In this post you'll learn to get started with the Android SDK (version 2.1, installing it, and set up a development environment based on Eclipse 3.5 Galileo with the Android Development Tool Plugin.
First of all you have to check if your environments fits all the requirements.
Here is a link with all the software and hardware requirements for developing applications with the Android SDK:
http://developer.android.com/sdk/requirements.html
If it's all right in your computer , go ahead with instaling the Android SDK.
After downloading the Android SDK starter package from this link (make sure to download the right package for your computer), unpack it in a folder and take a note of the name and location of your SDK directory. It's important in order to complete the installation of the ADT Eclipse plugin.
It's a good idea to insert in the Path environment variables of your computer the tools directory of the SDK, in this way it's possible to run all the commands in that directory without referring to the full path.
Now it's time to install the ADT plugin for eclipse.
This plugin is the fastest way to get started with Android SDK because it has a lot of functionalities for make easier the startup and the manage of any Android projects.
For using this plugin within Eclipse (I'm using the 3.5 version, but you can use the 3.4 though. Instead for the 3.6 version the plugin doe not exist) follow these steps to download the ADT plugin:
1. Open Eclipse. From the Help menu choose “Install New Software”
2. In the Available Software dialog, click Add....
3. In the Add Site dialog enter a name for the remote site in the "Name" field, and in the "Location" field,
enter this URL:
https://dl-ssl.google.com/android/eclipse/ (if you have problem with https you can use http)
4. And Click OK.
5. Back in the Available Software view, you should now see "Developer Tools" item added to the list. Select the checkbox next to Developer Tools, which will automatically select the nested tools Android DDMS and Android Development Tools. Click Next.
6. In the resulting Install Details dialog, the Android DDMS and Android Development Tools features are listed. Click Next to read and accept the license agreement and install any dependencies, then click Finish.
7. Restart Eclipse.
If the installation finish successfully,we can modify the ADT preferences in Eclipse to point to the Android SDK directory:
1- Select Window > Preferences... to open the Preferences panel.
2- Select Android from the left panel.
3- For the SDK Location in the main panel, click Browse... and locate your downloaded SDK directory.
4- Click Apply, then OK.
The SDK uses a modular structure that separates the major parts of the SDK — Android platform versions, add-ons, tools, samples, and the API documentation — into a set of separately installable components.
The SDK starter package, which you've already downloaded, includes only a single component: the latest version of the SDK Tools. To develop any Android application, you also need to download at least one Android platform into your environment, although downloading additional components is highly recommended.
Next time we will see how to install and update additional components and write our first "Hello World" application