Android studio tools & tips
1. Offline mode
· From Gradle tab -> Toggle offline mode
· With offline mode, IDE will execute faster because of ignoring loading gradle and dependencies
2. ADB tool
· Installing
ADB will be included in Android sdk .
- Window: C:\Users\user_name\AppData\Local\Android\Sdk
- Mac: /Users/user_name/Library/Android/sdk
· Setup global environment
- Window: Environment variables -> Path -> New -> Insert adb path (path to sdk/platform-tools)
- Mac:
§ echo ‘export ANDROID_HOME=/Users/$USER/Library/Android/sdk’ >> ~/.bash_profile
§ echo ‘export PATH=${PATH}:$ANDROID_HOME/tools:$ANDROID_HOME/platform-tools’ >> ~/.bash_profile
· How to use
- Install/uninstall apps
$adb install package.apk
$adb uninstall package_name
- Shell
$adb shell : access to device OS
- Logcat
Using to dump device’s logs
$adb logcat > logcat.txt
Using filter: *:D, *:E … to filter logs as debug, error …
3. Git tool
Find all git command in Menu -> VCS -> Git
· Add, commit, revert, reset
· Fetch, pull, push, rebase
· Compare sources
4. Hotkeys
Keep in mind the hotkeys which be used frequently. From the menu, we can see hotkeys right of each feature.
· Double shift: search files
· Ctrl + Shift + F/R, Ctrl + F/R
· Cmd/Ctrl + E: Recent files
· Ctrl + Alt + <- : Last edit location
· Ctrl + F12 : File structure
5. Refactor
· Move/rename/copy
Using for change file location, rename files/packages, copy files.
· Safe delete: To prevent wrong deleting, we should use safe delete to find all affect locations.
· Remove unused resources: Unused resources are not bound by others via resource id. To prevent the wrong removal, we shouldn’t use the name of resources inside the project. If still need to use resources by name, we need to add them to lint file to ignore removing task.
· Code cleanup
When you clean up your code using ‘Android Studio’, It starts inspecting code defined rules.
For list of defined rules check, File -> Settings -> Editor -> Inspection. (For Mac, Android Studio -> Preferences -> Editor -> Inspection) Here you can find all rules like: non-used variables, non-used import, Abstraction issues, Code style issues, Java Beans issues etc.
After inspection of code, Android Studio will remove such code from your files that are not necessary.
· Reformat code : Keep source code beautifier and clean, we should use the same code formator inside the project and format code usually.
6. Build apps
· Make app: compile the adding source code into current source
· Build variants: config type of build (dev, stage, release …)
· Build apk/bundle: genarate apk/bundle files
· Analyze apk: Allow analyze app to the path of source or resource. We can determine where are the large paths to optimize them.
· Clean/rebuild project: In some cases of build errors, we should clean and rebuild the project to clear errors.
7. Debugging
· Attach process: Allow attach to process which we want to debug by steps
· Tracking debugging: Add breakpoints and next step by step to check current status, the value of variable …
· Evaluate expression:
You can just use “evaluate expression” button while debugging.
8. Layout inspector
· Using for capture layout view tree
· Allows you to compare your app layout with design mockups, display a magnified view of your app, and examine details of its layout at runtime. This is useful when your layout is built at runtime rather than entirely in XML and the layout is behaving unexpectedly.
9. Others
· Firebase: Tools -> Firebase, use to install/config google services (Cloud messaging, In-App messaging …)
· App links assistant
Android App Links enable your users to launch directly into your app when they click on URLs that your app supports and they can also make your app content searchable.
