docs/html/guide/developing/tools.jd

page.title=Tools Overview
@jd:body

<img src="{@docRoot}images/android_icon_125.png" alt="android_robot" align="right" width="125" height="137"">

<p>The Android SDK includes a variety of custom tools that help you develop mobile 
applications on the Android platform. The most important of these are the Android 
Emulator and the Android Development Tools plugin for Eclipse, but the SDK also 
includes a variety of other tools for debugging, packaging, and installing your 
applications on the emulator. </p>

<dl>
	<dt><a href="{@docRoot}reference/emulator.html">Android Emulator</a></dt>
    <dd>A virtual mobile device that runs on your computer. You use the emulator to design, 
    debug, and test your applications in an actual Android run-time environment. </dd>
    
  <dt><a href="{@docRoot}reference/hierarchy-viewer.html">Hierarchy Viewer</a>
    <sup class="new">New!</sup></dt></dt>
    <dd>The Hierarchy Viewer tool allows you to debug and optimize your user interface.
    It provides a visual representation of your layout's hierarchy of Views and a magnified inspector
    of the current display with a pixel grid, so you can get your layout just right.
    </dd>
    
  <dt><a href="{@docRoot}reference/draw9patch.html">Draw 9-patch</a>
    <sup class="new">New!</sup></dt>
    <dd>The Draw 9-patch tool allows you to easily create a 
    {@link android.graphics.NinePatch} graphic using a WYSIWYG editor. It also previews stretched 
     versions of the image, and highlights the area in which content is allowed.
    </dd>

	<dt><a href="{@docRoot}intro/installing.html#installingplugin">Android 
	Development Tools Plugin</a> for the Eclipse IDE</dt>
		<dd>The ADT plugin adds powerful extensions to the Eclipse integrated environment, 
		making creating and debugging your Android applications easier and faster. If you 
		use Eclipse, the ADT plugin gives you an incredible boost in developing Android 
		applications:
		</dd>
		
		<ul>
		<li>It gives you access to other Android development tools from inside 
		the Eclipse IDE. For example, ADT lets you access the many capabilities of the 
		DDMS tool &mdash; taking screenshots, managing port-forwarding, setting breakpoints, 
		and viewing thread and process information &mdash; directly from Eclipse.  
		<li>It provides a New Project Wizard, which helps you quickly create and set up 
		all of the basic files you'll need for a new Android application.</li>
		<li>It automates and simplifies the process of building your Android application.</li>
		<li>It provides an Android code editor that helps you write valid XML for your 
		Android manifest and resource files.</li>
		</ul>

    <p>For more information about the ADT plugin, including
        installation instructions, see <a
        href="{@docRoot}intro/installing.html#installingplugin"
        title="ADT Plugin for Eclipse">Installing the ADT Plugin for
        Eclipse</a>. For a usage example with screenshots, see <a
        href="{@docRoot}intro/hello-android.html" title="Hello
	      Android">Hello Android</a>.</p>

  <dt><a href="{@docRoot}reference/ddms.html" >Dalvik Debug Monitor 
      Service</a> (ddms)</dt>
	    <dd>Integrated with Dalvik, the Android platform's custom VM, this tool 
	    lets you manage processes on an emulator or device and assists in debugging. 
	    You can use it to kill processes, select a specific process to debug, 
	    generate trace data, view heap and thread information, take screenshots 
	    of the emulator or device, and more. </dd>
			
	<dt><a href="{@docRoot}reference/adb.html" >Android Debug Bridge</a> (adb)</dt>
			<dd>The adb tool lets you install your application's .apk files on an 
			emulator or device and access the emulator or device from a command line. 
			You can also use it to link a standard debugger to application code running 
			on an Android emulator or device.</dd>

	<dt><a href="{@docRoot}reference/aapt.html" >Android Asset 
		Packaging Tool</a> (aapt)</dt>
			<dd>The aapt tool lets you create .apk files containing the binaries and 
			resources of Android applications.</dd>

	<dt><a href="{@docRoot}reference/aidl.html" >Android Interface 
	Description Language</a> (aidl)</dt>
		  <dd>Lets you generate code for an interprocess interface, such as what
		  a service might use.</dd>

  <dt><a href="{@docRoot}reference/adb.html#sqlite">sqlite3</a></dt>
      <dd>Included as a convenience, this tool lets you access the SQLite data 
      files created and used by Android applications.</dd>

	<dt><a href="{@docRoot}reference/traceview.html" >Traceview</a></dt>
		  <dd> This tool produces graphical analysis views of trace log data that you 
		  can generate from your Android application. </dd>

	<dt><a href="{@docRoot}reference/othertools.html#mksdcard">mksdcard</a></dt>
		  <dd>Helps you create a disk image that you can use with the emulator, 
			    to simulate the presence of an external storage card (such as an SD card).</dd>

	<dt><a href="{@docRoot}reference/othertools.html#dx">dx</a></dt>
			<dd>The dx tool rewrites .class bytecode into Android bytecode 
						(stored in .dex files.)</dd>

  <dt><a href="{@docRoot}reference/monkey.html" >UI/Application 
  Exerciser Monkey</a></dt>
      <dd>The Monkey is a program that runs on your emulator or device and generates pseudo-random
      streams of user events such as clicks, touches, or gestures, as well as a number of system-
      level events.  You can use the Monkey to stress-test applications that you are developing,
      in a random yet repeatable manner.</dd>

	<dt><a  href="{@docRoot}reference/othertools.html#activitycreator">activitycreator</a></dt>
		  <dd>A script that generates <a
			      href="http://ant.apache.org/" title="Ant">Ant</a> build files that 
			      you can use to compile your Android applications. If you are developing 
			      on Eclipse with the ADT plugin, you won't need to use this script. </dd>
</dl>