Every Android developer appreciates working with an Android studio because of all the amazing capabilities that help with the creation of top-notch applications. Every time Android Studio releases a new update, it is clear that the creators are working to fix our problems, streamline processes, and introduce new features.
In this blog, we’ll discuss the new features of Android Studio that every developer should know.
Top 5 features of Android Studio: The following are the top 5 features of Android Studio you should be aware of.
- Layout Multi Preview: Layout Validation or Layout Multi Preview is a visual tool used to preview layouts in different configurations and devices and at the same point in time. You can use this feature to uncover any UI flaws because UI is often designed for a particular configuration or a particular screen size. You can access this functionality by clicking the Layout Validation tab in the IDE window’s upper right corner. There is a range of options to choose from depending on your needs.
- MotionLayout: Android studio helps manage widget animation and motion in our apps. It includes a motion layout. In other words a visual design editor. This functionality makes it simple to build, modify, and preview animations without having to build the application. With the help of Android Studio, you don’t need to create and modify complex XML files because the Motion Editor generates the values for us and supports changing constraint sets, transitions, etc.
- Build Analyzer: Since the beginning of Android development, one of the overhead components has been the build time of larger applications. Developers generally needed 10–20 minutes of build time to check the adjustments. This wastes the developer’s time and lowers efficiency. As a result, we take the time to simplify the app’s build time. The fact that we are unaware of which part of the build system is taking the longest is the situation’s most crucial component. The build analyser was added to Android Studio along with the Gradle plug-in. It helps in the detection and evaluation of issues with builds, such as improperly scheduled tasks, etc.
- Live Layout Inspector: The Layout Inspector provides up-to-date perceptions of the app’s user interface (UI). It offers us access to data that updates while the application runs and demonstrates how resource conflicts are addressed. This feature makes it significantly simpler to debug an app’s user interface. You can use this tool by clicking View > Tool Windows > Layout Inspector from the main menu. If we are deploying the app to a device running on the API 29 level or higher, you can have accessibility to a dynamic layout hierarchy that adjusts when views on the device change. Specific view characteristics also help us understand how resource values are resolved, and other advantages.
- Smart Editor for R8 Rules: Since the release of Android Gradle plug-in 3.4.0, build efficiency has massively increased thanks to R8, which combines shrinking, desugaring, obfuscating, optimizing, and indexing all in one step. A smart editor that provides ideas as you write R8 rules was not initially supported. But a clever editing tool is now available when writing rules for code shrinking with version 4.0. When writing rules files for R8, Android Studio now offers smart editor features like completion, syntax highlighting, and error-checking. The editor connects with your Android project and provides comprehensive symbol completion for all classes, methods, and fields along with quick navigation and refactoring.
Final Thoughts: That’s all there to it. These are the top Android Studio features you should know of. If you want to learn more about Android studio, we recommend learning from youtube. Because youtube is free and it has all the knowledge you need. The only issue with YouTube is that it is not organized as an online course. It really helps when each video is arranged like chapters in a book. You can use Career Ninja‘s Learn Tube to do just that. The platform arranges Youtube videos into a course-like format. If you want to learn “Android tutorial” search that term on LearnTube and it will show you a bunch of videos like an online course. As a beginner, you’ll click through the videos from the first to the last, as if you were taking an online course tailored specifically for you.
