UPDATE: As per official documentation from Android, support for ADT and Eclipse plugin for Android has been stopped. If you are still using Eclipse, we would suggest you to upgrade to Android Studio as soon as possible. Here is the link to help you understand Android studio better.
Officially, eclipse is used for android application development than any other editors. So, it would be good for those who want to be a professional android app developer to be introduced with eclipse.
If you want to try hand at application development by your own, then you would like to have eclipse IDE installed. So, the process to install eclipse is described below.
- Download Eclipse from here, it doesn’t matter which OS you are using the website will provide you the file for your OS. (We used Eclipse Classic 4.2.1 for this tutorial)
Download Android SDK from here, click on Other Platform and download the zip archive for your OS (Do not download installer for windows, we would suggest to go for zip archive). - It’s good to keep your projects at a place and the drive other than system drive (one on which OS is not installed, in case you get any problem because of OS and re-installation is needed). So, create a directory Android and extract the Eclipse and Android SDK inside the directory.
- Now, you have a directory named eclipse inside Android directory. Start eclipse (You can create a desktop shortcut and start it from there for ease).
- After eclipse IDE is loaded successfully, open Help>Install New Software… It will open a wizard to install plugins. Click on add button, it will ask for a name and location. Here two options are available, if you have internet connection then you can put the URL of the ADT Plugin, i.e. https://dl-ssl.google.com/android/eclipse/ in Location and any name you would like to put it in Name. Or, you can download the ADT Plugin from here, and put the location of the archive file by browsing through Archive button.
- Once you successfully added the ADT Plugin through URL or Archive, select it from the drop down. You will see two options Developer Tools and NDK Plugins. Select Developer Tools and click Next. It will show the list of Tools to be downloaded and installed. Select all and click Finish. It will do some processing and will ask for your permission to install, after you have agreed to the terms.
- Eclipse will restart, with your permission. Then you will have a new option available in Window>Android SDK Manager and AVD Manager. To use this option select Window>Preferences>Android. Browse the location of Android SDK (mind that it will look for the directory in which tool folder is available). Click Apply to see the list of available targets.
- Now open the SDK Manager from Window>Android SDK Manager. Install the Tools and Latest Android API (its Android 4.1.2 API 16 currently). If you have slower internet connection then uncheck the Documentation for Android SDK, its very large file.
- After you have updated the SDK, now you can create AVD (Android Vertual Device) for testing or you can have your physical android device for the same.
Now you are equipped with all tools you need for Android Application Development.
