# How to Set Up an Android Development Environment

If you'd like to contribute to the Android project, but do not currently have a development environment setup, follow the instructions in this guide.

## Prerequisites

* [Android Studio](https://developer.android.com/studio/)

If you downloaded Android Studio, extract it and then see [Setting Up Android Studio](#setting-up-android-studio).

## Setting Up Android Studio

1. Launch Android Studio, which will start a first-launch wizard.
2. Choose a custom installation.
3. If offered a choice of themes, select your preference.
4. When offered a choice of components, uncheck the "Android Virtual Device" option. ![Android Studio Components][components]
5. Accept all licenses, and click Finish. Android Studio will download the SDK Tools package automatically. (Ubuntu users, if you get an error running the `mksdcard` tool, make sure the `lib32stdc++6` package is installed.)
6. At the Android Studio welcome screen, click "Configure", then "SDK Manager".
7. Use the SDK Manager to get necessary dependencies, as described in [Getting Dependencies](#getting-dependencies).
8. When done, follow the steps in [Readme.md](Readme.md#building-for-android) to compile and deploy the application.

## Executing Gradle Tasks

In Android Studio, you can find a list of possible Gradle tasks in a tray at the top right of the screen:

![Gradle Tasks][gradle]

Double clicking any of these tasks will execute it, and also add it to a short list in the main toolbar:

![Gradle Task Shortcuts][shortcut]

Clicking the green triangle next to this list will execute the currently selected task.

For command-line users, any task may be executed with `cd Source/Android` followed by `gradlew <task-name>`. In particular, `gradlew assemble` builds debug and release versions of the application (which are placed in `Source/Android/app/build/outputs/apk`).

## Getting Dependencies

Most dependencies for the Android project are supplied by Gradle automatically. However, Android platform libraries (and a few Google-supplied supplementary libraries) must be downloaded through the Android package manager.

1. Launch the Android SDK Manager by clicking on its icon in Android Studio's main toolbar:
![Android Studio Package Icon][package-icon]
2. Install or update the SDK Platform. Choose the API level selected as [compileSdkVersion](Source/Android/app/build.gradle#L4).
3. Install or update the SDK Tools. CMake, LLDB, and NDK. If you don't use android-studio, please check out https://github.com/Commit451/android-cmake-installer.

In the future, if the project targets a newer version of Android, or uses newer versions of the tools/build-tools packages, it will be necessary to use this tool to download updates.

[components]: https://i.imgur.com/Oo1Fs93.png
[package-icon]: https://i.imgur.com/NUpkAH8.png
[gradle]: https://i.imgur.com/dXIH6o3.png
[shortcut]: https://i.imgur.com/eCWP4Yy.png