[Droidcon Vienna '19] My love-hate relationship with Android Studio

Android Studio is the tool of the trade hands down. When it comes to Android (app/library/IoT) development, the first thing that comes to mind is to install Android Studio and get going from there. However, it has not been a smooth road as expected for me. In my own experience, I talk about my love-hate relationship with Android Studio. I try to cover what Android Studio gets right and what it doesn't. The talk focuses on how to be embrace performance when Android Studio is the bottleneck in the workflow (slow build times and reduced productivity), how switching to a terminal and various tools that exist in the ecosystem can give Android developers the much-needed speed boost and in-depth view in their development workflow. By the end of this talk, you would have embraces a workflow that allows for increased productivity and faster development.

Google Slides: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1AagrH37yMNRna2GAnpBxa150vKo1_wD31bvh7U-2t9E/edit?usp=sharing

Event: https://web.archive.org/web/20190921195636/https://droidcon.at/schedule/#session-108

Transcript

2. The disclaimer @nisrulz 2
3. Where it started @nisrulz 3
4. What happened • Trying to build an Android Project ◦ Typical project ◦ Multi module 4 @nisrulz
5. What happened • Trying to build an Android Project ◦ Native code (NDK) ◦ Common dependencies: Retrofit, Dagger, Rx, Support Libraries, etc 5 @nisrulz
6. What happened • Laptop: Macbook Air (early 2014) ◦ Core i5(1.4 Ghz) ◦ 4GB DDR3 RAM ◦ 128GB SSD ◦ Intel HD Graphics (1.5GB) 6 @nisrulz
7. What happened My build times: ~37 min 7 @nisrulz
8. What happened My build times: ~37 min Not just the first time, but every other build after that too 8 @nisrulz
9. What happened My build times: ~37 min …and not only that 9 @nisrulz
10. What happened ...but also 10 @nisrulz
11. What happened With a few gradle tweaks in the project. 11 @nisrulz https://guides.gradle.org/performance/
12. What happened Build times down to ~28 min With a few gradle tweaks in the project. 12 @nisrulz https://guides.gradle.org/performance/
13. What happened 13 @nisrulz After exhausting all possibilities.
14. What happened Switched to Terminal builds and VS Code Editor. 14 @nisrulz + After exhausting all possibilities.
15. What happened 15 @nisrulz +
16. What happened 16 @nisrulz + Final result.
17. What happened 17 @nisrulz + Build times down to ~3 minutes(89% reduction) Final result.
18. 18 @nisrulz How I reduced my Android build times by 89%
19. 19 @nisrulz I was just happy that I was not in a spot like this guy
20. The experience. @nisrulz 20
21. The experience State of speed: Slow 21 @nisrulz
22. The experience Basically this... State of speed: Slow 22 @nisrulz
23. The experience State of speed: Slow 23 @nisrulz
24. The experience State of reliability: Critical issues 24 @nisrulz
25. The experience State of reliability: Critical issues 25 @nisrulz https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/133864394
26. The experience State of reliability: Critical issues 26 @nisrulz https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/133864394
27. The experience State of reliability: Critical issues 27 @nisrulz ~3 months https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/133864394
28. The experience State of reliability: Finicky 28 @nisrulz
29. The experience State of reliability: Finicky 29 @nisrulz
30. The experience To a point where someone had to build this: A nuke script! https://github.com/rock3r/deep-clean 30 @nisrulz
31. The experience - Tweet dated: 26 July 2019 - Android Studio 3.5 Stable (released): 20 August 2019 > Was already on bleeding edge 31 @nisrulz https://twitter.com/nisrulz/status/1154760 114026532864
32. The experience 32 @nisrulz https://twitter.com/nisrulz/status/1154758411684392961
33. The experience State of polish: 33 @nisrulz https://www.reddit.com/r/androiddev/c omments/d271hc/wildly_infuriating/
34. The experience State of choice: Forced, deviates from base 34 @nisrulz
