2013

Society of Electrical
Engineers
Ahmed Nafies

[ANDROID CHAPTER # 1]

What is Android
There's no other software quite like Android. Google engineered Android, and Googles own
apps run best on it. And with millions of apps, games, songs, and videos on Google Play, Android is great
for fun, and for getting things done.
Android devices come in all kinds of sizes, with all sorts of features, and at all sorts of prices.
Each version of Android is named after a dessert, and the most recent version of Android is Jelly Bean.
With Android, youre in control of your mobile experience.

Android is an operating system based on the Linux kernel, and designed primarily for touch
screen mobile devices such as smart phones and tablet computers. Initially developed by Android, Inc.,
which Google backed financially and later bought in 2005,- Android was unveiled in 2007 along with the
founding of the Open Handset Alliance: a consortium of hardware, software, and telecommunication
companies devoted to advancing open standards for mobile devices.- The first Android-powered phone
was sold in October 2008.

Android is Linux-based so what is Linux?

Linux is an operating system like windows but assembled under the model of free and open
source software development and distribution. The main form of distribution is Linux distributions.
The defining component of Linux is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on 5
October 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Because it considers Linux to be a variant of the GNU operating system,
initiated in 1983 by Richard Stallman, the Free Software Foundation prefers the name GNU/Linux when
referring to the operating system as a whole.

Linux was originally developed as a free operating system for Intel x86-based personal
computers. It has since been ported to more computer hardware platforms than any other operating
system. It is a leading operating system on servers and other big iron systems such as mainframe
computers and supercomputers as of June 2013, more than 95% of the world's 500 fastest
supercomputers run some variant of Linux, including all the 44 fastest. Linux also runs on embedded
systems (devices where the operating system is typically built into the firmware and highly tailored to
the system) such as mobile phones, tablet computers, network routers, building automation controls,
televisions and video game consoles; the Android system in wide use on mobile devices is built on the
Linux kernel.

Examples of Linux-Based operating systems

(like windows)

Why develop applications for android?

According to Forbes, Over the
past quarter, of the mobile
devices sold, 64.1% are powered
by Googles Android and only
18.8% are operated by Apples
iOS.
That's right, you are fighting all
those App Sharks for less than
20% of the market share while
missing the obvious 64% of the
Untapped Market!

On the AppStore you are competing for a

few expensive gadgets only (three types of
iPhones, three of iPads) while on the
Android you can have thousands of
supported phones from all price ranges,
affordable even to small guys!
According to the latest stats Android
works on 3,997 distinct devices spanning
almost 600 brands!

Google Android app developers earned $125

Million in mobile display adds while iphone
guys earned less than 90 last year! Google is all
about PPC and advertising, that's where the
biggest revenues come!, You don't really have
to sell your app! It can be free to download
and still bring thousands!

Are you paying an extra $97 per year for

Xcode development tools for the Appstore?
Forget it. It's free on google, called Eclipse!

Forget it, there is no approval bar in

Android Market. Get your app published
in less than an hour!

Are you struggling with approval for your

App? Waiting for weeks in pain and fear?
Do you realize that you can spend
thousands and still get your app denied by
some crazy moderators?

Are your struggling with copyrights and

licensing? It all stays in the past. Let the big
companies waste millions on patent wars!
Google Android is an Open Source
environment! Android source codes are
open to the developers!

What Is meant By Software Editor

A Software Editor is a text editor program designed specifically for editing source code of
computer programs by programmers. It may be a standalone application or it may be built into an
integrated development environment (IDE).
The first editor used for android development using java was eclipse

Then Google made its own editor and called it Android Studio

Processing is our Editor

Processing is an open source programming language and integrated development environment

(IDE) built for the electronic arts, new media art, and visual design communities with the purpose of
teaching the fundamentals of computer programming in a visual context, and to serve as the foundation
for electronic sketchbooks. The project was initiated in 2001 by Casey Reas and Benjamin Fry, both
formerly of the Aesthetics and Computation Group at the MIT Media Lab. One of the stated aims of
Processing is to act as a tool to get non-programmers started with programming, through the instant
gratification of visual feedback. The language builds on the Java language, but uses a simplified syntax
and graphics programming model.

The primary goal of this project is to make it foolishly easy to create Android apps using the
Processing API. Once you have Processing on your machine (and the Android developer tools), you can
simply write a line of code, hit Run (Ctrl-R or Cmd-R), and have your sketch show up in the emulator as a
working Android app. Select Run on Device (Ctrl-Shift-R or Cmd-Shift-R) to have it run on an Android
device that you have plugged into your machine. That's good stuff!

Downloading and Installing Processing

Go to the following webpage:
https://processing.org/download/

Choose No Donation then download

Choose you operating system

Click on the Ok button and wait for processing to be fully download it.

Open the .rar file with Winrar or any unpacking tool and extract contents to your preffered
directory.

Open processing and enjoy

Run Button to
build the code

Processing modes
Android mode
And java mode

Command
window to write
the codes

The Android SDK (software Development Kit)

Android software development is the process by which new applications are created for the
Android operating system. Applications are usually developed in the Java programming language using
the Android Software Development Kit, but other development tools are available
The Android software development kit (SDK) includes a comprehensive set of development
tools. These include

Debugger
Libraries
handset emulator based on QEMU
documentation
sample code
Tutorials.

Downloading and Installing the Java (JDK and

JRE)
Go to the following website and download both JRE and JDK
http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/downloads/index.html

Incase that you are using windows 64-bit operating system choose JDK 32 and JDK 64

Installing and Running the SDK

First go to following website choose USE an Existing IDE
http://developer.android.com/sdk/index.html

Choose to agree on the terms and conditions then download

Then open the downloaded files

Choose the APIs that you would like to develop apps for. Download all of the SDK platform and
sources for SDK

Make sure that you download all of the Extras

Open Processing and choose add mode

Choose to install android mode

Restart processing and change the mode to android

The following message box will appear

Then locate the android SDK folder

In my case it was:C:\Users\ahmed nafies\AppData\Local\Android\android-sdk

Now you can find the android tab added and we can setup android Emulator

Setting the Java environment variables on windows to make sure that

everything works fine.
Locate the JDk which usually falls Under C:\Program
Files\Java\Jdk.
Copy the Location of the JDK folder

Open your computer and Right-click anywhere then select properties

Choose advanced system settings

Click on Environment variables

Under system Variables press new

In the variable name write JAVA_HOME and paste the location of the JDk that you
have copied earlier in the variable value

Press ok and search for path

Then select edit

In the variable value at the end write semi-colon ; and copy the location of the bin
folder located inside the JDK folder that we have opened earlier and paste the
location after the semi-colon ;

Restart and you are ready to make android programs.