I want to be able to develop and immediately run android apps on my device. I've played with sl4a and a bluetooth keyboard, but the app and ide weren't designed for what I want to do with them. what are my options?
clarification: I want a mobile dev env that doesn't involve any computer (other than my android device). I'd like a simple code editor, like emacs or scite ideally, and some kind of complete interpreter or compiler for the full android api that runs on the device. I'm dreaming, clearly, but how close can I get to that today?
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2Well, you need to tell us more on what you're trying to do. Edit Java code on your device? Or use some WYSIWYG editor to create a layout and hook up functionality?EboMike– EboMike2011年02月27日 19:30:27 +00:00Commented Feb 27, 2011 at 19:30
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editing and building on the device is my goal. no wysiwyg or gui necessary. see my clarification above.drfloob– drfloob2011年02月27日 22:49:27 +00:00Commented Feb 27, 2011 at 22:49
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I've gotten Vim working really well in ConnectBot on my Milestone. I needed root privileges because of where I put the files, but you might be able to find a work around without it.
See this link: Native Vim for Android
See also my comment after the post. I've got $HOME setup on my sdcard, and a bunch of Python plugins and colorschemes in ~/.vim/ and everything just works.
Of course this requires you to be comfortable working in Vim... I've gone back and forth with it several times in the past. It is very strange, but once you pick up a few habits and figure out its odd vocabulary it is very nice to use!
I got a pure python version of Mercurial working on Android too. It was a pain, but now I can push and pull code from my repositories and keep my /sdcard/sl4a/scripts/ folders in sync with my latest changes. I documented some of what was necessary in a bug report to py4a.
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Canonical just announced that they will be bringing Ubuntu to android devices. Hopefully this will help....
http://www.engadget.com/2012/02/21/ubuntus-full-desktop-os-coming-to-multi-core-android-devices/
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Like FrinkTheBrave said, you can use an ide (Eclipse is perfect, because of the Android Development Tools, but you could use any other program. If you work on Windows, and after installing the USB driver, you only need to plug your phone to the usb and hit Run (or debug), and Eclipse will copy the apk into your Android and start running. It takes less than 5 seconds. If you work on a Mac, you don't need to install anything, just plug in the phone and it works =D. Well, in Linux it is a bit more complicated (though not impossible, I actually work with Linux), but you can still develop there =).
Cheers
BIG BIG EDIT
I've seen today just what you asked few time ago. Here, take it: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.aide.ui It's obviously hard to type on a smartphone, but it could do the trick on an EEEPad transformer. Have a good day
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I'm not sure about developing on Android, but you can use one of the sdks available to write your code, then copy the apk onto the device via usb and install and run it.
It takes less than a minute from saving the source code to running on the target hardware.
I use the sdk at developer.android.com and eclipse on windows xp, and use AndroZip on my phone to install the sdk. simples ;-)
I've not looked into using usb debugging, but that could be even better.