page.title=Tools
@jd:body

<img src="{@docRoot}assets/images/android_wrench.png" alt="" align="right">

<p>The Android SDK includes a variety of custom tools that help you develop mobile
applications on the Android platform. The most important of these are the Android
Emulator and the Android Development Tools plugin for Eclipse, but the SDK also
includes a variety of other tools for debugging, packaging, and installing your
applications on the emulator. </p>

 <dl>
  <dt><a href="{@docRoot}sdk/eclipse-adt.html">Android Development Tools Plugin</a> (for the Eclipse IDE)</dt>
          <dd>The ADT plugin adds powerful extensions to the Eclipse integrated environment, 
          making creating and debugging your Android applications easier and faster.</dd>          
  <dt><a href="emulator.html">Android Emulator</a></dt>
    <dd>A QEMU-based device-emulation tool that you can use to design,
    debug, and test your applications in an actual Android run-time environment. </dd>


  <dt><a href="bmgr.html">bmgr</a></dt>

    <dd>A shell tool you can use to interact with the Backup Manager on Android devices
    supporting API Level 8 or greater. It provides commands to invoke backup and restore operations
    so that you don't need to repeatedly wipe data or take similar intrusive steps in order to test
    your application's backup agent. These commands are accessed via the adb shell.
    </dd>  
    
 <dt><a href="layoutopt.html">layoutopt</a></dt>
    <dd>This tool lets you quickly analyze your application's layouts in order to
    optimize them for efficiency.
    </dd>


	  <dt><a href="draw9patch.html">Draw 9-patch</a></dt>
	    <dd>The Draw 9-patch tool allows you to easily create a 
	    {@link android.graphics.NinePatch} graphic using a WYSIWYG editor. It also previews stretched 
	     versions of the image, and highlights the area in which content is allowed.
	    </dd>
			

  <dt><a href="adb.html" >Android Debug Bridge</a> (adb)</dt>
                  <dd>The adb tool lets you install your application's .apk files on an
                  emulator or device and access the emulator or device from a command line.
                  You can also use it to link a standard debugger to application code running
                  on an Android emulator or device.
                <p>This is located in {@code &lt;sdk&gt;/platform-tools/}.</p></dd>

  <dt><a href="hprof-conv.html">hprof-conv</a></dt>

    <dd>A tool that converts the HPROF file that is generated by the Android SDK tools to a
    standard format so you can view the file in a profiling tool of your choice.</dd>
    
  <dt><a href="sqlite3.html">sqlite3</a></dt>
      <dd>Included as a convenience, this tool lets you access the SQLite data 
      files created and used by Android applications.</dd>

  <dt><a href="mksdcard.html">mksdcard</a></dt>
            <dd>Helps you create a disk image that you can use with the emulator, 
                      to simulate the presence of an external storage card (such as an SD card).</dd>
                      
  <dt><a href="monkey.html">UI/Application 

  Exerciser Monkey</a></dt>
      <dd>A program that runs on your emulator or device and generates pseudo-random
      streams of user events such as clicks, touches, or gestures, as well as a number of system-level events.
      You can use the Monkey to stress-test applications that you are developing, in a random yet repeatable manner.</dd>


  <dt><a  href="android.html">android</a></dt>
            <dd>A script that lets you manage AVDs and generate <a
                        href="http://ant.apache.org/" title="Ant">Ant</a> build files that
                        you can use to compile your Android applications. </dd>

  <dt><a  href="zipalign.html">zipalign</a></dt>
            <dd>An important .apk optimization tool. This tool ensures that all uncompressed data starts
            with a particular alignment relative to the start of the file. This should always be used
            to align .apk files after they have been signed.</dd>
            

    

</dl>