In the previous blog post, we setup Android Studio and also setup an Android app project. Today, let’s continue where we left off by getting familiar with the interface of Android Studio.
Android Studio is highly customizable, but the default mode is best, at least for now. After following the steps in part 1, your screen should look like this:
Click on the image to view the screenshot in more detail. If your screen looks different, try selecting “Android” from the drop-down arrow on the left, then opening “app.”
As you may have noticed, Android Studio provides us with tabs (see the red arrow). You can easily switch between different files using the tabs near the top of the screen. Currently, content_main.xml is open. Pressing the “x” near the name of the file will close that particular file. To open it back up again, you can select “app” from the left of the screen (see red circle). After double-clicking “app,” double-click “res,” then “layout,” then double-click content_main.xml.
Next, let’s add some text to our app. We want the app to say, “Welcome!” To do this, let’s focus on the Palette panel, highlighted below.
Next, let’s click-and-drag from “TextView” to our main screen.
Your screen should now look like this:
Great! Now let’s see how we can view our app on a physical device like a phone or tablet, or an emulator. We’ll continue in the next blog post!
