Sams Teach Yourself Java™ in 24 Hours (Covering Java 7 and Android)

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350 HOUR 24:Writing Android Apps

Setting Up an Android Emulator

Before you can build anAndroid app, you must set its debugging environ-

ment. This can be handled within Eclipse. You must set up an Android

Virtual Device (AVD) that can run the app on your desktop as an emulator.

You also must create the project’s debug configuration. When you’re done,

you can build the app and run it in the emulator.

To configure an Android Virtual Device, first click the green Android icon

with a down arrow in the Eclipse toolbar, which is shown in Figure 24.4.

FIGURE 24.4 Android SDK and AVD Manager
Configuring an Android Virtual
Device.

This launches the Android SDK and AVD Manager, one of the tools in the

Android SDK. Click the Virtual Devices item in the left pane. The emula-

tors that you’ve created are listed to the right. The manager is shown in

Figure 24.5.

To add anew emulator, click New and follow these steps:

1. In the Name field, give it the name SimpleAVD.


2. In the Target field, you must choose a target version of Android from
   the drop-down menu. Choose Android 2.2 - API Level 8.


3. In the Size field, choose a size for the fake SD card. Enter 1024 and
   choose MiB from the associated drop-down for an SD card that’s
   1024MB in size. You must have this much available space on your
   computer, so choose smaller if you’d prefer not to take up that much
   space. The minimum size is 9MB.