tools/studio/studio-features.jd

page.title=Features
page.metaDescription=Learn about the Android Studio features.
page.tags=studio, features
@jd:body

<div id="qv-wrapper">
<div id="qv">

    <h2>In this document</h2>
    <ol>
      <li><a href="#trans-editor">Translations Editor</a></li>
      <li><a href="#git-samples">Android Code Samples on GitHub</a></li>
      <li><a href="#template-support">Expanded Template and Form Factor Support</a></li>
      <li><a href="#project-settings">Android Studio and Project Settings</a></li>
      <li><a href="#finger-print">Fingerprint Support</a></li>
      <li><a href="#dev-services">Developer Services</a></li>
      <li><a href="#private-res">Public and Private Resources</a></li>
      <li><a href="#support-apis">Editor Support for the Latest Android APIs</a></li>
      <li><a href="#test-module">Test APK Module</a></li>
    </ol>

  <h2>See also</h2>
  <ol>
    <li><a href="{@docRoot}tools/workflow/index.html">Workflow</a></li>
    <li><a href="{@docRoot}sdk/installing/studio-build.html">Build System</a></li>
    <li><a href="{@docRoot}sdk/installing/studio-tips.html">Android Studio Tip & Tricks</a></li>
  </ol>

</div>
</div>


<p>If you're new to Android Studio or exploring recent updates, this
page provides an introduction to some key Android Studio features.</p>

<p>For specific Android Studio how-to documentation, see the pages in the <a href=
"{@docRoot}tools/workflow/index.html">Workflow</a> section, such as
<a href="{@docRoot}sdk/installing/create-project.html">Managing Projects from Android Studio</a>
and
<a href="{@docRoot}tools/building/building-studio.html">Building and Running from Android Studio</a>. </p>


<h2 id="trans-editor">Translations Editor</h2>
<p>Multi-language support is enhanced with the Translations Editor plugin so you can easily add
a variety of locales to the app's translation file. With
<a class="external-link" href="https://tools.ietf.org/html/bcp47">BCP 47</a> support, the editor
combines language and
region codes into a single selection for targeted localizations. Color codes indicate whether a
locale is complete or still missing string translations. </p>

<p>To access the Translations Editor, open a <code>strings.xml</code> file and click the
<strong>Open Editor</strong> link, or click the globe icon
(<img src="{@docRoot}images/tools/studio-globe-icon.png" style="vertical-align:bottom;margin:0;height:19px" />) in the Design layout view.  </p>


    <img src="{@docRoot}images/tools/studio-translationeditoropen.png" />
    <p class="img-caption"><strong>Figure 1.</strong> Add locales and strings in the
    Translations Editor.</p>


<h2 id="git-samples">Android Code Samples on GitHub</h2>
<p>Clicking <strong>Import Samples</strong> from the <strong>File</strong> menu or <em>Welcome</em>
page provides seamless access to Google code samples on GitHub.</p>
    <p><img src="{@docRoot}images/tools/studio-samples-githubaccess.png" /></p>
    <p class="img-caption"><strong>Figure 2.</strong> Get code samples from GitHub.</p>


    <p><img src="{@docRoot}images/tools/studio-sample-in-editor.png" /></p>
    <p class="img-caption"><strong>Figure 3.</strong> Imported code sample.</p>


<h2 id="template-support">Expanded Template and Form Factor Support</h2>
<p>Android Studio supports templates for Google Services and expands the available device
types. </p>

    <h4> Android Wear and TV support</h4>
    <p>For easy cross-platform development, the Project Wizard provides templates for
    creating your apps for Android Wear and TV. </p>
    <p><img src="{@docRoot}images/tools/studio-tvwearsupport.png"  />

      <p class="img-caption"><strong>Figure 4.</strong> Supported form factors.</p>
    <p>During app creation, the Project Wizard also displays an API Level dialog to help you choose
    the best <em>minSdkVersion</em> for your project.</p>


    <h4> Google App Engine integration (Google Cloud Platform/Messaging)</h4>
    <p>Quick cloud integration. Using Google App Engine to connect to the Google cloud
    and create a cloud end-point is as easy as selecting <em>File > New Module > App Engine Java
    Servlet Module</em> and specifying the module, package, and client names. </p>
    <p><img src="{@docRoot}images/tools/studio-cloudmodule.png" /></p>
    <p class="img-caption"><strong>Figure 5</strong> Google App Engine integration.</p>


