Android Studio 2 Release Notes

Android Studio Release Notes

See also

1. Installing Android Studio

Android Studio is the official IDE for Android development, and with a single download includes everything you need to begin developing Android apps:

• IntelliJ IDE + Android Studio plugin
• Android SDK Tools
• Android Platform-tools
• A version of the Android platform
• Android Emulator with an Android system image including Google Play Services

For an introduction to Android Studio, read the Android Studio guide.

Periodic updates are pushed to Android Studio without requiring you to update your Android project. To manually check for updates, select Help > Check for update (on Mac, select Android Studio > Check for updates).

Revisions

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The sections below provide notes about successive releases of Android Studio, as denoted by revision number.

Android Studio v2.0.0 (April 2016)

Note: If you are developing for the N Developer Preview, you should use Android Studio 2.1 Preview. Android Studio 2.0 does not support all the features required to target the N Preview. To learn more, read about how to properly set up your developer environment for the N Preview.

Instant Run:

• Android Studio now deploys clean builds faster than ever before. Additionally, pushing incremental code changes to the emulator or a physical device is now almost instantaneous. Review your updates without redeploying a new debug build or, in many cases, without restarting the app.
• Instant Run supports pushing the following changes to a running app:
  • Changes to the implementation of an existing instance method or static method
  • Changes to an existing app resource
  • Changes to structural code, such as a method signature or a static field (requires a target device running API level 21 or higher).
• Read the documentation to learn more about Instant Run.
  Note: Instant Run is supported only when you deploy the debug build variant, use Android Plugin for Gradle version 2.0.0 or higher, and configure your app's module-level build.gradle file for minSdkVersion 15 or higher. For the best performance, configure your app for minSdkVersion 21 or higher.

New additions to Lint:

• Inspection of switch statements using @IntDef annotated integers to make sure all constants are handled. To quickly add any missing statements, use the the intention action drop-down menu and select Add Missing @IntDef Constants.
• Flags for incorrect attempts to use string interpolation to insert version numbers in the build.gradle file.
• Flags for anonymous classes that extend the Fragment class.
• Flags for native code in unsafe locations, such as the res/ and asset/ folders. This flag encourages storing native code in the libs/ folder, which is then securely packaged into the application’s data/app-lib/ folder at install time.AOSP: #169950
• Flags for unsafe calls to Runtime.load() and System.load() calls. AOSP: #179980
• Find and remove any unused resources by selecting Refactor > Remove Unused Resources from the menu bar. Unused resource detection now supports resources only referenced by unused resources, references in raw files such as .html image references, and tools:keep and tools:discard attributes used by the Gradle resource shrinker, while considering inactive source sets (such as resources used in other build flavors) and properly handling static field imports.
• Checks that implicit API references are supported on all platforms targeted by minSdkVersion.
• Flags improper usage of RecyclerView and Parcelable.
• @IntDef, @IntRange, and @Size inspections are now also checked for int arrays and varargs.

Additional Improvements:

• Optimized for Android Emulator 2.0, which is faster than ever before, supports a wider range of virtual devices, and features a drastically improved UI. To learn more about the new emulator, read the SDK Tools release notes.
• Improvements to the Android Virtual Device Manager:
  • System images are now categorized under the following tabs: Recommended, x86, and Other.
  • Under advanced settings, you can enable multi-core support and specify the number of cores the emulator can use.
  • Under advanced settings, you can determine how graphics are rendered on the emulator by selecting one of the following options:
    • Hardware: use you computer's graphics card for faster rendering.
    • Software: use software-based rendering.
    • Auto: let the emulator decide the best option. This is the default setting.
• Improved AAPT packaging times by specifying deploy target before the app is built. This allows Android Studio to efficiently package only the resources required by the specified device.
• Added Cloud Test Lab integration to provide on-demand app testing with the convenience and scalability of a cloud service. Learn more about how you can use Cloud Test Lab with Android Studio.
• Added a preview of the new GPU Debugger. For graphics intensive applications, you can now visually step through your OpenGL ES code to optimize your app or game.
• Added support for Google App Indexing integration and testing. Add deep links, app indexing, and search functionality to your apps to help drive more traffic to your app, discover which app content is used most, and attract new users. Test and validate your URL links in your app all within Android Studio. Learn more about implementing and testingDeep Link and App Indexing APIs.
• Upgrades from the latest IntelliJ 15 release, including improved code analysis and performance. See What's New in IntelliJ for a complete description of the new features and enhancements.
• XML editor auto-complete now adds quotations marks when completing attributes. To check if this option is enabled, open the Setting or Preferences dialogue, navigate to Editor > General > Smart Keys, and check the box next to Add quotes for attribute value on attribute completion. Issue: 195113
• The XML editor now supports code completion for data binding expressions.

- wong chee tat :)