CREATING ANDROID HELLO WORLD APP

An Android project contains all the files that comprise the source code for your Android app. The Android SDK tools make it easy to start a new Android project with a set of default project directories and files.

This Post shows how to create a new project either using Eclipse.

Create a "Hello World" with Eclipse

1.    Click New in the toolbar.

2.    In the window that appears, open the Android folder, select Android Application Project, and click Next.

Figure 1. The New Android App Project wizard in Eclipse.

3.    Fill in the form that appears:

o    Application Name is the app name that appears to users. For this project, use "My First App."

o    Project Name is the name of your project directory and the name visible in Eclipse.

o    Package Name is the package namespace for your app (following the same rules as packages in the Java programming language). Your package name must be unique across all packages installed on the Android system. For this reason, it's generally best if you use a name that begins with the reverse domain name of your organization or publisher entity. For this project, you can use something like "com.example.myfirstapp." However, you cannot publish your app on Google Play using the "com.example" namespace.

o    Minimum Required SDK is the lowest version of Android that your app supports, indicated using the API level. To support as many devices as possible, you should set this to the lowest version available that allows your app to provide its core feature set. If any feature of your app is possible only on newer versions of Android and it's not critical to the app's core feature set, you can enable the feature only when running on the versions that support it. Leave this set to the default value for this project.

o    Target SDK indicates the highest version of Android with which you have tested with your application.

As new versions of Android become available, you should test your app on the new version and update this value to match the latest API level in order to take advantage of new platform features.

o    Compile With is the platform version against which you will compile your app. By default, this is set to the latest version of Android available in your SDK. You can still build your app to support older versions, but setting the build target to the latest version allows you to enable new features and optimize your app for a great user experience on the latest devices.

o    Theme specifies the Android UI style to apply for your app. You can leave this alone.

Click Next.

4.    On the next screen to configure the project, leave the default selections and click Next.

5.    The next screen can help you create a launcher icon for your app.

Click Next.

6.    Now you can select an activity template from which to begin building your app.

For this project, select BlankActivity and click Next.

7.    Leave all the details for the activity in their default state and click Finish.