<h2 id="project-settings">Android Studio and Project Settings</h2>
<p>Android Studio provides setting dialogs so you can manage the most important Android Studio and
project settings from the <strong>File &gt; Project Structure</strong> and
<strong>File &gt; Settings</strong> menus. For example, you can use the
<strong>File &gt; Project Structure</strong> menu or
the <code>build.gradle</code> file to update your <code>productFlavor</code> settings.
Additional settings from the <strong>File &gt; Project Structure</strong> menus include:
<ul>
 <li>SDK and JDK location </li>
 <li>SDK version </li>
 <li>Gradle and Android Plugin for Gradle versions </li>
 <li>Build tools version </li>
 <li>Multidex setting</li>
 <li><code>buildTypes</code> </li>
 <li>Dependencies </li>
</ul>
</p>

<p>Use the <strong>File &gt; Settings</strong> menu to modify the Android Studio or project
behavior, such a UI themes, system settings, and version control. </p>


<h2 id="finger-print">Fingerprint Support</h2>
<p>Android Studio provides the {@code finger} command, allowing you to simulate, and thus validate,
fingerprint authentication for your app. After you set up your app to accept
<a href="https://developer.android.com/preview/api-overview.html#authentication">fingerprint
authentication</a>, your emulator or device should display the fingerprint authentication screen,
as shown below. </p>

    <p><img src="{@docRoot}images/tools/studio-fingerprint.png" /></p>
    <p class="img-caption"><strong>Figure 6</strong> Fingerprint authentication.</p>

<p>Open a terminal session, and telnet to the emulator. For example:</p>
<pre>
{@code telnet localhost 5554}
</pre>

<p>Enter the <code>finger</code> command to simulate finger touch and removal: </p>

<ul>
   <li><code>finger touch &lt;fingerprint-id&gt;</code> to simulate a finger touching the sensor</li>
   <li><code>finger remove</code> to simulate finger removal </li>
</ul>

<p>Your app should respond as if a user touched, and then removed their finger from, the
fingerprint sensor. </p>


<h2 id="dev-services">Developer Services</h2>
<p>Android Studio supports enabling these developer services in your app: </p>
<ul>
  <li>Ads using <a href="https://developers.google.com/admob/">AdMob</a></li>
  <li>Analytics <a href="https://developers.google.com/analytics/">Google Analytics</a></li>
  <li>Authentication using <a href="https://developers.google.com/identity/sign-in/android/">Google
    Sign-in</a> </li>
  <li>Notifications using <a href="https://developers.google.com/cloud-messaging/">Google
    Cloud Messaging</a> </li>
</ul>

<p>Enabling a developer service adds the required dependencies and, when applicable, also modifies
the related configuration files. To activate the service, you must perform
service-specific updates, such as loading an ad in the <code>MainActivity</code> class for ad
display.</p>

<p>To enable an Android developer service, select the <code>File &gt; Project Structure</code>
menu option and click a service under the <em>Developer Services</em> sub-menu. The service
configuration page appears. In the service configuration page, click the service check box to
enable the service and click <strong>OK</strong>. Android Studio updates your library dependencies
for the selected service and, for Analytics, updates the <code>AndroidManifest.xml</code> and
other tracker configuration files. You can enable multiple services within the same app. For more
detail about starting the services, refer to each service's specific activation instructions. </p>


<h2 id="private-res">Public and Private Resources</h2>
<p>By default, Android Studio treats all library resources as public: A public library resource is
available to library clients for use outside the library, and appears in code completion suggestions
and other resource references. Android Studio also, however, supports the use of private library
resources. A private library resource can only be used within the source library, and does not
appear in code completion lists and other resource references. </p>

<p>You cannot explicitly declare a library resource as private. Instead, if you declare any library
resources as public, Android Studio assumes all the other library resources are private. </p>

<p>An app treats all Android library resources as public unless you explicitly declare at least one
resource in the library as public. Declaring one public resource causes your app to treat all other,
undeclared resources in the library as private. </p>

<p class="note"><strong>Note:</strong> Declaring public and private resources requires the
<a href="{@docRoot}tools/building/plugin-for-gradle.html">Android Plugin for Gradle</a> version
1.3 or higher. </p>


<p>To declare a resource as public and set other undeclared resources as private, add a
<code>&lt;public&gt;</code> declaration with the resource name and type in the resource file.
This example shows the public declaration for the <code>mylib_app_name</code> string resource. </p>

<pre>
&lt;resources&gt;
    &lt;public name="mylib_app_name" type="string"/&gt;
&lt;/resources&gt;
</pre>

<p>For large numbers of declarations, we recommended that you place the public marker declarations
in a separate file named <code>public.xml</code>. </p>

<p>To help enforce private resource access, a <a href="{@docRoot}tools/help/lint.html">lint</a>
warning appears when a client of a library references a private resource. Many Android libraries,
such as the
<a href="{@docRoot}tools/support-library/features.html#design">Design Support Library</a> and the
<a href="{@docRoot}tools/support-library/features.html#v7-appcompat">v7 appcompat Library</a>,
declare public resources to display only resources that developers can directly reference.
</p>

