This course will be retired on June 1, 2025.
Heads up! To view this whole video, sign in with your Courses account or enroll in your free 7-day trial. Sign In Enroll
Preview
Start a free Courses trial
to watch this video
Before we start changing anything, let’s take a brief tour of our tools so we can get familiar with what’s on the screen and where we write code or make changes.
Related Discussions
Have questions about this video? Start a discussion with the community and Treehouse staff.
Sign upRelated Discussions
Have questions about this video? Start a discussion with the community and Treehouse staff.
Sign up
[MUSIC]
0:00
Before we start changing anything, let's
take a brief tour of our tools so we can
0:04
get familiar with what's on the screen and
where we write code or make changes.
0:08
The very first thing we want
to do is start our emulator.
0:13
You may already have it up and
running from the previous stage.
0:17
But if you don't, it's a good idea
to start it ahead of time, so
0:20
it'll be ready when you need it.
0:22
Up here in the tool bar
are a few Android buttons.
0:24
This one with the phone is our
Android Virtual Device Manager.
0:27
And here just select the virtual
device you want to run, and
0:31
then click on the Start button.
0:35
Once the emulator window appears, we can
safely close our Virtual Device Manager.
0:38
We don't need to leave it
open to use the emulator.
0:44
All right, while that's loading,
let's take a look at Android Studio.
0:47
On the left-hand side, there should
be a view for the project structure.
0:51
If it's missing or you accidentally
close it, what you can do with
0:56
this button right here,
you can reopen it with this same button.
0:58
Or you can either go up to
View > Tool Windows > Project.
1:03
Or you can go down to the bottom, and
1:09
as we saw before, you can select
Project or other windows from here.
1:11
Also, remember that clicking
this icon toggles whether or
1:18
not we can see the Tool Window
shortcuts around the screen.
1:21
The project view is where we
can see all the files and
1:24
folders that make up our project.
1:27
By default, Android Studio displays our
project files in the Android Project View.
1:29
The Android Project View shows
a trimmed down version of your project
1:34
that provides quick access to the most
important files for Android development.
1:38
Let's click here and
switch to the Project View.
1:42
This view shows our entire project.
1:47
Here we can see our
FunFacts folder at the top.
1:49
Let's expand that.
1:52
Also, notice that our FunFacts folder is
in our Android Studio Projects folder that
1:55
we used when we first created the project.
2:00
In fact, if we switch to Finder or
Windows Explorer,
2:03
we can navigate to our project,
And sure enough,
2:06
we see that these files and folders
match up with what we see over here.
2:12
The most important folder in
our project is the app folder.
2:16
It contains all the resources and
raw materials that make up our app.
2:20
Let's take a look inside
to see how it's structured.
2:24
At the top is a build directory which
contains all the files that are built for
2:28
us by Android Studio.
2:32
We shouldn't ever need to change
anything in the build directory.
2:34
The next one is Libs which is short for
Libraries.
2:37
It contains any optional libraries of
code we might need in our project.
2:41
This will be empty for this project but
2:45
we'll show more on how to use
libraries in later courses.
2:47
Next up is SRC.
2:50
This is the important directory and
it's short for source.
2:51
I know source isn't that long of a word,
but programmers love abbreviations.
2:55
If we expand source,
we can see three more folders.
3:00
The Android test and test folders
are used for different kinds of testing.
3:04
But let's save those for later.
3:08
We are more concerned
with the main folder.
3:10
Inside main are all the files
we'll be working with.
3:13
Java files are placed here in Java folder,
3:16
and then below, we have res,
which is short for resources.
3:19
Resources are everything that we see or
hear in an app.
3:23
So in addition to images and sounds,
it also contains the layout files for
3:27
how our screens will be laid out.
3:31
If we keep going further, then inside res,
we find the layout folder.
3:33
And in here is one file named
activity_fun_facts.xml.
3:39
This is the file that is
already opened over here.
3:43
That's enough about project structure.
3:47
Let's change back to the Android view so
3:50
we don't have to do as much
digging to find the files we want.
3:51
So click up here, and then pick Android.
3:55
Great, now over here, this is
the main section for writing code, or
3:59
designing screen layouts.
4:02
We're currently looking at the Design view
for the activity_fun_facts layout file.
4:04
The Design view is a drag and
4:09
drop editor that lets us visually
manipulate the screen layout.
4:11
In the middle is a preview of how
it should look on a device, and
4:14
it looks just like what we saw a few
minutes ago when we ran the app.
4:18
Next to the preview is a blueprint view,
4:21
which shows us a little more detail
about how all our views are positioned.
4:24
When designing screen layouts,
4:27
sometimes we want to modify the code
directly instead of using the design view.
4:29
To modify the XML code, we can just click
on the Text tab here at the bottom.
4:33
Also, if you've clicked on the Text tab
and you're not seeing a preview over here,
4:38
you can show and hide the preview
by clicking on thisPreview button.
4:42
All right,
that should be enough to get us started.
4:47
In the next video,
we'll start making some changes.
4:50
You need to sign up for Treehouse in order to download course files.
Sign upYou need to sign up for Treehouse in order to set up Workspace
Sign up