35. The experience State of memory consumption: Not suitable 35 @nisrulz
36. The experience State of memory consumption: Not suitable 36 @nisrulz
37. The experience State of memory consumption: Not suitable 37 @nisrulz
38. The experience State of CPU consumption: Unacceptable 38 @nisrulz
39. The experience State of CPU consumption: Unacceptable 39 @nisrulz
40. The experience State of updates: Unreliable 40 @nisrulz
41. The experience State of result: false-positives 41 @nisrulz
42. The experience State of result: false-positives 42 @nisrulz
43. The experience State of tools: Limited 43 @nisrulz Energy Profiler
44. The experience State of tools: Limited 44 @nisrulz Constraint Layout Editor
45. The experience State of tools: Limited 45 @nisrulz Resource Manager
46. The experience State of tools: Limited 46 @nisrulz Apply Changes
47. The experience State of tools: Limited 47 @nisrulz Apply Changes https://medium.com/androiddevelopers/android-studio-pro ject-marble-apply-changes-e3048662e8cd
48. The experience State of tools: Limited 48 @nisrulz Apply Changes https://developer.android.com/studio/known-issues#appl y-changes-ki-verification-errors
49. The experience State of tools: Limited 49 @nisrulz Deployments
50. The experience To summarize, Android Studio is • Slow • Finicky • Forces its defaults and deviates from its base 50 @nisrulz
51. The experience To summarize, Android Studio is • New tools are limiting ◦ Energy Profiler ◦ Constraint Layout Editor ◦ Resource Manager ◦ Apply Changes ◦ Deployments options 51 @nisrulz
52. The experience To summarize, Android Studio is • Uses a lot of Memory and CPU • Has versioning quality problem (Stable, Beta, Alpha) 52 @nisrulz
53. and Workarounds. @nisrulz 53
54. Slow, but why? • Gradle Configuration • Indexing changes in code • Plugins • Code Insight: Inplace analysis/inspections 54 @nisrulz
55. Configuring Gradle for speed Use the latest Gradle release. 55 @nisrulz Incremental compile 1000-module Java project https://gradle.org/whats-new/gradle-5/
56. Configuring Gradle for speed Use the latest Gradle release. Caveat: Update to latest Canary release of Android Studio, since the support for latest Gradle is tied to Android Studio release. 56 @nisrulz
57. Configuring Gradle for speed Build Cache: Reuse outputs from any previous invocation of Gradle // Add this in your global gradle.properties file // at ~/.gradle/gradle.properties // Enable Build Cache android.enableBuildCache=true 57 @nisrulz
58. Configuring Gradle for speed Daemon: Dedicated background process to improve performance of Gradle // Add this in your global gradle.properties file // at ~/.gradle/gradle.properties // Enable Gradle Daemon org.gradle.daemon=true 58 @nisrulz
59. Configuring Gradle for speed Allocate memory: Increase the memory provided to JVM // Add this in your global gradle.properties file // at ~/.gradle/gradle.properties // Configure allocated memory org.gradle.jvmargs=-Xmx2048m -XX:MaxPermSize=512m 59 @nisrulz
60. Configuring Gradle for speed Parallel builds: Force Gradle to execute tasks in parallel as long as those tasks are in different projects. // Add this in your global gradle.properties file // at ~/.gradle/gradle.properties // Enable Parallel builds org.gradle.parallel=true 60 @nisrulz
61. Configuring Gradle for speed Execution: Prefer running specific task over general ones // Creates AAR for every module and all variants! ./gradlew assemble // Creates AAR for every module’s debug variant ./gradlew assembleDebug // Creates AAR for only `mymodule` in debug variant! ./gradlew :mymodule:assembleDebug 61 @nisrulz
62. Reducing Indexing If your codebase has files changing on each build, it will trigger indexing. 62 @nisrulz
63. Reducing Indexing Suggestions: • Avoid using annotation processors Or use incremental annotation processors • Using implementation as much as possible, instead of api. • Use static build config values i.e version code, version name, resources 63 @nisrulz
