Configuring Apache Cordova Android project in Android Studio

The earlier blogpost describes setting of Apache Cordova Android project in eclipse.

There is another good tool Android Studio along with Eclipse for Android development which we will be looking at in this blog post. If you want to continue using Eclipse only as your IDE you can skip. And if you want to try out Android Studio, continue following this blog post.

Android Studio Installation

Android Studio is the latest development built on top of Intellij IDEA. Android Studio is integrated Android development IDE which includes all the required developer tools for development and debugging of Android Applications.

Android Studio is currently available as early access preview.

Download the latest version of Android studio from the below website.

http://developer.android.com/sdk/installing/studio.html

Launch the downloaded EXE file, android-studio-bundle-<version>.exe.

Follow the setup wizard to install Android Studio.

As of now there is no direct way to create a Cordova Android project for Android Studio.

So we will have to create a Cordova Android project for eclipse and port it to Android Studio.

Exporting from eclipse

Please check your Eclipse ADT plugin version. If the version is older than 22.0, upgrade it to the latest version.

 In Eclipse, select File > Export.

In the window that appears, open Android and select Generate Gradle build files.

Select the project you want to export for Android Studio and click Finish.

Your selected project remains in the same location but now contains a build.gradle file and is ready for Android Studio.

Importing into Android Studio

Launch the Android Studio IDE with Administrator role. Right now there are some permission issues with user roles other than Administrator which is expected to be fixed in the next version of Android Studio (0.2.6).

Click on Import Project.

Locate the project you exported from Eclipse, expand it, select the build.gradle file and click OK.

In the following dialog, leave Use gradle wrapper selected and click OK. (You do not need to specify the Gradle home.)

It will take some time to complete the import since it will do the necessary downloads for Gradle if you are using Android Studio for the first time. Also,it will take some time to complete the indexing of the files. Android Studio is slow in doing this.

Running Project from Android Studio

Once the project import is completed, click on the run button in the menu bar.

Android Studio will ask for the device in which the application needs to be launched from the list of AVD's available on your system.

Select the emulator on which you want the application to run and Android Studio will launch that emulator, install the application into that emulator and will run the application in the emulator.

We have just created a blank Cordova Android project and so will just see the screen above. In the later posts we will modify the project and view the changes in the emulator.