Android Studio is a new and fully integrated development environment, which has been recently launched by Google for the Android operating system. It has been designed to provide new tools for app development and to provide an alternative to Eclipse, currently the most widely used IDE.
When you begin a new project in Android studio, the project's structure will appear with almost all the files held within the SDK directory, this switch to a Gradle based management system offers an even greater flexibility to the build process.
Android Studio allows you to see any visual changes you make to your app in real-time, and you can also see how it will look on a number of different Android devices, each with different configurations and resolutions, simultaneously.
Another feature in Android Studio are the new tools for the packing and labelling of code. These let you keep on top of your project when dealing with large amounts of code. The programme also uses a drag & drop system to move the components throughout the user interface.
In addition, this new environment comes with Google Cloud Messaging, a feature which lets you send data from the server to Android devices through the cloud, a great way to send Push notifications to your apps.
The programme will also help you to localize your apps, giving you a visual way to keep programming while controlling the flow of the application.
What else does Android Studio offer?
- A robust and straight forward development environment.
- An easy way to test performance on other types of device.
- Wizards and templates for common elements found in all Android programming.
- A full-featured editor with lots of extra tools to speed up the development of your applications.