64. Plugins: Inspect what you use Android Studio comes with a lot of Plugins enabled, which contribute to its sluggishness. 64 @nisrulz
65. Plugins: Inspect what you use Solution: Check and disable what you don’t need. 65 @nisrulz
66. Code Insight Although required, it does make Android Studio slow. Solution: Enable Power Save Mode 66 @nisrulz
67. Terminal to the rescue. @nisrulz 67
68. ADB: Android Debug Bridge • Command Line tool • Shipped with Android SDK • Allows interacting with debuggable Android devices • Client-Server program • Available as: adb <param> 68 @nisrulz
69. ADB: Android Debug Bridge • Install App ◦ adb install path_to_apk • Uninstall App ◦ adb uninstall com.package.name 69 @nisrulz
70. ADB: Android Debug Bridge • Copy a file from System to Android device ◦ adb push path_to_file /path_to_dir_on_device • Copy a file from Android device to System ◦ adb pull /path_to_dir_on_device/file.png ~/path_on_system/ 70 @nisrulz
71. Other tools via ADB shell • Activity Manager: am • Emulator: emulator • Package Manager: pm • Device Policy Manager: dpm • Logcat: logcat • Dumpsys: dumpsys ...and many more. 71 @nisrulz
72. Gradle Android projects use Gradle as the build system. Each Android project has a gradle wrapper, which is a proxy to local Gradle binary. Android Studio invokes Gradle to execute tasks 72 @nisrulz
73. Gradle The same can be done via terminal: ./gradlew assembleDebug > is equivalent to Make in Android studio 73 @nisrulz
74. Lint This is part of the gradle tasks, which checks the code for structural inconsistencies, thus allowing to write more maintainable code. // Execute lint in project ./gradlew lint > Similar to executing via Android Studio 74 @nisrulz
75. Lint 75 @nisrulz
76. Detekt https://github.com/arturbosch/detekt • Static code analyzer for Kotlin language. • Helps to detect code smell in kotlin codebase 76 @nisrulz
77. Detekt https://github.com/arturbosch/detekt • Highly configurable • Enables complexity analysis of the code • Also has a gradle plugin to setup in the project 77 @nisrulz
78. Detekt https://github.com/arturbosch/detekt // Execute at the root of the project java -jar /path_to/detekt-cli.jar --debug 78 @nisrulz
79. Detekt // Execute at the root of the project java -jar /path_to/detekt-cli.jar --debug // Output Complexity Report: - 686 lines of code (loc) - 563 source lines of code (sloc) - 425 logical lines of code (lloc) - 32 comment lines of code (cloc) ... - 218 code smells per 1000 lloc Project Statistics: - number of properties: 73 - number of functions: 22 - number of classes: 5 - number of packages: 3 - number of kt files: 5 79 @nisrulz
80. Classyshark https://github.com/google/andr oid-classyshark Tool for decompiling and analyzing internals of an APK such as dex Count. Works with .apk, .jar, .aar, .class, .dex or .so files. 80 @nisrulz
81. Classyshark https://github.com/google/andr oid-classyshark Execute: java -jar ClassyShark.jar 81 @nisrulz
82. Classyshark 82 @nisrulz
83. Classyshark 83 @nisrulz
84. AVD Manager • Command line tool to create and manage Android Virtual Devices (AVD) • Located in android_sdk/tools/bin/ 84 @nisrulz
85. AVD Manager // List all avd avdmanager list // Create a new avd avdmanager create avd -n myavd -k "system-images;android-29;google_apis;x86" // Remove avd avdmanager delete avd -n myavd 85 @nisrulz
86. Scrcpy https://github.com/Genymobile/scrcpy Command-line tool for mirroring and controlling your device. // Start mirroring the device scrcpy //Record while mirroring scrcpy --record file.mp4 86 @nisrulz
87. Scrcpy https://github.com/Genymobile/scrcpy Command-line tool for mirroring and controlling your device. // Show touches scrcpy --show-touches // Switch off screen scrcpy --turn-screen-off 87 @nisrulz
88. SDK Manager • Command line tool to manage Android SDK • Used to view, install, remove packages in Android SDK • Located in android_sdk/tools/bin/ 88 @nisrulz
89. SDK Manager // List all available packages sdkmanager --list // Install packages sdkmanager packages // Remove packages sdkmanager --uninstall packages // Update all packages sdkmanager --update 89 @nisrulz
