CHAPTER 2: Configuring Your Android App Development System 37Configuring Eclipse: Android SDK Manager Repository
Now that you’ve ascertained that you have the very latest Eclipse ADT IDE software possible
installed on your Android development workstation, we can take a look at exactly what is installed,
as well as options for other APIs, and things like documentation, which you can download to your
Eclipse ADT environment from the Android Repository. You can do this conveniently from inside the
Eclipse IDE.
A software repository is a specialized server hierarchy (folder structure across one or more
servers) that is maintained by the software provider. In this case, that would be Google, and their
Eclipse ADT IDE, which is customized specifically to (for) their Android OS software development
kit (SDK) environment and everything that is compatible with it, such as plug-ins, documentation,
emulators, hardware drivers, and similar things that would be used to enhance and support the
Android OS.
This software repository is different from the download environments that you normally encounter,
in as much that you cannot access it externally, using an FTP or HTTP, as you did with GIMP
2.8.10 or Blender 3D, for instance, in the previous chapter. Instead, the software repository will be
accessed “internally” from within the IDE (or the OS environment, via its update utility) that you are
working in.
Those of you who use a Linux OS are already familiar with this repository concept, as this exact
same repository access functionality is an integral part of all the popular Linux OS distributions,
or “distros.” This repository methodology is how a Linux OS is upgraded, and how it adds in new
OS features and bug-fixes, which is one of the key reasons Linux is perceived as a more complex
operating system to work with. Windows also uses a software repository, but does not refer to it as
such; instead it “sugar coats” the repository model by hiding it behind the Windows Update “front-
end” Control Panel utility.
You are going to observe, and utilize, the software repository access work process here, using your
Eclipse ADT IDE through its Android SDK Manager utility, which functions in the same fashion as an
OS repository, but with a detailed front-end dialog that we are going to take a look at next.
Go to the Window menu, seen at the top of Eclipse, and select the Android SDK Manager menu
option, as shown in Figure 2-6. This will open an Android SDK Management Tool that allows you to
view the current Android development environment, as you should do after any new install, as well as
to add features and functions to it, and to update any component that has a new version available.