Here are the tools needed to build Android apps:

• Sun’s Java Development Kit (JDK) • Android Software Developer Kit (SDK) • Eclipse IDE • Android Developer Tool (ADT) Eclipse plug-in

The first piece of good news for Mac developers is that Mac OS X has JDK 5 already installed, so we can scratch that off the list.

If you are running Windows or Linux, download and install JDK 5 or 6, you can find the  .

Also worth mentioning before we continue is that Eclipse is not required, however, with the plug-in that Google has developed for Eclipse, they have made the process of editing, compiling, running and debugging quite easy.

To get things rolling, start by  , choosing the platform you need for your system.

Once you have the zip file downloaded, extract the contents to a folder on your system. In my case, I opted for my home directory in a folder named Android, see the figure below:

In the tools directory, run the application  android. From the dialog box that is shown, select  Available Packages from the list on the left.

Once you tick the checkbox, a list of sites, packages and archives will appear, choose  Install Selected to begin the download process.

It will take a few minutes to download the SDK, so this is a good time to download and install Eclipse. There are a number of Eclipse versions available, my choice was  .

To install Eclipse, unzip the download into a folder. Since Android development is currently my only need for the IDE, I extracted the files into the android folder created previously, in a new folder with the name eclipse:

All the Android tools should now be downloaded. To install the development tools, start Eclipse – from the eclipse folder (wherever you installed it), double click the application Eclipse. From the  Help menu, choose  Install New Software.

Enter the path shown in the dialog box below when prompted and then click  Add:

From the  Add Site dialog, enter the information as shown here and click  OK:

You will now be returned to the previous install dialog, go ahead and click the Developer Tools checkbox.

Click  Next a few times to get to the license agreement, review the agreements and click  Finish to install.

You will get a warning that you are installing unsigned software, select  OK to continue:

When prompted, restart Eclipse.

We now need to setup ADK within Eclipse, which entails pointing Eclipse to the Android SDK.

From with Eclipse, click the  Eclipse menu item and choose  Preferences. From the list, choose Android, chances are you will see the popup shown below, stating that the SDK has not yet been installed:

Navigate to the folder where Android SDK is installed and click OK:

We can save ourselves some trouble (read frustration) in the future by adding a reference to the Android tools into our path.

In  Finder, go to your home directory and open the file  .bash_profile – this is a hidden file (hence the preceding dot in the filename).

Add the following line to the file, replacing  /Users/JOHN/Android/tools with the proper path to where you installed the Android tools

export  PATH= ${PATH}: /Users /JOHN /Android /tools

Linux: Same as Mac, adding the export to ~/.bash_profile or ~/.bashrc file.

Windows: Right-click on My Computer, and select Properties. On the Advanced tab, click Environment Variables button. A dialog should appear, double-click on Path (under System Variables). Add the full path to the tools directory for Android to the existing path.

At this point we should be good to go. If you run into any issues, or need some help troubleshooting, please refer to the Android Developer site and review   notes.

In the next post I’ll jump into creating an Android application, including how to configure an Android Virtual Device (AVD), which will provide a means to run the app in an emulator.