90. Battery Historian https://github.com/google/battery-historian • Python based tool • Used to inspect battery related information and events, while the device was not plugged in 90 @nisrulz
91. Battery Historian https://github.com/google/battery-historian • For Android device running Android 5.0 Lollipop (API level 21) and later. • Useful since the new Energy Profilers are Android Studio only. 91 @nisrulz
92. Battery Historian 92 @nisrulz
93. Battery Historian 93 @nisrulz
94. IntelliJ Idea • Android Studio is based on IntelliJ Idea ◦ IntelliJ Idea can be used for Android Development • Faster for development 94 @nisrulz
95. IntelliJ Idea • Consumes less memory/CPU than Android Studio • Full plugin support • More frequent updates 95 @nisrulz
96. IntelliJ Idea • Doesn’t have the Android Studio specific tools ◦ Constraint Layout Editor ◦ Profilers ◦ Resource Manager ◦ Apply Changes 96 @nisrulz
97. Mainframer • Build your project remotely on a better hardware • Uses rsync to sync changes over ssh and then builds the project, syncs the apk back. https://github.com/buildfoundation/mainframer 97 @nisrulz
98. Automation • Alias creation enables executing complex tool configuration as a simple command. Example: // Create alias to push release apk to Downloads folder in Device alias pushReleaseToDevice="adb push ./apk-release.apk /sdcard/Downloads" // Execute pushReleaseToDevice ↵ 98 @nisrulz
99. Automation • Command line tools enable ability to include in scripts. Using alias simplify the process. # Install APK to device # Use: apkinstall app-debug.apk alias apkinstall="adb devices | tail -n +2 | cut -sf 1 | xargs -I X adb -s X install -r $1" 99 @nisrulz
100. Automation • Command line tools enable ability to include in scripts. Using alias simplify the process. # As an alternative to apkinstall, you can also do just ./gradlew installDebug # # Alias for building and installing the apk to connected device # Run at the root of your project # Usage: buildAndInstallApk alias buildAndInstallApk='./gradlew assembleDebug && apkinstall ./app/build/outputs/apk/debug/app-debug.apk' 100 @nisrulz
101. Automation • Command line tools enable ability to include in scripts. Using alias simplify the process. # Launch your debug apk on your connected device # Execute at the root of your android project # Usage: launchDebugApk function launchDebugApk(){ local APP_PACKAGE_NAME=$(getPackageName ./app/build/outputs/apk/debug/app-debug.apk) adb shell monkey -p $APP_PACKAGE_NAME 1 1>/dev/null 2>&1; } 101 @nisrulz
102. Automation • Command line tools enable ability to include in scripts. Using alias simplify the process. # ------------- Single command to build+install+launch apk------------# # Execute at the root of your android project # Use as: buildInstallLaunchDebugApk alias buildInstallLaunchDebugApk="buildAndInstallApk && launchDebugApk" 102 @nisrulz
103. Automation • Command line tools enable ability to include in scripts. Using alias simplify the process. # Take screenshot alias screenshot="adb exec-out screencap -p > screen-$(nowdate).png" # Remove app alias rmapp="adb devices | tail -n +2 | cut -sf 1 | xargs -I X adb -s X uninstall $1" # Clear data for app alias clearapp="adb devices | tail -n +2 | cut -sf 1 | xargs -I X adb -s X shell pm clear $1" More automation aliases: https://gist.github.com/nisrulz/b0e79f2b3e27f99ca8b5dba9db6281ec 103 @nisrulz
104. Automation++ • adbe : ADB Enhanced - Script to execute adb commands on all connected devices. # Usage # Run any command you would run with adb for all the connected devices # ./adbe <command> is the equivalent of ./adb -s <serial number> <command> # # Examples # ./adbe version ./adbe install demo_app.apk 104 @nisrulz https://github.com/nisrulz/terminal-utils/blob/master/android/adbe.sh
105. Automation • Use gradle plugin to setup all the automation commands Novoda’s Gradle Android command plugin creates handy gradle tasks in the project itself. https://github.com/novoda/gradle-android-command-plugin 105 @nisrulz
