• Build Tools.
  
• Gradle Features for Android.
• Android Studio.
• Working on Android Studio.

Build automation is the act of scripting or automating a wide variety of tasks that software developers do in their day-to-day activities including things like:

• compiling computer source code  into binary code.
• packaging binary code.
• running tests.
• deployment to production systems.
• creating documentation and/or release notes.

• Apache Ant popular for Java platform development and uses an XML file format.                                                                                                         

• Apache Maven a Java platform tool for project management and automated software build.                                                                            

• Gradle an open-source build and automation system with a Groovy Rake Domain Specific Language (DSL).

• First "Modern Build Tool".
• Kind of like "Make". 
• Implemented in Java and used mostly for Java projects. 
• First public release was in 2000 and most popular build tool for Java projects.

• First released in 2004.

•  Introduced project structure conventions, dependency management and a central artifact repository, Maven Central.

• Uses XML for writing a build file (pom.xml). 
• Developers just have to describe the structure of the project (if it differentiates from the conventions) .
• Capable of downloading dependencies through a network.

• Gradle is the youngest build tool of the three.
• It is a combiation of  Ant’s power and flexibility with Maven’s dependency management and conventions.
• Gradle v1.0 was released in 2012.
•  XML is not used anymore–instead, Domain Specific Language (DSL) based on the JVM language Groovy.
• No more verbosity of XML.
• More simple and clear statements. 

Google selected Gradle as the foundation of the Android SDK build system because,

• It provides flexibility .
• ability to define common standards for Android builds. 
• simple, declarative DSL to configure Gradle builds.
• a single, authoritative build that powers both the Android Studio IDE and builds from the command-line.  
  

Product Flavors - Many mobile applications have a free version and a paid version while other applications may ship seasonal variations. With Gradle product flavors are easy to manage with a few lines of code.

Build Type -   Build types control application packaging and build configuration for different types of debug and release builds.

Build Variants - Combination of BuildTypes and Flavors.

Signing Configuration - The Gradle Android DSL provides a very simple way to customize keystores and signing configuration across different build types.

Dependency Management - Gradle offers a flexible approach to dependency management that can reuse existing Maven repositories or reference local JARs.  If you depend on libraries from Central or if you run your own local repositories, Gradle can adapt to any requirement.

Android Studio is an integrated development environment (IDE) for the Android platform. It was announced on 16 May 2013 at the Google I/O conference by Google.

Latest Android Studio Canary Build: 0.9.3 released on Nov 14, 2014 and  Developer Build: 0.8.9 released  on Sep 03, 2014

The basic project starts with two components called “source sets”. 

• src/main/                       ------------------>main source code
• src/androidTest/     ------------------>test code

Inside each of these folders,

For both the Java and Android plugin, the location of the Java source code and the Java resources:

• java/                    ---------------------> source code 
• resources/      ---------------------> resources

Extra files and folders specific to Android:

• AndroidManifest.xml
• res/
• assets/
• aidl/
• rs/
• jni/

To replace the default source folders, you will want to use srcDirs 

Here’s an example, using the old project structure for the main code and remapping the androidTest sourceSet to the tests folder:

Signing an application requires the following:

• A keystore , A keystore password, A key alias name, A key password, The store type

Default - debug and a release versions.

settings.gradle:

include ':app', ':libraries:lib1', ':libraries:lib2'

build.gradle:

• Import an Eclipse Project.
• Import project from Git repository.
• Add libraries to existing project.
• Create a project in Studio.
• Add BuildTypes, Flavors.
• Add testing including flavors.
• Eclipse plugin .
  

• ./gradlew clean
  
• ./gradlew build
• ./gradlew buildRelease
• ./gradlew debug

• adb install C:\Users\Name\MyProject\build\Jorgesys.apk
  

• adb shell am start -n com.package.name/com.package.name.ActivityName