Does it make sense to switch to the latest beta release right now ?

[Kaushik Gopal]

I use Android Studio solely for building my app. Traditionally, I've been aggressive about my updates to Android Studio because gradle allows me to divorce my build+release process from the IDE. 

The latests Android Studio Beta release 0.8.+ is clearly aimed at helping developers out with Android-L. There are some changes that make this a little difficult now: 

1. minsdk required to be 20. This has been discussed largely and i found a thread http://www.reddit.com/r/androiddev/comments/297xli/howto_use_the_v21_support_libs_on_older_versions/ that I believe, would help me to target older versions.

2. I currently use the v13 support library (since i support a minsdk version of 14+), so this cuts down on a lot of additional stuff that i don't require from the v4 & v7 support libraries (hello 64k method limit). But there doesn't exist a v13 library compatible with Android-L (yet)

So I guess, here's my question: Is the expectation that we wait until Android-L is released, before we update Android Studio, or can we expect to safely update to Android Studio 0.8.+ right now and expect to continue and release our apps in the interim to the play store targeting KitKat.

Cheers.

P.S: The demos for AS from Google I/O look really snazzy and the temptation to update is very strong.

[Xavier Ducrohet]

On Tue, Jul 1, 2014 at 11:27 AM, Kaushik Gopal <m...@kaush.co> wrote:

I use Android Studio solely for building my app. Traditionally, I've been aggressive about my updates to Android Studio because gradle allows me to divorce my build+release process from the IDE. 

The latests Android Studio Beta release 0.8.+ is clearly aimed at helping developers out with Android-L. There are some changes that make this a little difficult now: 

1. minsdk required to be 20. This has been discussed largely and i found a thread http://www.reddit.com/r/androiddev/comments/297xli/howto_use_the_v21_support_libs_on_older_versions/ that I believe, would help me to target older versions.

I'm not sure what you mean there. If you develop for L, then yes your minSdkVersion will be forced to 'L' (not 20). However if you don't, there will be no changes for you.

 

2. I currently use the v13 support library (since i support a minsdk version of 14+), so this cuts down on a lot of additional stuff that i don't require from the v4 & v7 support libraries (hello 64k method limit). But there doesn't exist a v13 library compatible with Android-L (yet)

You don't have to use the preview of version 21 of the support libs. Just use 20 or 19.x and you'll be fine. 

 

So I guess, here's my question: Is the expectation that we wait until Android-L is released, before we update Android Studio, or can we expect to safely update to Android Studio 0.8.+ right now and expect to continue and release our apps in the interim to the play store targeting KitKat.

If you don't care about L, you can upgrade.

 

Cheers.

P.S: The demos for AS from Google I/O look really snazzy and the temptation to update is very strong.

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Xavier Ducrohet
Android SDK Tech Lead
Google Inc.
http://developer.android.com | http://tools.android.com

Please do not send me questions directly. Thanks!

[Kaushik Gopal]

You're absolutely right. I upgraded Android Studio, added the fixes from the known issues, followed ur advice and all is well now. 

I think the first time around when i upgraded to beta, i was trying a bunch of things to get it to work and went down the wrong line of fixes. I therefore arrived at the incorrect conclusion that targeting L (minSdkVersion) was a requirement for using the new beta ><. Grr... 

 I understand now, that it's a requirement only if you are targeting dev for L. 

Thanks Xav!

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