Setting Up for Android App Development

In December I bought a Nexus 10 tablet.  In the back of my mind I thought that I might learn Android App Development. 

I am working in a Windows 7 environment so  I need to download the corresponding SDK.

Note that this posting is not intended to be all inclusive in setting up the SDK but as a supplemental guide.

I went to the Android SDK | Adroid Developers web page.  I downloaded the ADT Bundle for Windows.  I created a directory called adt-bundle-windows-x86_64 and I unzipped all the contents in that folder.   It is imperative that you download the java development kit  (JDK) or the java run time environment (JRE).  I had the JDK already downloaded and now what I had to do was to make sure the IDE could find java files.  What you'll end up doing is to run the eclipse.exe in the eclipse folder.  Understand there was an interation of trial and error as well as research as to run how to bring up IDE.  The IDE was not finding the java.  There is a file in the eclipse directory called eclipse.ini that needed to be modified.

The contents of the file is below and the bolded text is what I added:
-vm
C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.7.0_13\bin
-startup plugins/org.eclipse.equinox.launcher_1.3.0.v20120522-1813.jar
--launcher.library plugins/org.eclipse.equinox.launcher.win32.win32.x86_64_1.1.200.v20120522-1813 -product com.android.ide.eclipse.adt.package.product --launcher.XXMaxPermSize256M
-showsplash com.android.ide.eclipse.adt.package.product
--launcher.XXMaxPermSize 256m
--launcher.defaultActionopenFile
-vmargs -Dosgi.requiredJavaVersion=1.6
-Xms40m -Xmx768m
-Declipse.buildId=v21.0.1-543035

The -vm C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.7.0_13\bin is the bin directory of my bin directory for the JDK.

After this change is made then executing the eclipse.exe should bring up the IDE.  

The next post will talk about Connecting a Windows Computer to the Android Device.