Android Studio is the official Integrated Development Environment (IDE) for Android app development, based on IntelliJ IDEA . On top of IntelliJ's powerful code editor and developer tools, Android Studio offers even more features that enhance your productivity when building Android apps, such as:
This page provides an introduction to basic Android Studio features. For a summary of the latest changes, see Android Studio Release Notes.
Figure 1. The project files in Android view.
Each project in Android Studio contains one or more modules with source code files and resource files. Types of modules include:
By default, Android Studio displays your project files in the Android project view, as shown in figure 1. This view is organized by modules to provide quick access to your project's key source files.
All the build files are visible at the top level under Gradle Scripts and each app module contains the following folders:
AndroidManifest.xml
file.The Android project structure on disk differs from this flattened representation. To see the actual file structure of the project, select Project from the Project dropdown (in figure 1, it's showing as Android).
You can also customize the view of the project files to focus on specific aspects of your app development. For example, selecting the Problems view of your project displays links to the source files containing any recognized coding and syntax errors, such as a missing XML element closing tag in a layout file.
Figure 2. The project files in Problems view, showing a layout file with a problem.
For more information, see Managing Projects.
The Android Studio main window is made up of several logical areas identified in figure 3.
Figure 3. The Android Studio main window.
You can organize the main window to give yourself more screen space by hiding or moving toolbars and tool windows. You can also use keyboard shortcuts to access most IDE features.
At any time, you can search across your source code, databases, actions, elements of the user interface, and so on, by double-pressing the Shift key, or clicking the magnifying glass in the upper right-hand corner of the Android Studio window. This can be very useful if, for example, you are trying to locate a particular IDE action that you have forgotten how to trigger.
Instead of using preset perspectives, Android Studio follows your context and automatically brings up relevant tool windows as you work. By default, the most commonly used tool windows are pinned to the tool window bar at the edges of the application window.
You can also use keyboard shortcuts to open tool windows. Table 1 lists the shortcuts for the most common windows.
Table 1. Keyboard shortcuts for some useful tool windows.
Tool Window | Windows and Linux | Mac |
---|---|---|
Project | Alt+1 | Command+1 |
Version Control | Alt+9 | Command+9 |
Run | Shift+F10 | Control+R |
Debug | Shift+F9 | Control+D |
Android Monitor | Alt+6 | Command+6 |
Return to Editor | Esc | Esc |
Hide All Tool Windows | Control+Shift+F12 | Command+Shift+F12 |
If you want to hide all toolbars, tool windows, and editor tabs, click View > Enter Distraction Free Mode. This enables Distraction Free Mode. To exit Distraction Free Mode, click View > Exit Distraction Free Mode.
You can use Speed Search to search and filter within most tool windows in Android Studio. To use Speed Search, select the tool window and then type your search query.
For more tips, see Keyboard Shortcuts.
Android Studio has three types of code completion, which you can access using keyboard shortcuts.
Table 2. Keyboard shortcuts for code completion.
Type | Description | Windows and Linux | Mac |
---|---|---|---|
Basic Completion | Displays basic suggestions for variables, types, methods, expressions, and so on. If you call basic completion twice in a row, you see more results, including private members and non-imported static members. | Control+Space | Control+Space |
Smart Completion | Displays relevant options based on the context. Smart completion is aware of the expected type and data flows. If you call Smart Completion twice in a row, you see more results, including chains. | Control+Shift+Space | Control+Shift+Space |
Statement Completion | Completes the current statement for you, adding missing parentheses, brackets, braces, formatting, etc. | Control+Shift+Enter | Shift+Command+Enter |
You can also perform quick fixes and show intention actions by pressing Alt+Enter.
For more information about code completion, see Code Completion.
The Code Sample Browser in Android Studio helps you find high-quality, Google-provided Android code samples based on the currently highlighted symbol in your project. For more information, see Find Sample Code.
Here are some tips to help you move around Android Studio.
As you edit, Android Studio automatically applies formatting and styles as specified in your code style settings. You can customize the code style settings by programming language, including specifying conventions for tabs and indents, spaces, wrapping and braces, and blank lines. To customize your code style settings, click File > Settings > Editor > Code Style (Android Studio > Preferences > Editor > Code Style on a Mac.)
Although the IDE automatically applies formatting as you work, you can also explicitly call the Reformat Code action by pressing Control+Alt+L (Opt+Command+L on a Mac), or auto-indent all lines by pressing Control+Alt+I (Alt+Option+I on a Mac).
Figure 5. Code before formatting.
Figure 6. Code after formatting.
Android Studio supports a variety of version control systems (VCS’s), including Git, GitHub, CVS, Mercurial, Subversion, and Google Cloud Source Repositories.
After importing your app into Android Studio, use the Android Studio VCS menu options to enable VCS support for the desired version control system, create a repository, import the new files into version control, and perform other version control operations:
The VCS menu now displays a number of version control options based on the system you selected.
