How can I develop for Android in Emacs?

Question

I have gone through the Android guide for other IDEs, and I've got the basic build and install working fine using ant and a simple Emacs compile command. I'm aware of some of the existing tools for developing Java and XML in Emacs. I've also seen the EmacsWiki page recommending two Emacs packages, EmDroid and android-mode

I'd like to hear what people recommend, in terms of Emacs packages, small functions, or just workflows.

As a side note, I have decent familiarity with Eclipse, and I did setup the ADT plugin. However, emacs is my primary editor, and I'd like to see how I can use it here.

• zxq9: Somewhat surprised the resident topic enforcement drones haven't closed this for some invented reason yet.

Answer 1

I too use Emacs for my Android development. Although I do not use any Emacs packages for it.

Simply write in Emacs and then from a terminal use the android-sdk (ant, android, keytool, jarsigner, adb).

You can always use M-x compile from within Emacs, but I usually prefer a plain old bash shell for Android.

Sorry my work flow isn't really exciting.

• eugene: so what's the content of shell script for android? eg) for iOS, I could use xcodebuild command tool, but what are the equivalent command line tools I need to use to compile java code?
• zxq9: Still my preferred method, even to the extent I do this in vim on some work systems that lack emacs. It helps, of course, that this is also a very low-load workflow for Scala as well as Java (or Scala and Java, usually).

Answer 2

Currently android-mode.el is in better shape, plus you can easily fork it to add your own submissions to the developers over Github.

Both of the modes are pretty basic however, and just give you a set of functions to call the various Android development tools.

You are probably aware of jde and ant-mode.el - if you're not, I've just mentioned them.

They'll help you with the general Java / Ant support you'll need for Android SDK development.

• YuriAlbuquerque: Did you managed to work with JDE in emacs 23, though? I couldn't.
• ocodo: Full disclosure, no, I prefer to just use android-mode and a bit of java-mode. (My workflow is more similar to @cjh)

Answer 3

You can try Android-emacs-toolkit. http://code.google.com/p/android-emacs-toolkit/

Android-emacs-toolkit helps to build android development environment on emacs. It contains a emacs major mode which help to develop android sdk and ndk program.

It provides support for create new avd, launch avd, create new android project, build and rebuild Android sdk project, build and rebuild Android ndk project, install and uninstall apk, run executable ndk project, output emulator log on emacs.

This toolkit tested on WindowsXP/7, Ubuntu11 with android-sdk and android-ndk-r7.

Answer 4

For building Android itself (ie. AOSP, CyanogenMod...), look in the $(TOP)/development/ide/emacs directory. ATM, you'll find android-common.el, android-compile.el and android-host.el.

These can be used to make modules/packages inside Emacs, replacing commands like mm and mmp.