106. Automation • Use gradle plugin to setup all the automation commands Some commands available: • installDevice<Variant> - installs the app on a specific device. • uninstallDevice<Variant> - uninstalls the app from a specific device. • run<Variant> - installs and launches the app on a specific device. and many more. Execute: ./gradlew installDeviceDebug 106 @nisrulz
107. The experience. @nisrulz 107
108. The experience • Project Marble Project Marble is a multi-release and focused effort on making fundamental features of the IDE rock-solid and polished. 108 @nisrulz
109. The experience • Project Marble Already made improvements under: 1. UX and performance in Layout Editor 2. Instant Run has been replaced by Apply Changes 3. Emulator performance, Snapshots 4. Lint performance 109 @nisrulz
110. The experience • Project Marble Issues: https://developer.android.com/studio/known-issues 110 @nisrulz
111. The experience • APK Analyzer(GUI) 111 @nisrulz
112. The experience • APK Analyzer(Command line) // To print the file size of the apk in a human readable format //Output: 1.7MB 112 @nisrulz
113. The experience • APK Analyzer // Prints the application ID, version code, and version name. // Output: in.excogitation.deviceinfo 17 2.0.1 apkanalyzer apk summary myapp.apk 113 @nisrulz
114. The experience • APK Analyzer // Prints an estimate of the download size of the APK. // Output: 1.4MB apkanalyzer -h apk download-size myapp.apk More info: https://developer.android.com/studio/command-line/apkanalyzer 114 @nisrulz
115. The experience • Simpleperf A versatile command-line CPU profiling tool included in the NDK for Mac, Linux, and Windows. 115 @nisrulz
116. The experience • Simpleperf # Find the percentage of time spent in object modules simpleperf report --sort tid,comm # See how function calls are related, call-graph simpleperf report -g More info: https://developer.android.com/ndk/guides/simpleperf 116 @nisrulz
117. The experience • NDK-Stack It allows you to symbolize stack traces from adb logcat It replaces any address inside a shared library with the corresponding <source-file>:<line-number> from your source code, making debugging easier. 117 @nisrulz
118. The experience • NDK-Stack # Live mapping adb logcat | $NDK/ndk-stack -sym $PROJECT_PATH/obj/local/armeabi-v7a More info: https://developer.android.com/ndk/guides/ndk-stack 118 @nisrulz
119. The experience • Other tools ◦ NDK-GDB: Tool to start a command-line native debugging session. ◦ ASan (Address Sanitizer): Memory error detector for C/C++ 119 @nisrulz
120. The experience • Other tools ◦ systrace: Tool to collect and inspect timing information across all processes running on your device at the system level. ◦ dumpsys: Tool to View the Java heap and memory allocations with Memory Profiler 120 @nisrulz
121. The experience • Other tools ◦ bundletool: To recreate, inspect, and verify Google Play’s server-side build of your app’s APKs. ◦ perfetto: collect performance information from your Android devices via the Android Debug Bridge (ADB) 121 @nisrulz
122. The experience • Other tools 122 @nisrulz
123. The experience • Improving on-demand dependency inclusion 123 @nisrulz
124. The experience • … and a lot of cool new things the Android Tools team builds 124 @nisrulz
125. Links/References Gradle Performance Tips: https://guides.gradle.org/performance/ Project Marble: https://medium.com/androiddevelopers/tagged/project-marble Blog Post: https://android.jlelse.eu/how-i-reduced-my-android-build-times-by-89-4242e51 ce946 Disable Plugins: https://www.reddit.com/r/androiddev/comments/7sxhig/android_studio_slower_wh en_using_kotlin/dt88pgn/ Battery Historian: https://developer.android.com/studio/profile/battery-historian 125 @nisrulz
126. Credits Icon made by Freepik from www.flaticon.com 126 @nisrulz
127. 127 twitter.com/nisrulz github.com/nisrulz www.nisrulz.com
128. 128 twitter.com/nisrulz github.com/nisrulz www.nisrulz.com