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Getting Started with a library project in Android Studio
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starting_library_project_AS.md

Getting Started with a library project in Android Studio

So we're working on creating Android Material Awesome, a library which will hopefully incorperate the benefits of Material Design, Twitter's Bootstrap, and FontAwesome. What we really wanted is a project other people can easily include into their projects using gradle dependencies. These are the steps we took to get started in Android Studio (version 1.1).

Create Projects

The first thing we needed to do was to create two new projects, with all the default settings (Blank Activity etc). One for our sample app, and one for our library. We added both of ours into the same GitHub repo, however you can save them wherever you like.

Fix Up Library Project

  1. Rename module in Android Studio
  2. Rename folder in Finder / File Explorer
  3. drag build.gradle into Android Studio
  4. Synchronise

Initially we'll focus on our library project. Annoyingly Android Studio automatically creates you a module called app. Modules really should be uniquely named, so you'll need to right click on the module name, click refactor and rename to something useful. We called ours awesomematerial.

Unfortunately, this doesn't fully rename the root folder. So using finder or file explorer, you need to navigate to the module folder. Rename it to whatever you named it e.g. awesomematerial.

This'll break your project! To fix it, you need to go back to Android Studio, and open the build.gradle for the module. It'll have a little warning at the top asking you to add it to the project. Click this and wait for gradle to synchronise again! All your files should magically reappear again!

Imgur

Drag your build.gradle file back into Android Studio and click the yellow/gold banner at the top to add to your project. All your files should magically reappear again!

  1. Whilst you still have your build.gradle file open, you'll need to change the first line :

apply plugin: 'com.android.application'

to say:

apply plugin: 'com.android.library'

  1. You'll also need to remove applicationId in defaultConfig before synchronising again.

Imgur

The end library build.gradle file

Add Library project into useful app

Conclusion

Now you can create all the library projects you want to and use them in any of your other apps! We'll probably write another post depending on how hard it is to publish our library into bintray ( https://bintray.com/howbintrayworks )

@neosarchizo
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neosarchizo commented May 19, 2015

You are awesome!! Thanks!

@pakedge
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pakedge commented Jun 4, 2015

Sorry this doesn't work for me at all. I created the project, then renamed app to library inside Android Studio, then renamed the folder app to library in finder. Next I tried dragging library/build.gradle into the left hand window inside Android Studio. Nothing happened, no warning message, nothing. Double clicking on the build.gradle inside Android Studio just opens the build.gradle file there. Now what?

@pakedge
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pakedge commented Jun 4, 2015

ANd where exactly does it make the JAR file? It never makes any JAR file that I can see.

@apradanas
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apradanas commented Jun 5, 2015

I tried this using Android Studio 1.2.1.1

  • I still need to rename module in settings.gradle after step 1
  • I got the same problem with @pakedge after dragging library/build.gradle. No warning message. I simply run Sync Project with Gradle Files (Tools > Android > Sync Project with Gradle Files), and it solved the problem.

@alibehzadian
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alibehzadian commented Jun 7, 2015

I am using Android Studio 1.2 and I have some problems:
1- I need to refactore files in .idea folder and rename all 'app's to 'mylibrary'.
2- After doing all these steps, my main project does know nothing about library project.
Someone mentioned that your way only works in Android Studio 1.1 and before.

@nabilsouk
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nabilsouk commented Jun 29, 2015

Thanks a lot!

@ratty3697
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ratty3697 commented Sep 16, 2015

Error:FAILURE: Build failed with an exception.

  • What went wrong:
    Task 'generateDebugSources' not found in project ':app'.
  • Try:
    Run gradle tasks to get a list of available tasks. Run with --stacktrace option to get the stack trace. Run with --info or --debug option to get more log output.

@humayunajmal
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humayunajmal commented Nov 10, 2015

Dragging the build.gradle didn't work for me. I changed ':app' to ':library' in the settings.gradle . Sync again works for me.. but thanks

@ambrice
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ambrice commented Nov 16, 2015

In Android Studio 1.4.1 I only needed to do steps 1, 5, and 6.

@hitesh-dhamshaniya
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hitesh-dhamshaniya commented Feb 5, 2016

Thanks for your post it's really helpful.

I had project as you describe, I am facing a problem, I can't use resource of lib project. i.e in Lib project I have a activity with it's layout xml file, but when I try to call that activity from other project which used that libs, I am getting error. something like resource not found.

How can I build lib project so that I can use all resource of lib project in other application.

@pori
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pori commented Feb 11, 2016

It seems a bit extraneous to rename the module in the Library Project. I understand wanting to have it named library but leaving as-is removes the need for steps 1 through 4.

@hgsingh
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hgsingh commented Feb 24, 2016

You are a life saver! Thanks!

@HimanshuLikhyani
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HimanshuLikhyani commented Apr 12, 2016

One can directly create an Android Studio Library Project from command line using the "android" tool available in the tools directory of the sdk:
./android - create lib-project -n "mylibrary" -t 1 -k com.himanshu.android -p /Users/himanshu/Desktop/libraryproject -g -v 2.0.0

n = name of the project
t = target name (run "./android list targets" to choose available targets)
k = package name
p = path where you want to create the project
g = use gradle or not
v = if yes, use which version of gradle

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ghost commented Jul 9, 2016

Nice article.

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