
    Eclipse_classic

    The above eclipses are belongs to the version3.7.2 which are all latest and supports all kind of access.

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  10. If you haven't installed Eclipse yet, I'd recommend Motorola's MotoDev Studio. It does a lot of the annoying little tasks like set up your Android environment along with your paths, and adds a lot of nice built in functionality to Eclipse.

    Even if you've already installed Eclipse, you can add it as a plugin (I haven't tried that myself). It is by Motorola, so they have some Motorola centric functionality as well, such as the ability to add your app to the Motorola market. Anyway if you're interested, give it a shot: http://developer.motorola.com/docstools/motodevstudio/

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  11. You can also develop rich UI filled Android applications using Adobe AIR. If you plan to go that route then Flex Builder Burrito is the best IDE. Take a look at this post as to how easy it is to build an AIR4Android app http://blog.air4android.com/?p=13

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  12. I advise Android bundle for TextMate: https://github.com/nesterow/Android.tmbundle It's lightweight and easy to use. There is no intellisense, but actually it just makes you remember namespaces better. :)

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  13. I am a huge supporter of using the environment that is most familiar to you. However this isn't always the best option. In some cases, a different environment can result in (far?) greater efficency in the long run.

    In this particular case I suspect that sticking with what you already know is a good option, but someone starting new would benifit from the easy setup and sdk/ndk integration offered by eclipse. I also don't know how available geolocation manipulation (or phone state manipulation - ie incoming call etc) is in other IDE's, but integration within eclipse feels seamless.

    AIDE is a fun option that I use while traveling or when I don't feel like sitting at my desk all the time. It is an extrodinarly well put together IDE that runs on Android, compiles Android appications, and then lets you install, all without touching a computer. It includes a logcat readout, syntax highlighting and some git compatibility as well. Obviously you don't have a lot of screen real estate available and things can get cluttered or you can't see everything you want to at once, but for quick touchups or early in a project it is more than adequate.

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  14. Eclipse and Netbeans are both horrible slow, and I'ts a miracle that even the serious developers has been sticking with it for years, not even try to stick with a better product.

    Java as platform is a shame when it comes to non-handheld platforms (win,mac,linux) and if anyone are going to develop on the platform I say do what else but do not use Java at all. For mobility it's probably has a kind of good luck here, as the systems are more down-scaled.

    As far I know, there aren't any existing IDE for Java which aren't iself written in a Java environment. This is horrible because Java is messing up the desktop environment.

    I'm willing to spend hours on google to find an Java IDE/Editor which are capable for android projects but will use a native environment for itself.

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