So, you’re a web developer, not an Android developer, and you just want to test your work on a specific version of Android, or emulate a specific device. You just want to get up and running quickly, you don’t want to deal with Eclipse, and you don’t want to trudge through the SDK’s extensive documentation, which very poorly covers the usage of the SDK without Eclipse (which is a shame, since its Eclipse plugin is just a thin wrapper for a powerful suite of command line tools).
Here’s what you need to do:
- Download and extract the SDK
- Open a terminal and navigate to the “tools” directory
- Launch the “android” tool (
./androidif you are currently in the tools directory) - Tick off the “SDK Platform” for each version of Android that you’d like to use in your emulator
- Click the “Install N Packages” button
- Click each package and tick off “Accept License” (legally, I’m probably required to tell you that this step may take several hours as you read each license ;)
- Done with those licenses? Great. Click “Install”. Wait for the SDK manager to finish installing your packages, then you can close it.
- Back in your terminal, still in the tools directory, enter
./android avdwhich will launch the Android Virtual Device Manager - Click “New” and fill out the form to build the device you’d like to emulate. In the “Target” dropdown, you’ll see the SDK Platforms that you installed earlier. If the version you need is missing, you need to go back and install it. Click OK when you’re done.
- Click on the device that you just created and click the “Start” button, tweak any options that you need on the Launch Options window, and click “Launch”.
That’s it! You’re all done. If you expect to need the emulator frequently, I’d recommend a shortcut to the “android” tool with the “avd” flag, so you can quickly access the Android Virtual Device Manager. Enjoy!
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