Building Android Apps with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, 2nd Edition

Building Your App Locally with Eclipse and the Android SDK

Download and Install Eclipse Classic

Eclipse is an open source integrated development environment (IDE). It’s used by software developers to write, compile, and debug all sorts of projects. There is nothing about it that is specific to Android; once we get Eclipse installed, we’ll configure it to use Android SDK tools. But first things first…here’s how you get Eclipse:

1. Navigate to http://www.eclipse.org/downloads/ in your web browser.

2. Select your platform (Mac, Windows, or Linux) from the popup list.

3. Locate Eclipse Classic in the list of packages and the download version appropriate for your machine (32 bit or 64 bit).

4. When the download completes, extract the archive to a convenient location on your hard drive. I’ve placed mine in the /Applications directory on my Mac, but you can put it anywhere you like.

5. Navigate into the eclipse directory.

6. Double-click the Eclipse icon to launch Eclipse.

7. You’ll be prompted to specify a workspace directory where Eclipse will store your projects. I’ve specified the /Users/jstark/Documents/workspace directory on my Mac, but you can pick any directory you like. This setting can be modified later in Eclipse preferences under General→Startup and Shutdown→Workspaces.

We’ll be modifying our Eclipse configuration in a bit but we have to download a few more things before continuing.

Download and Install the Android SDK

Now the we have Eclipse installed, we need the Android SDK.

1. Download the Android SDK appropriate ...