Ilham on Android: Studio

Eclipse was my first IDE for developing Android applications. I've used Eclipse before for Java stuff, so navigating the user interface was easy. I used the IDE for a few years, and somehow felt slower as the project grew bigger. I tried Android Studio in its early days, but it was still difficult to use at the time. Seeing the Android developer community started embracing Android Studio, I decided to try it out last September. A few weeks later, I decided to migrate from using Eclipse, as it seemed more intuitive for me to use. There are some Android Studio features that I particularly like:

• Add other Android libraries by using Gradle, e.g. compile 'com.android.support:recyclerview-v7:21.0.2'. AS will download the libraries and its dependencies automatically. That's it.

• Easily create different type of the Android app e.g. Debug Version and Release Version. With this feature, I can have to separate versions of the app without creating a new project or without major code changes. In the screenshot above, the debug and release version have a different API URL.

• Quickly navigate to another file, or within the file using Search Everywhere, a feature borrowed from IntelliJ IDEA.

Today, Google released a stable version of Android Studio and now is the official Android IDE. It is recommended to start new projects with Android Studio, as Eclipse ADT is no longer in active development. Give it a try today and hopefully we can discuss it more along the way.