Using Netbeans for Android development

Eversince Google released the Android open mobile platform SDK, they have a plugin for Eclipse that enables developers to create Android applications under Eclipse. But that didn’t stop some guys to create an equivalent Android SDK plugin for Netbeans. The project has been continued since then.

If you’re a Netbeans user, don’t worry because you can use Netbeans for creating Android applications also. Several guys created a Netbeans plugin that makes it possible to do Android software development under Netbeans.

To start setting up Android development under Netbeans, just open up your Netbeans 6.5 IDE. After starting up, click on the Tools | Plugin from the menu and select the Settings tab from the dialog box. Click on the Add button and enter the Name of the plugin and update URL for the plugin your are manually adding. You can put any text for the Name field, the plugin update URL for the Android for Netbeans plugin is http://kenai.com/downloads/nbandroid/updates.xml .

After clicking on Ok, it should now be included in the list of configured update centers.

Go to the “Availalble Plugins” tab and you should see Android in the list. Click on the checkbox to mark it for installation. Then click the “Ok” button.

You’ll get a dialog box similar to the one below informing you that the Android plugin will be installed. Click on the “Next” button.

The license agreement will be displayed. You need to agree to to install the Android plugin. Click on the “Install” button once you have clicked on the “I accept..” checkbox.

It should start download the Android plugin.

After the download, you’ll get a message similar to the one below. It basically says that the plugin hasn’t been signed by the Netbeans group. This serves as a warning for potentially dangerous plugins. If you trust the developers of the plugin, just click on the “Continue” button.

After which, you should get an “Installation completed successfully” message.

Now that the Android plugin for Netbeans has been installed, you need to do just one more step to configure it. You need to tell Netbeans that it can now also setup projects for the Android open mobile platform. To do this, click on the Tools | Java Platform menu of your Netbeans IDE.

Click on the “Add Platform” button. Select the “Google Android Open Handheld Platform” and click the “Next” button.

Now locate where you have extracted the Android SDK on your computer and click “Next”.

Give the platform a name. I think “Android” would be appropriate and click on the “Finish” button.

You should now have added Android in your list of supported platforms for the Netbeans IDE.

That’s it. You can now start developing Android applications using your Netbeans IDE. I’ll post about writing an Android application in Netbeans next time.