An Android plugin for Sublime Text 2

I've recently purchased a Galaxy Nexus, and while my previous phone had some unknown proprietary OS, this one has Android! Version 4.0.2 even! I love to tinker around, so I naturally felt a need to program something for this thing.

However, being spoiled by the luxuries of Visual Studio, I couldn't stand to work with other IDEs like Eclipse or IntelliJ IDEA. So I decided to work with the SDK command line and figure out how to compile stuff manually. But going through the process by hand every time can be tiring, so I wrote a plugin for my favorite code editor, Sublime Text 2.

I should mention that I had no prior Python experience when I spent a single sunday evening writing this plugin. So it might blow up your computer.

What it should do:

  • Provide a sort-of simple interface for creating new Android projects
  • Compile and build your application (signed with a debug key)
  • Provide a fully automated build-install system
  • Run ADB logcat to see device output (like System.out.println) with continuous updates.

Getting it working:

First you need to download the archive below and extract it to "Data/Packages", located in your Sublime Text 2 installation. The archive comes with a file called "android.sublime-settings", which contains information about where Java, Android SDK and Apache Ant are located. You will need to configure these paths like this:

  • "jdk_bin": The folder you would usually set as JAVA_HOME.
  • "default_android_project_dir": Up to you
  • "android_sdk": Android SDK root folder.
  • "ant_bin": The /bin folder of wherever you have installed apache-ant.

And that's it! After restarting Sublime Text 2, an "Android" menu-item should now show up under the 'Tools' menu, in addition to two build-systems. The "Android" build will attempt to uninstall the package (if it exists), followed by a debug build and installation onto the connected device. "Android (Build only)" will only compile a debug build and create a signed .apk.

Download: .zip

Note that I will not be providing further support for this plugin. However, a kind person has taken the liberty to extend the plugin to support multiple platforms. See here

Posted at Wednesday, June 20, 2012

21 comments:

  1. AnonymousJuly 1, 2012 at 7:05 AM

    did not blow up my computer :D it works.
    thanks, great tool!

    ReplyDelete
  2. UnknownJuly 9, 2012 at 4:39 PM

    It's looks great but this plugin works only on Windows.
    Thanks, I would edit it for my Linux.

    ReplyDelete
  3. UnknownSeptember 15, 2012 at 11:02 AM

    This was so easy to set up, and I'm thrilled to be able to use sublime text to develop, thanks so much!

    ReplyDelete
  4. UnknownSeptember 18, 2012 at 2:39 PM

    A slick plugin. Thanks, Sir!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Donal FarrellSeptember 19, 2012 at 9:59 AM

    Works great for me once I had all the paths set up - although one curious bug that I found is that it only builds successfully (ctrl+b, or from menu) if the current file opened is the build.xml file.

    Thanks for the great tool!
    Donski

    ReplyDelete
  6. NakpOctober 14, 2012 at 12:07 PM

    Hello, any chance to get it on github so the community can improve it? (and also install/update through the package manager) :P

    ReplyDelete
  7. UnknownOctober 16, 2012 at 11:42 PM

    Not exactly the same, but eerily similar:
    http://gitorious.org/sublime-android

    ReplyDelete
  8. RomainOctober 26, 2012 at 5:53 AM

    God I just need autocomplete for Android SDK and I'll replace eclipse by Sublime Text 2. Any suggestion?
    Thanks for your work!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Uint9November 7, 2012 at 8:48 AM

      Thanks for the compliment!

      I actually wanted to include an autocompletion feature for both Android class names and strings in the resources (R.java) file. You can see a snippet of the code in android.py.

      I finished some of it a time ago. If you want to try your hand and modify it to also auto-complete Android functions/classes/etc, you can replace the AndroidAutoCompleteRCommand in android.py with this: http://pastebin.com/udLumtTG

      In the Android documentation files you can find a sitemap, which contains all possible links like http://developer.android.com/reference/java/util/LinkedList.html
      and http://developer.android.com/reference/android/view/MenuItem.html

      As you can see, parsing this document can give java.util.LinkedList and android.view.MenuItem, which can be useful in auto-completing stuff. Perhaps you could even extend the right-click menu to include a button for going to document page, when right-clicking a keyname...

