Masa: Maven Plug-ins for Android development

I was tipped by Shane Isbell about Masa which is a project developing and providing Maven plug-ins for Android development. The currently released version 1.1 supports Android SDK 1.5. The project also provides a Maven repository at address http://repository.slideme.org/nexus/content/groups/public/. I will try to use the Maven plug-ins and report about my experiences.

Thank you Shane! You can read more about Masa and other Android related storied from Shane's blog.

Optimizing PNG Bitmap Files

PNG is the preferred bitmap graphics format for developing Android applications. If your application is using PNG bitmaps intensively, it is a good idea to try to reduce the size of the PNG resource files using various optimization techniques and tools. I did some googling and after a quick search I found the following tools:

• AdvanceCOMP: Linux, OSX, Windos
• ImageOptim: OSX. Uses a number of optimization libraries such as OptiPNG
• OptiPNG: Windows, Linux, OSX
• PNGCrush: Windows, Linux
• PNGOptimizer: Windows

More information about PNG optimization can be found, for instance, from PNG-Tech website. Feel free to hint me if you know any good tools not listed above.

Maven Plug-in for Android Development

If you are a Maven fanboy (or just a plain user), there is a Google code project developing and providing a Maven plug-in for Android development. The plug-in lets you to build Android application projects (apk) with Maven and with minimal configuration. The plug-in project has also produced a decent Getting Started Guide. In addition, since the project deploys to Maven Central, you do not need to bother to configure any repositories of your own.

I have used Maven in some past Java projects at work. Since my own experiences in using Maven have been mostly positive, I plan to take this Maven plug-in into test use.

MOTODEV Studio for Android

I downloaded today MOTODEV Studio for Android. The tool is targeted to be a complete Eclipse based development package for developing Android applications. The key tool features are described to be as follows:

• Eclipse 3.4 based tool environment including Android Development Tools (ADT)
• Automated updating of ADT
  
• Advanced support for templates and code snippets
• Application signing support
• Marketing integration via connecting to Android application stores
  
• Update Manager for updating the installed components
• Context-sensitive help and integration documentation
• Handset emulators including the Motorola-specific ones
• Application creation wizards for creating implementations of the most common and important framework classes
  
• Virtual device lab for launching applications on real handsets hosted remotely at DeviceAnywhere, across carriers and regions.
• Package deployment supporting easy loading of developed applications to handsets and emulators.
• A dedicated Eclipse perspective
• Running and debugging application in Motorola handset

The key features list sounds very interesting and promising. It seems to me that Motorola is making a big effort and investments to enter into Android economy. I will definitively give a try for MOTODEV Studio. I will report my experiences and findings in this blog in near future. Stay tuned.

I am interested to receive your comments about this particular tool and other Android development tools currently available.