Do you recommend Android Studio or SDK Tools only?

1

I haven’t done android development before. I know I need the SDK installed so I can build. Is there any benefit to installing the full Android Studio IDE or should I just install SDK tools only? I’m running OS X.

2

Another option: you can use Intel XDK too :smile: It works on OS X. Benefits: complex IDE, you can easy build to more target platforms.

3

In Ionic context, the Android Studio would be useful only if you planned to develop or debug a Cordova plugin.

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4

At this point I’m mainly trying to figure out best practices for debugging and profiling an Ionic app in an Android simulator or on a physical device. For iOS, I open up my project in Xcode and run it on my device. Console.log() messages appear in Xcode’s debug pane.

I am reading through Android developer docs, but thought I’d ask here to get some ideas how other people develop. Thanks for your input!

5

For Android, best way to debug an ionic app on device is to use Chrome remote debugging, you get a real debugger, console and profiling. no need for an IDE.

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6

You can actually debug in ionic java code? Like debugging in the auto generated MainActivity.java file? I used to have some hard times, using Log.v and running it on the phone, to check the variables and other things…

7

No I meant debugging JS code like you do in browser but in real device, setting breakpoints, inspecting variable contents , …
Which ionic java code? Ionic is not a compiler that turns your JS code into java or objective c

8

I meant the Cordova part.

 public class MainActivity extends CordovaActivity
{
    @Override
    public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState)
    {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
        // Set by <content src="index.html" /> in config.xml
        loadUrl(launchUrl);
    }
}
9

OK, then no you can’t do it in Chrome and as I said earlier:

But most ionic developers won’t need this otherwise they’d have chosen to build native apps

10

I know you cant do that in Chrome.

And when you said a Cordova plugin, i actually thought of the java part of it.

So is it possible to debug the java part at all?

11

Only with Android Studio