Develop Android 4 Apps with Eclipse

Before starting this article, it must be mentioned that the eclipse is preferable be on a 64-bit machine that has relatively big RAM, L2 cache, fast hard disk. This is because of the slowness and constant errors that I am encountering in the past few months with an old pc. This is why I have not been doing any development on android and it will most probably this way until I can get my hands on a better PC.

So, you want to start on Android Programming? Read on...

Installing Eclipse Indigo for Android on MS Windows 7.

Pre-installation check list:

1. Java JDK 1.6 or higher is installed
2. PATH and CLASSPATH has been configured 

Steps
1. Eclipse Indigo
a) download and extract Eclipse
http://www.eclipse.org/downloads/download.php?

file=/eclipse/downloads/drops/R-3.7.2-201202080800/eclipse-SDK-

3.7.2-win32.zip

b) Move to the Program files folder
e.g. c:\Windows\Program Files\eclipse

2. Android SDK
a) download and run installer_r18-windows.exe
http://developer.android.com/sdk/index.html

Follow instructions from http://developer.android.com/sdk/installing/index.html

b) Run the Android SDK Manager
Currently target for API 10 (Android 2.3.3) and API 15 (Android 4.0.3).
Accepted all package to install but HTC OpenSense SDK.

3. Eclipse's ADT plugin
a) Start Eclipse and select Help-> Install New Software, click Add (top right)

b) At right of "Work with:", Click Add... and enter the ADT Plugin repository details
https://dl-ssl.google.com/android/eclipse/

c) In Available Software, check Developer Tools and install.
Accept all license agreement.

d) Restart Eclipse

e) Eclipse may have problem locating the Android SDK directory
Choose preferences and point to the Android SDK folder (see Section 2). 
e.g. c:\Windows\Program Files\Android\android-sdk

4. Create your first App, see http://developer.android.com/training/basics/firstapp/index.html