ADT R20 and My Book Schedule

Lost in the hoopla over the release of the Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean) release was the delivery of the R20 version of the Android tools and the ADT plugin.

The ADT plugin has substantially changed. Again. The new-project wizard is totally revamped, more files and code are automatically added to your initial projects (even if you eschew their more elaborate app templates), and the behavior of the layout editor is substantially changed. And that’s all I’ve noticed so far, in a frustrating couple of hours of trying to make sense of READ_EXTERNAL_STORAGE.

I now have to rewrite several chapters to cover the changes.

Right now, I am projecting that I will ship an updated book, sans any Jelly Bean coverage, late next week. In all likelihood, that will be branded as The Busy Coder’s Guide to Android Development Version 3.8 and will replace the other titles at that point. A Version 3.9, containing Jelly Bean coverage, will be in late July, depending upon the availability of hardware.

But, for all I know, more surprises are in store for me, so these projections are not exactly carved in granite.