Book Image

Android Studio 2 Essentials - Second Edition

By : Belén Cruz Zapata
Book Image

Android Studio 2 Essentials - Second Edition

By: Belén Cruz Zapata

Overview of this book

Android Studio 2, the official IDE for Android application development, dramatically improves your workflow by letting you quickly see changes running on your device or emulator. It gives developers a unique platform by making app builds and deployment faster. This book will get you up and running with all the essential features of Android Studio 2 to optimize your development workflow. Starting off with the basic installation and configuration of Android Studio 2, this book will help you build a new project by showing you how to create a custom launcher icon and guiding you to choose your project. You will then gain an insight into the additional tools provided in Android Studio, namely the Software Development Kit (SDK) Manager, Android Virtual Device (AVD) Manager, and Javadoc. You’ll also see how to integrate Google Play Services in an Android project. Finally, you’ll become familiar with the Help section in Android Studio, which will enable you to search for support you might require in different scenarios.
Table of Contents (17 chapters)
Android Studio 2 Essentials Second Edition
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewer
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Index

Understanding an APK file


Android applications are packed in a file with the .apk extension. These files are just compressed ZIP files, so their content can easily be explored. An APK file usually contains the following:

  • assets/: This is a folder that contains the asset files of the application. This is the same assets folder that exists in our project.

  • META-INF/: This is a folder that contains our certificates.

  • lib/: This is a folder that contains compiled code, in case it is needed for a processor.

  • res/: This is a folder that contains the application resources such as images, strings, and so on.

  • AndroidManifest.xml: This is the application manifest file.

  • classes.dex: This is a file that contains the application's compiled code.

  • resources.arsc: This is a file that contains some precompiled resources, such as binary XML files.

Having the APK file allows the application to be distributed and installed on the Android operating system. Android applications can be distributed as you prefer: through...