OK, lets give that lonely solitary first blog post some company by adding one that might be worth reading. (I said might)
I thought I’d make my first real blog post about the tools I use as a developer, like many people have done before.
I always find it interesting comparing how people work and what tools they use so you can improve your own tool set and hopefully pass on some useful tips to other people. I’ve also created a new section on the website for my most used tools and any new ones that I find over time. I’ll keep this updated as I discover new and useful tools.
I currently develop in Windows (although I have used Mac in the past and miss it a bit) so all tools are based on this assumption although a lot of them work on Mac too.
Core tools
1) Android Studio > Long awaited superb IDE for all your Android dev needs
2) Genymotion emulator > Fast emulator and what the native one should be
3) SQLSpy (Windows)> Cool freeware tool for looking at sqlite dbs when the need arises
Chrome plugins (for ref material and api lookups)
1) Android SDK Search > Great shortcut to android sdk & its api
2) Android SDK Samples > Direct search for samples as you browse SDK docs
3) Octotree > Great for looking through GitHub projects by adding a tree view
Android Studio Plugins
1) Parcelable > Saves time every time you want to make a class parcelable
2) Material Icons > Get material icons resource directly in studio
3) Live Templates > Not really a plugin but great feature of AS that can be a time saver (Link to example templates)
Web tools / resources
1) JSON Viewer/Editor > Simple JSON editor & formatter
2) JSON to POJO > Simple online resource to convert JSON to ‘plain old java objects’
3) Gradle Please > Get way of resolving gradle (Android build tool) dependances
4) Android Arsenal > All the goodness that is open source libraries
Design
1) Android Asset Studio > Great first stop for quick icons, images and 9-patch drawables
2) Android design cheatsheet > Good reference for Android design
3) ColorHexA > Handy Colour Matching/Picking Website
4) Place it > Ready made app promotion images
Testing
1) Sony Remote Device Lab – Virtual device lab, useful if you don’t have many real test devices
2) Samsung Test Lab – Same as above but for Samsung devices
I’ve tried to keep the list relatively short in this post so it doesn’t spiral into a massive list of links. I’d say the above are most used and useful ones that help my productivity.
I’d love to hear of any favs of yours or any ones I’ve missed that you find essential. I hope people find these useful and not too obvious.