CODEWITHSUNDEEP
androidandroid-studiogithub
Kyle
Kyle

Reputation: 618

How do I use this file from Github on Android Studio?

I understand this might be an extremely obvious and ridiculous question to ask, but please excuse me as I'm a beginner. I want to integrate this file into my project so I can call its methods:

https://github.com/RomainPiel/Shimmer-android

The question is, what do I do with it? Is it considered a "module", "library" or "file"? Should I manually copy the source files and create new classes in my project, and then call the methods from there? This would be the most straight-forward but in the "how to use" section in that package, it was mentioned "compile 'com.romainpiel.shimmer:library:1.4.0@aar'"

What I tried:

I downloaded the file as a .zip and then File->New->Import Module then navigated to the unzipped file. I believe I'm then supposed to add "compile 'com.romainpiel.shimmer:library:1.4.0@aar'" so I went to the gradle file to try to add it.

There are two: build.gradle (Module:app) and (Project:ProjectName). I've tried adding to either and\or both and got this error: (Error:9,0) The project 'ProjectName' may be using a version of Gradle that does not contain the method. Did I do something wrong? Is it supposed to be this easy?

I would be extremely grateful to anyone who can point me in the right direction :)

Upvotes: 0

Views: 139

Answers (3)

Prashant Solanki
Prashant Solanki

Reputation: 660

You have to add the dependency to your module's gradle file.

There are two gradle file present in an android project. One is the project gradle and the second is the module gradle for each individual module.

You just have to copy the given compile '......' in the dependency block.

Upvotes: 0

drhr
drhr

Reputation: 2281

Typically, you do not want to include external source code manually. This inhibits your build tool's (i.e. Gradle's) ability to manage that source code. It's very easy in Gradle to, say, set the version (like you have done by specifying "1.4.0") and then later remind yourself what version you have by merely looking at your build.gradle file. However, how would you go about doing that with raw source code? Typically developers do NOT put the version number of the source code in the actual source code - that's what they use their version control system (e.g. git) for, usually with tags.

Another aspect of Gradle is downloading and caching (and compiling) the external project for you. So that's nice.

With that said, you typically want to put that "compile..." line in your module's build.gradle file. Not the Project's build.gradle.

A module corresponds to your application (or library) that you are building or using. Some project's have multi-module configurations, where one module acts as a dependency for another (or several others). A Project in gradle is more of a 'meta' configuration that you can apply to all of your modules. The gradle docs recommend you focus on your module's configuration first and adjust the Project's configuration only if you have a specific need and reason to do so.

For the error you mentioned, you might have some unnecessary configurations in your build.gradle file, or the tool version numbers might not reflect what's on your system - if you copied and pasted from the internet, you might want to correct this by letting your IDE generate that file (the brute-force approach would be to create a new project entirely, and use its build.gradle files as a reference). Before you do that, you might want to check if your IDE provides any warnings inside that file.

Upvotes: 1

myselfmiqdad
myselfmiqdad

Reputation: 2606

You have three option

  1. Using the GitHub Desktop you can clone the project and open it like a local project. Every change you make will be tracked. You can then commit and push using the GitHub Desktop. It's all UI and simple to use. https://desktop.github.com

  2. On Android Studio, when you open it, you'll see this, select GitHub and continue by adding your credentials.enter image description here You can then commit and push directly from that.

  3. Using the terminal / command line.

If you are new, I recommend the first. It's simple to use and you get a hang of using it as it is the same steps with any project on any IDE you use.

Note: Downloading it as zip and then using it a bad idea because you're making it difficult on yourself because you can't keep track of changes and you'll have to re-upload everything every time. Which defeats the purpose of version control

If that GitHub account is not yours, then you'll have to fork the project, this way you'll have a separate version of the code on you GitHub on which you can modify. If it is yours then you're good.

Upvotes: 2

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