Note: You can also use the File > Settings > Version Control menu option to set up and modify the version control settings.
Android Studio uses Gradle as the foundation of the build system, with more Android-specific capabilities provided by the Android plugin for Gradle. This build system runs as an integrated tool from the Android Studio menu, and independently from the command line. You can use the features of the build system to do the following:
By employing the flexibility of Gradle, you can achieve all of this without
modifying your app's core source files. Android Studio build files are named
build.gradle
. They are plain text files that use Groovy syntax to configure the build with
elements provided by the Android plugin for Gradle. Each project has one
top-level build file for the entire project and separate module-level build
files for each module. When you import an existing project, Android Studio
automatically generates the necessary build files.
To learn more about the build system and how to configure, see Configure Your Build.
The build system can help you create different versions of the same application from a single project. This is useful when you have both a free version and a paid version of your app, or if you want to distribute multiple APKs for different device configurations on Google Play.
For more information about configuring build variants, see Configuring Gradle Builds.
APK splits allow you to efficiently create multiple APKs based on screen density or ABI. For example, APK splits allow you to create separate hdpi and mdpi versions of an app while still considering them a single variant and allowing them to share a test app, javac, dx, and ProGuard settings.
For more information about using APK Splits, read APK Splits.
Resource shrinking in Android Studio automatically removes unused resources
from your packaged app and library dependencies. For example, if your
application is using Google Play services to
access Google Drive functionality, and you are not currently using
Google Sign-In, then resource shrinking can
remove the various drawable assets for theSignInButton
buttons.
Note: Resource shrinking works in conjunction with code shrinking tools, such as ProGuard.
For more information on shrinking code and resources, see Shrink Your Code and Resources.
Dependencies for your project are specified by name in the build.gradle
file.
Gradle takes care of finding your dependencies and making them available in your
build. You can declare module dependencies, remote binary dependencies, and
local binary dependencies in your build.gradle
file. Android Studio configures
projects to use the Maven Central Repository by default. (This configuration is
included in the top-level build file for the project.) For more information
about configuring dependencies, read
Configure Build Variants.
Android Studio assists you in debugging and improving the performance of your code, including inline debugging and performance analysis tools.
Use inline debugging to enhance your code walk-throughs in the debugger view with inline verification of references, expressions, and variable values. Inline debug information includes:
Figure 7. An inline variable value.
To enable inline debugging, in the Debug window, click Settings
and select the checkbox for Show Values Inline.
Android Studio provides performance monitors so you can more easily track your app’s memory and CPU usage, find deallocated objects, locate memory leaks, optimize graphics performance, and analyze network requests. With your app running on a device or emulator, open the Android Monitor tool window, and then click the Monitors tab.
For more information about performance monitors, see Android Monitor.
When you’re monitoring memory usage in Android Studio, you can simultaneously initiate garbage collection and dump the Java heap to a heap snapshot in an Android-specific HPROF binary format file. The HPROF viewer displays classes, instances of each class, and a reference tree to help you track memory usage and find memory leaks.
For more informatin about working with heap dumps, see Dumping and Analyzing the Java Heap.
Android Studio allows you to track memory allocation as it monitors memory use. Tracking memory allocation allows you to monitor where objects are being allocated when you perform certain actions. Knowing these allocations enables you to optimize your app’s performance and memory use by adjusting the method calls related to those actions.
For information about tracking and analyzing allocations, see Allocation Tracker.
The Android SDK tools, such as Systrace, logcat, and Traceview, generate performance and debugging data for detailed app analysis.
To view the available generated data files, open the Captures tool window. In
the list of the generated files, double-click a file to view the data.
Right-click any .hprof
files to convert them to the standard
.hprof
file format.
Whenever you compile your program, Android Studio automatically runs configured Lint and other IDE inspections to help you easily identify and correct problems with the structural quality of your code.
The Lint tool checks your Android project source files for potential bugs and optimization improvements for correctness, security, performance, usability, accessibility, and internationalization.
Figure 8. The results of a Lint inspection in Android Studio.
In addition to Lint checks, Android Studio also performs IntelliJ code inspections and validates annotations to streamline your coding workflow.
For more information, see Improving Your Code with Lint and lint tool.
Android Studio supports annotations for variables, parameters, and return values to help you catch bugs, such as null pointer exceptions and resource type conflicts. The Android SDK Manager packages the Support-Annotations library in the Android Support Repository for use with Android Studio. Android Studio validates the configured annotations during code inspection.
For more details about Android annotations, see Improving Code Inspection with Annotations.
When you build and run your app with Android Studio, you can view adb output and device log messages (logcat) by clicking Android Monitor at the bottom of the window.
If you want to debug your app with the Android Device Monitor, you can launch the Device Monitor by clicking Tools > Android > Android Device Monitor. The Device Monitor is where you can find the complete set of DDMS tools for profiling your app, controlling device behaviors, and more. It also includes the Hierarchy Viewer tool to help optimize your layouts.