My First Android Application

            Recently I have finished development of my first android application and I have published to market, you can download it from here Update Facebook / Twiiter Status, it was a great experience. the purpose of this post is to give you the prerequisites to start developing your first android application:

1. Integrated Development Environment

           most posts on internet is recommend to use Eclipse, you can download it from here

The "Eclipse Classic" version is recommended

2. Installing the SDK

           The SDK starter package is not a full development environment—it includes only the core SDK Tools, which you can use to download the rest of the SDK components (such as the latest Android platform).  get the latest version of the SDK starter package from HERE

3.Installing the ADT Plugin for Eclipse

          ADT is a plugin for the Eclipse IDE, to install ADT follow the below steps:

              a. Start Eclipse, then select Help > Install New Software....

              b. Click Add, in the top-right corner.

              c. In the Add Repository dialog that appears, enter "ADT Plugin" for the Name and the following URL for the Location: http://dl-ssl.google.com/android/eclipse/

              d. Click OK

4.  Adding Platforms and Other Components

           The last step in setting up your SDK is using the Android SDK and AVD Manager (a tool included in the SDK starter package) to download essential SDK components into your development environment.

You can launch the Android SDK and AVD Manager From within Eclipse, select Window > Android SDK and AVD Manager. 

        a. In the Android SDK and AVD Manager, choose Available Packages in the left panel.

         b. In the right panel, expand the Android Repository list to display the components available for installation.

        c. Select at least one platform to install, and click Install Selected. If you aren't sure which platform to install, use the latest version.

5. Create an Android Virtual Device (AVD)

AVD is an optional step you can ignore it and debug and run your application directly to your android phone, but creating AVD is  recommended

To create an AVD:

     a. In Eclipse, select Window > Android SDK and AVD Manager.

     b. Select Virtual Devices in the left panel.

     c. Click New....

     d. The Create New AVD dialog appears.

     e. Type the name of the AVD, such as "my_avd".

     f. Choose a target

         The target is the platform (that is, the version of the Android SDK, such as 2.3.3) you want to run on the emulator. For this tutorial, choose the latest platform that you have installed and ignore the rest of the fields

      g. Click Create AVD.

Now we have finished the preparing of android development environment

now open eclipse and select File > New > Project....

That is All 

I hope this article helps you to start develop your first android application 

The main reference in this post:
http://developer.android.com/resources/tutorials/hello-world.html

Thanks,
Mohammed AlShafe'i