      Delete
  9. OleOctober 29, 2012 at 2:16 PM

    Very very nice! I'm just starting with android development, but have been using ST2 for quite some time now, and this is just perfect. I really dislike the performance killer Eclipse is on my laptop, so seeing that it's possible to use ST2 for this made my day! Thanks a lot sir!

    ReplyDelete
  10. Emerson Design LogNovember 6, 2012 at 6:41 PM

    I'm having really tough time getting the JDK path to work. I've installed JDK from Apple and from Sun directly and really feel like I have the right path for "jdk_bin" (/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/1.6.0_37-b06-434.jdk/Contents/Home/bin) but no matter what I do I keep getting the error:

    "Error: JDK path is incorrect. Please configure Android/android.sublime-settings"

    Any advice?

    I'm running lion BTW.

    Here's my settings file atm:

    {
    "jdk_bin": "/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/1.6.0_37-b06-434.jdk/Contents/Home/bin",
    "default_android_project_dir": "/Users/Chris/Documents/Android/projects",
    "android_sdk": "/Users/Chris/Documents/Android",
    "ant_bin": "/Users/Chris/Documents/Development/apache-ant-1.8.3/bin",
    "last_apk_path": "",
    "last_package_name": ""
    }

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Uint9November 7, 2012 at 8:24 AM

      I'm not familiar with OSX, but I think jdk_bin should point to just /Home. That is, not to /bin. I guess the name was sort of misleading...

      Hopefully that works!

      Delete
    2. Emerson Design LogNovember 7, 2012 at 12:51 PM

      Thanks for replying Uint9

      Sadly a no go so far. :(

      I've tried with/without /Home, with/without /Contents, even copying the whole java folder to my documents folder and pointing there... but I keep getting: "Error: JDK path is incorrect. Please configure Android/android.sublime-settings"

      If you have any other ideas/suggestions please let me know!

      Thanks

      Delete
    3. Emerson Design LogNovember 7, 2012 at 1:01 PM

      I wonder if this line in android.py is the problem:

      Line 30: if not (os.path.exists(self.jdk) and os.path.isfile(self.jdk + "/bin/java.exe")):

      Obviously there are no exe files on OSX. I changed to just /bin/java but that didn't seem to fix it though.

      Delete
    4. Emerson Design LogNovember 7, 2012 at 2:23 PM

      Yeah - looks like the code was written for Windows only - though the very-similar android package here (http://gitorious.org/sublime-android#more) seems to have OSX and Windows support ... but, of course, it's not working out of the box either.

      UGH... really don't want to have to install Eclipse! :(

      Delete
    5. Uint9November 8, 2012 at 6:28 AM

      That repo is based on this plugin. I didn't aim for multiplatform support when I made this, but it looks like that guy has got some stuff going. I suggest you ask him, as I have no idea how the Android build sequence works for OSX :|

      Delete
  11. AnonymousJanuary 8, 2013 at 7:44 PM

    How would you install this plugin on Windows?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Uint9January 9, 2013 at 5:17 PM

      Assuming you have downloaded and setup the Android SDK and java stuffs, all you need to do is extract the contents of the .zip file to Data/Packages in your ST2 folder. You also need to edit the lines in android.sublime-settings as described in the post.

      Delete
  12. UnknownJanuary 19, 2013 at 1:23 PM

    Thanks so much!... really good :D..

    But I have open the build.xml file to execute Build Commando (CTRL+B), why?

    ReplyDelete
  13. UnknownOctober 4, 2013 at 5:46 AM

    I get an invalid escape error I'm guessing it's because of all the \ in my folder but it's funny because these are all in "". Can you help?

    ReplyDelete
  14. AnonymousSeptember 2, 2024 at 10:17 AM

    Great and I have a nifty provide: What Home Renovation Expenses Are Tax Deductible house renovation credit

    ReplyDelete

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