New Editing Features in Eclipse plug-in for Android
At the Google I/O conference a month ago, we demonstrated the next version of the Android Development Tools (ADT) plugin. Today we’re happy to announce that version 11 is done and available for download!
ADT 11 focuses on editor improvements. First, it offers several new visual refactoring operations, such as “Extract Include” and “Extract Style,” which help automatically extract duplicated layout fragments and style attributes into reusable layouts, styles, and themes.
Second, the visual layout editor now supports fragments, palette configurations, and improved support for custom views.
Last, XML editing has been improved with new quick fixes, code completion in more file types and many “go to declaration” enhancements.
ADT 11 packs a long list of new features and enhancements. Please visit our ADT page for more details. For an in-depth demo, check out the video of our Android Development Tools session at Google I/O, below.
Please note that the visual layout editor depends on a layout rendering library that ships with each version of the platform component in the SDK. We are currently working on a number of improvements to this library as well, which we plan to release soon for all platform versions. When we release the updates, some new features in ADT 11 will be “unlocked” – such as support for ListView previewing – so keep an eye on this blog for further announcements.
See the article here: New Editing Features in Eclipse plug-in for Android
Things That Cannot Change
[This post is by Dianne Hackborn, whose fingerprints can be found all over the Android Application Framework
A Deep Dive Into Location
[This post is by Reto Meier, Tech Lead for Android Developer Relations, who wrote the book on Android App development.
New Mode for Apps on Large Screens
[This post is by Scott Main, lead tech writer for developer.android.com.
A New Android Market for Phones
[This post is by Eric Chu, Android Developer Ecosystem. —Dirk Dougherty]
Earlier this year, we launched several important features aimed at making it easier to find great applications on Android Market on the Web. Today, we’re very excited to launch a completely redesigned Android Market client that brings these and other features to phones.
The new Market client is designed to better showcase top apps and games, engage users with an improved UI, and provide a quicker path to downloading or purchasing your products. For developers, the new Android Market client means more opportunities for your products to be merchandised and purchased.
In the home screen, we’ve created a new promotional page that highlights top content. This page is tiled with colorful graphics that provide instant access to featured apps and games. The page also lets users find their favorite books and movies, which will help drive even more return visits to Market.
To make it fun and easy for users to explore fresh content, we’ve added our app lists right to the Apps and Games home pages. Users can now quickly flip through these lists by swiping right or left, checking out what other people are downloading in the Top Paid, Top Free, Top Grossing, Top New Paid, Top New Free, and Trending lists. To keep the lists fresh and relevant, we’ve made them country-specific for many of the top countries.
To help you convert visitors to customers, we’ve made significant changes to the app details page. We’ve moved the app name and price into a compact action bar at the top of the page, so that users can quickly download or purchase your app. Directly below, users can flip through screen shots by swiping right or left, or scroll down to read your app’s description, what’s new, reviews, and more. To help you promote your product more effectively, the page now also includes a thumbnail link to your product video which is displayed at full screen when in landscape orientation.
For users who are ready to buy, we’ve streamlined the click-to-purchase flow so that users can complete a purchase in two clicks from the app details page. During the purchase, users can also see a list of your other apps, to help you cross-sell your other products.
With a great new UI, easy access to app discovery lists, a convenient purchase flow, and more types of content, we believe that the new Market client will become a favorite for users and developers alike.
Watch for the new Market client coming to your phone soon. We’ve already begun a phased roll-out to phones running Android 2.2 or higher — the update should reach all users worldwide in the coming weeks. We encourage you to try the update as soon as you receive it. Meanwhile, check out the video below for an early look.
See the rest here: A New Android Market for Phones
Android 3.2 Platform and Updated SDK tools
Today we are announcing the Android 3.2 platform, an incremental release that adds several new capabilities for users and developers. The new platform includes API changes and the API level is 13.
Here are some of the highlights of Android 3.2:
Optimizations for a wider range of tablets. A variety of refinements across the system ensure a great user experience on a wider range of tablet devices.
Compatibility zoom for fixed-sized apps. A new compatibility display mode gives users a new way to view these apps on larger devices. The mode provides a pixel-scaled alternative to the standard UI stretching, for apps that are not designed to run on larger screen sizes.
Media sync from SD card. On devices that support a removable SD card, users can now load media files directly from the SD card to apps that use them.
Extended screen support API. For developers who want more precise control over their UI across the range of Android-powered devices, the platform’s screen support API is extended with new resource qualifiers and manifest attributes, to also allow targeting screens by their dimensions.
For a complete overview of what’s new in the platform, see the Android 3.2 Version Notes.
We would also like to remind developers that we recently released new version of the SDK Tools (r12) and of the Eclipse plug-in (ADT 12). We have also updated the NDK to r6.
Visit the Android Developers site for more information about Android 3.2 and other platform versions. To get started developing or testing on the new platform, you can download it into your SDK using the Android SDK Manager.
Follow this link: Android 3.2 Platform and Updated SDK tools
Debugging Android JNI with CheckJNI
[This post is by Elliott Hughes, a Software Engineer on the Dalvik team
Multiple APK Support in Android Market
[This post is by Eric Chu, Android Developer Ecosystem. —Dirk Dougherty]
At Google I/O we announced our plans to add several new capabilities to help developers manage their products more effectively in Android Market. We’re pleased to let you know that the latest of those, multiple APK support, is now available. Multiple APK support is a new publishing option in Android Market for those developers who want extra control over distribution.
Until now, each product listing on Android Market has included a single APK file, a universal payload that is deliverable to all eligible devices — across all platform versions, screen sizes, and chipsets. Broad distribution of a single APK works very well for almost all applications and has the advantage of simplified product maintenance.
With multiple APK support, you can now upload multiple versions of an APK for a single product listing, with each one addressing a different subset of your customers. These APKs are complete, independent APKs that share the same package name, but contain code and resources to target different Android platform versions, screen sizes, or GL texture-compression formats. When users download or purchase your app, Android Market chooses the right APK to deliver based on the characteristics of the device.
When you upload multiple APK files, Android Market handles them as part of a single product listing that aggregates the app details, ratings, and comments across the APKs. All users who browse your app’s details page see the same product with the same description, branding assets, screenshots, video, ratings, and comments. Android Market also aggregates the app’s download statistics, reviews, and billing data across all of the APKs.
Multiple APK support gives you a variety of ways to control app distribution. For example, you could use it to create separate APKs for phones and tablets under the same product listing. You could also use it to take advantage of new APIs or new hardware capabilities without impacting your existing customer base.
To support this new capability, we’ve updated the Developer Console to include controls for uploading and managing APKs in a product listing — we encourage you to take a look. If you’d like to learn more about how multiple APK support works, please read the developer documentation. As always, please feel free to give us feedback on the feature through the Market Help Center.
More here: Multiple APK Support in Android Market
New Tools For Managing Screen Sizes
[This post is by Dianne Hackborn and a supporting cast of thousands; Dianne’s fingerprints can be found all over the Android Application Framework
Custom Class Loading in Dalvik
[This post is by Fred Chung, who’s an Android Developer Advocate
