Android Studio or that sexy LibGDX?

Newbie & Debugging Questions
#1

Hey guys! As most of you might know (Or none of you I don’t know), I have wanted to be a mobile developer since I was 8. Well finally I have achieved that goal! I Learned Objective-C and made my first iOS app!

Link Here (It’s free)

Though I’d love for you guys to download it thats not why I’m here. As soon as the app hit the stores I got all these requests from friends and family to put it on the Google Play store. I didn’t really want to go through with it because I didn’t want to have to learn a whole new SDK when I was just scratching the surface with SpriteKit.

I started doing some research today to see if it would be profitable to put my game on the Google Play store. Turns out it is really profitable. And since I’m at a stand still with the profit from the Apple App Store, profit is what I need. (No I’m not being greedy here. I spent 200 Dollars on all the necessary crap needed for iOS development not including my Mac and testing devices.) I’ve come to the conclusion that posting to more stores is a good idea.

So, I went to TeamTreehouse.com and registered for a free trial and started learning Android Development. I learned a bit about Android Studio and the such but then I remembered LibGDX. That thing I never wanted to learn because it was so scary and could gobble me right up. I figured that would help me a whole ton, but will it?

Should I keep developing my app for iOS and make an Android Version right beside it or invest my time in LibGDX and make multiple platformed versions of this app?

What do you guys think?

Thanks in advance,

Jake

#2

Congrats on your first mobile release!

I would highly suggest learning LibGDX because then you only have to write the app once. :slight_smile: Then, you can deploy to Android, desktop, and iOS (through RoboVM). It is actually very easy to learn, and there are great tutorials on the web. Take a look at the LibGDX wiki and Dermetfan for some great tutorials.

#3

I agree with longarm. Make use of LibGDX, it’s a great tool, and definitely check out dermetfan’s tutorials. I kinda know him personally and he’s a very smart and talented guy.

#4

I’m the opposite… I’m programming apps for android with libgdx because I’m too lazy to learn the android sdk :smiley:

#5

Ugh now I remember why I hate GDX. I can never even make a freaking project.

#6

I think that’s a fairly unfair reason to hate the whole thing. (Unless you’re just being melodramatic :P)

#7

I cant find android build tools 19.0.1. To be honest I’ve never been able to get past the stupid create a project screen. So I’ve nvr even wrote a line of code with LidGDX before.

#8

Interesting, I’ve never had a problem, always a few clicks and then I’m down to business. That may be because I don’t try to integrate Android, which usually finds a way to mess with things.

#9

Blah screw it. I’ll just manage 3 different source codes. LibGDX always seems to fail for me when I feel like giving it another shot.

#10

Well. Just understand the errors, investigate the possible causes, fix them and go on. You’ll learn a lot in this process, too!

I am doing enterprise admin, hardware/software infrastructure and devop at work and some developers’ attitude of giving up or crying for spoon feeding if even the simplest problems occur drives me mad >:(

I don’t mean it personal, though :wink:

#11

You have to open the SDK manager and update/download the most recent SDK’s through it.
If need help,sent pm and add me in skype.

PS : DermetFan is awesome.

#12

I had the same problem at first with LibGdx. It’s really worth learning because of the multiplatform use others explained. It’s also fairly easy (In my opinion). Try setting up a project and (simply) ask us if you have any questions. ;D

#13

Agree with jay.

DK Manager

The Android SDK separates tools, platforms, and other components into packages you can download using the SDK Manager. For example, when the SDK Tools are updated or a new version of the Android platform is released, you can use the SDK Manager to quickly download them to your environment.

You can launch the SDK Manager in one of the following ways:

From Eclipse (with ADT), select Window > Android SDK Manager.
From Android Studio, select Tools > Android > SDK Manager.
On Windows, double-click the SDK Manager.exe file at the root of the Android SDK directory.
On Mac or Linux, open a terminal and navigate to the tools/ directory in the Android SDK, then execute android sdk.
You can select which packages you want to download by toggling the checkboxes on the left, then click Install to install the selected packages.

Figure 1. The Android SDK Manager shows the SDK packages that are available, already installed, or for which an update is available.

There are several different packages available for the Android SDK. The table below describes most of the available packages and where they’re located in your SDK directory once you download them.

SOURCE :
LINK : http://developer.android.com/tools/help/sdk-manager.html

#14

@Jacob

If you are new to Android there are a lot of things to get your head around. Definitely use Android Studio which is where all new Android tools efforts is focused from Google from here on out. The build system called Gradle drives normal Android app builds and also LibGDX builds. Gradle can be a bit of a head scratcher until you get a handle of what it can do and any of the “pain points” on getting a project setup and also updating all of the Android SDK / build tools, etc.

The LibGDX GUI project creation tool does a pretty good job, but isn’t always updated in lock step with the Android build tools updates or gradle versions supported by the absolute latest Android Studio version. Often after making a LibGDX project one has to go in and modify the gradle files to get things to build if your Android SDK setup is ahead of GDX, etc. It’s not too hard once you know the pain points. It should be noted though that similar pain points exist with Gradle for normal Android app development w/ Android Studio.

I’d say consider the learning curve of Android Studio, Gradle, and LibGDX project configuration to be similar problems. Once you learn any pain points it’s easy to set up projects for cross-platform builds. There probably is a tutorial or two waiting to be written about this last mile setup issues. I’ve successfully used LibGDX / Android Studio for desktop, Android, and iOS builds. I really like being able to do easy command line builds via Gradle as well especially for iOS where one doesn’t need to open Xcode.