<p class="note"><strong>Note:</strong> If your app requires a private resource, copy the
private resource from the library to the location in your app where it is needed. </p>

<p>When the build system builds an Android Archive (AAR) file, it extracts the
<code>&lt;public&gt;</code> resource declarations into a <code>public.txt</code> file, which is
packaged inside the AAR file next to the <code>R.txt</code> file. The <code>public.txt</code> file
contains a simple list of the declared public resources, describing their names and types. </p>

<p>For a complete list of the available Android resource types, see
<a href="http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/resources/available-resources.html">Resource
Types</a></li> and
<a href="http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/resources/more-resources.html">More Resource
Types</a></li>. </p>


<h2 id="support-apis">Editor Support for the Latest Android APIs</h2>
<p>Android Studio supports the
<a href="{@docRoot}design/material/index.html">Material Design</a></li> themes, widgets, and
graphics, such as shadow layers and API version rendering (showing the layout across different
UI versions). Also, the drawable XML tags and attributes, such as <code>&lt;ripple&gt;</code>
and <code>&lt;animated-selector&gt;</code>, are supported.</p>


<h2 id="test-module">Test APK Module</h2>
<p>Android Studio supports adding a separate <code>test</code> module to your app so you can
generate a test APK. This <code>test</code> module resides at the same level as your app and
contains: the tests and instrumentation used to run the test APK on an Android device; an
<code>Android Manifest.xml</code> file for test APK configuration settings; and, a
<code>build.gradle</code> file for build settings.</p>

<p>The <code>test</code> module cannot contain a <code>src/androidTest/</code> folder and does
not support build variants. If you have different product flavors in your main application APK,
create a different test module for each build variant.</p>


<p>To create a test APK module:

<ul>
  <li>Use the <strong>File &gt; New &gt; Module</strong> menu option to create a
    <code>test</code> module consisting of the following directories and files:
    <ul>
      <li><code>./test/</code> </li>
      <li><code>./test/build.gradle</code> </li>
      <li><code>./test/src/main/java/com/android/tests/basic/MainTest.java</code> </li>
      <li><code>./test/src/main/AndroidManifest.xml</code> </li>
    </ul>
  </li>
  <li>In the <code>build.gradle</code> file, add the required properties to the
    <code>android</code> block.
    <ul>
      <li><code>targetProjectPath ':&lt;app name&gt;'</code> specifies the main application APK
        to test. </li>
      <li><code>targetVariant ':&lt;buildType&gt;'</code> specifies the target build type.</li>
    </ul>
    <p>Here is an example of <code>build.gradle</code> file property settings: </p>

<pre>
android {
    compileSdkVersion 19
    buildToolsVersion = ‘21.1.3’

    targetProjectPath ':app'
    targetVariant 'debug'
}
</pre>
  </li>
  <li>Define the instrumentation entries in the manifest file.
    <p>Here is an example of <code>&lt;instrumentation&gt;</code> settings in the manifest file: </p>

<pre>
&lt;?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?&gt;
&lt;manifest xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
      package="com.android.tests.basic.test"&gt;

      &lt;uses-sdk android:minSdkVersion="16" android:targetSdkVersion="16" /&gt;

      &lt;application>
            &gt;uses-library android:name="android.test.runner" /&gt;
      &lt;/application>

      &lt;instrumentation android:name="android.test.InstrumentationTestRunner"
                       android:targetPackage="com.android.tests.basic"
                       android:handleProfiling="false"
                       android:functionalTest="false"
                       android:label="Tests for com.android.tests.basic"/&gt;
&lt;/manifest&lt;
</pre>

<p class="note"><strong>Note:</strong> The <code>targetPackage</code> in the instrumentation
settings specifies the package of the test variant. </p>

   </li>
   <li>In the <code>build.gradle</code> file for the tested app, include additional artifacts
     that the test APK requires, such as the <code> classes.jar</code> file, by adding the
     {@code publishNonDefault} property to the {@code Android} block, and assigning that property
     a value of {@code true}.
     <p>Here is an example of the <code>build.gradle</code> file that includes additional
     artifacts: </p></li>
<pre>
android {
    compileSdkVersion 19
    buildToolsVersion = ‘21.1.3’

    publishNonDefault true
}
</pre>
 </li>
</ul>


<p>In the {@code test} module in this example, the {@code build.gradle} file specifies the
properties for the project path and target build type variant. </p>

    <p><img src="{@docRoot}images/tools/studio-test-module.png" /></p>
    <p class="img-caption"><strong>Figure 3.</strong> Test module for APK testing.</p>


<p class="note"><strong>Note:</strong> By default, the test module's build variant uses the
<code>debug</code> build type. You can configure additional build types using the
<code>testBuildType</code> property in the <code>defaultConfig</code> block in the main
app's <code>build.gradle</code> file. </p>