CHAPTER 2: Configuring Your Android App Development System 35The Eclipse IDE will open up the first time that you start it with no project open, and thus will not
show any project data at all, just the blank IDE, as shown in Figure 2-3. Once we start creating
projects, which we will be doing in the next chapter, these projects will “persist” inside of Eclipse,
so that every time you launch the Eclipse ADT, you will see your current Android project exactly as
you left it the last time you exited the Eclipse ADT IDE.
Figure 2-2. ADT’s Welcome! Initial start-up screen, with shortcuts to tutorials and New Android Application button
Figure 2-3. The Eclipse Java - ADT IDE on initial launch, showing no project data, and showing Help ➤ Check for Updates
Let’s go ahead and perform the Check for Updates work process now. To do this, click the Help
menu, as shown in Figure 2-3, and then select the Check for Updates menu option. Once this
Check for Updates utility has been launched, Eclipse will reach out over the Internet to the server
at Google that hosts the ADT software repository, and will then proceed to check your currently
installed Eclipse ADT component versions against the latest versions that “live” on this Android
Eclipse ADT IDE software repository. We will be getting into what exactly a software repository is
and how it works in the next section when we access it using the Android SDK Manager software
repository tool.