docs/html/guide/developing/tools/index.jd

page.title=Tools Overview
@jd:body

<img src="{@docRoot}assets/images/android_wrench.png" alt="" align="right">

<p>The Android SDK includes a variety of custom tools that help you develop mobile 
applications on the Android platform. The most important of these are the Android 
Emulator and the Android Development Tools plugin for Eclipse, but the SDK also 
includes a variety of other tools for debugging, packaging, and installing your 
applications on the emulator. </p>
    
 <dl>
  <dt><a href="adt.html">Android Development Tools Plugin</a> (for the Eclipse IDE)</dt>
          <dd>The ADT plugin adds powerful extensions to the Eclipse integrated environment, 
          making creating and debugging your Android applications easier and faster. If you 
          use Eclipse, the ADT plugin gives you an incredible boost in developing Android 
          applications.</dd>
  <dt><a href="emulator.html">Android Emulator</a></dt>
    <dd>A QEMU-based device-emulation tool that you can use to design, 
    debug, and test your applications in an actual Android run-time environment. </dd>

  <dt><a href="avd.html">Android Virtual Devices (AVDs)</a></dt>
    <dd>Virtual device configurations that you create, to model device
        characteristics in the Android Emulator. In each configuration, you can
        specify the Android platform to run, the hardware options, and the
        emulator skin to use. Each AVD functions as an independent device with 
        it's own storage for user data, SD card, and so on. </dd>

 <dt><a href="hierarchy-viewer.html">Hierarchy Viewer</a></dt>
    <dd>The Hierarchy Viewer tool allows you to debug and optimize your user interface.
        It provides a visual representation of your layout's hierarchy of Views and a magnified inspector
        of the current display with a pixel grid, so you can get your layout just right.
    </dd>

 <dt><a href="layoutopt.html">layoutopt</a></dt>
    <dd>This tool lets you quickly analyze your application's layouts for
efficiency.
    </dd>

	  <dt><a href="draw9patch.html">Draw 9-patch</a></dt>
	    <dd>The Draw 9-patch tool allows you to easily create a 
	    {@link android.graphics.NinePatch} graphic using a WYSIWYG editor. It also previews stretched 
	     versions of the image, and highlights the area in which content is allowed.
	    </dd>

  <dt><a href="ddms.html" >Dalvik Debug Monitor 
      Service</a> (ddms)</dt>
	    <dd>Integrated with Dalvik, the Android platform's custom VM, this tool 
	    lets you manage processes on an emulator or device and assists in debugging. 
	    You can use it to kill processes, select a specific process to debug, 
	    generate trace data, view heap and thread information, take screenshots 
	    of the emulator or device, and more. </dd>
			
  <dt><a href="adb.html" >Android Debug Bridge</a> (adb)</dt>
                  <dd>The adb tool lets you install your application's .apk files on an 
                  emulator or device and access the emulator or device from a command line. 
                  You can also use it to link a standard debugger to application code running 
                  on an Android emulator or device.</dd>

  <dt><a href="aapt.html">Android Asset 
          Packaging Tool</a> (aapt)</dt>
                  <dd>The aapt tool lets you create .apk files containing the binaries and 
                  resources of Android applications.</dd>

  <dt><a href="aidl.html" >Android Interface 
  Description Language</a> (aidl)</dt>
            <dd>Lets you generate code for an interprocess interface, such as what
            a service might use.</dd>

  <dt><a href="adb.html#sqlite">sqlite3</a></dt>
      <dd>Included as a convenience, this tool lets you access the SQLite data 
      files created and used by Android applications.</dd>

  <dt><a href="traceview.html" >Traceview</a></dt>
            <dd> This tool produces graphical analysis views of trace log data that you 
            can generate from your Android application. </dd>

  <dt><a href="othertools.html#mksdcard">mksdcard</a></dt>
            <dd>Helps you create a disk image that you can use with the emulator, 
                      to simulate the presence of an external storage card (such as an SD card).</dd>

  <dt><a href="othertools.html#dx">dx</a></dt>
                  <dd>The dx tool rewrites .class bytecode into Android bytecode 
                                          (stored in .dex files.)</dd>

  <dt><a href="monkey.html">UI/Application 
  Exerciser Monkey</a></dt>
      <dd>The Monkey is a program that runs on your emulator or device and generates pseudo-random
      streams of user events such as clicks, touches, or gestures, as well as a number of system-
      level events.  You can use the Monkey to stress-test applications that you are developing,
      in a random yet repeatable manner.</dd>

  <dt><a  href="othertools.html#android">android</a></dt>
            <dd>A script that lets you manage AVDs and generate <a
                        href="http://ant.apache.org/" title="Ant">Ant</a> build files that 
                        you can use to compile your Android applications. </dd>
                        
  <dt><a  href="zipalign.html">zipalign</a></dt>
            <dd>An important .apk optimization tool. This tool ensures that all uncompressed data starts
            with a particular alignment relative to the start of the file. This should always be used
            to align .apk files after they have been signed.</dd>
</dl>