Book Image

Android Studio Essentials

By : Belén Cruz Zapata
Book Image

Android Studio Essentials

By: Belén Cruz Zapata

Overview of this book

<p>Android Studio is an IDE that is based on the JetBrains IntelliJ IDEA. It gives developers a unique platform to develop and debug Android apps using various developer tools. It has a wide array of features such as live layout facility, Gradle build support, and template-based wizards, which makes it a preferred choice for developers.</p> <p>Starting off with the basic installation and configuration of Android Studio, this book aids you in building a new project by helping you to create a custom launcher icon and guiding you to choose your activity. You then gain an insight on the additional tools provided in Android Studio, namely the Software Development Kit (SDK) Manager, Android Virtual Device (AVD) Manager, and Javadoc.</p> <p>Finally, it helps you to familiarize yourself with the Help section in Android Studio that enables you to search for the help you might require in different scenarios.</p>
Table of Contents (17 chapters)
Android Studio Essentials
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Index

Adding Google Play services to Android Studio


The first thing we need to know is what we need to add to our Android Studio. We have just learned that the APK is available in the Google Play store and it is the actual runtime of the services. We, as developers, only need this package in our testing device while debugging our application. What we need to add to Android Studio is the Google Play services client library.

This library has to be declared as a dependency to your application, so perform the following steps:

  1. Open the build.gradle file for your application module (/app/build.gradle).

  2. Type the following line inside the dependencies block:

    dependencies {
       …
       compile 'com.google.android.gms:play-services:5.+'
    }

    The latest Google Play services version is 5.0 (July 2014). When new updates of the library are published, you will need to update the version number in the build.gradle file.

  3. Navigate to Tools | Android | Sync Project with Gradle Files to synchronize your project with the new dependency...