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Android

Posted by Frank Fu
Frank Fu
2,999 Points

Eclipse slow on Mac OSX with Android SDK

Hi guys,

I'm going through the Getting started with Android workshop and everything compiles and is fine however, switching between eclipse tabs and just general navigation feels very laggy and unresponsive.

I'm running on a macbook pro retina 15" with no modifications. I've installed eclipse and SDK packaged (64bit mac) through the link provided below

http://teamtreehouse.com/library/android-development/build-an-android-crystal-ball-app/getting-started/android-setup-and-the-crystal-ball-project

Any ideas?

Thanks

6 Answers

Ben Jakuben
STAFF
Ben Jakuben
Treehouse Teacher
Ben Jakuben
Ben Jakuben
Treehouse Teacher

That's the first I've heard of performance problems on a Mac! Sounds like something is corrupted or not quite right. Here are a few suggestions:

  1. Switch to the bundle from the Android developer site. This wasn't available when we made our Treehouse bundle, but it's almost exactly the same thing. We actually switch to this in the 2nd Android project since it's the official (supported) bundle from Google. You can follow along with only a few minor differences.

  2. Try deleting and configuring all the piece manually, via these instructions or this Quick Tip video.

  3. Switch to IntelliJ, which is a really powerful alternative to Eclipse. Some people prefer it strongly.

Ernest Grzybowski
Ernest Grzybowski
Treehouse Project Reviewer

"Some people prefer it strongly."

Apparently so do the people at Google! For those of you that do not know, Google has released "Android Studio" which runs off of IntelliJ. It's in "preview" mode, but I've had lots of fun and success with it.

http://developer.android.com/sdk/installing/studio.html

Ben Jakuben
Ben Jakuben
Treehouse Teacher
Ben Jakuben
Ben Jakuben
Treehouse Teacher

Thanks for posting in here, Ernest! Android Studio is fantastic and will only get better. I am very happy to see Google make the switch, though to be honest, I have a soft spot for Eclipse and will be sad to see it whither away. It will hang on for a long time but there are better tools available and I am sure Android brought the most people to the platform.

J.T. Gralka
J.T. Gralka
20,126 Points
J.T. Gralka
J.T. Gralka
20,126 Points

I really don't know what to tell you. As far as I know, that would be the Java Virtual Machine at its finest, my friend! Eclipse tends to be very slow regardless of what SDKs or environments your running. That's just my experience with it!

Frank Fu
Frank Fu
2,999 Points
Frank Fu
Frank Fu
2,999 Points

Yeah, i've tried various stackoverflow tips without much success.

I'm downloading the 32bit version now. I'll keep you guys updated

Ernest Grzybowski
Ernest Grzybowski
Treehouse Project Reviewer
Ernest Grzybowski
Ernest Grzybowski
Treehouse Project Reviewer

Eclipse is pretty good, but you get what you pay for.

If it is so slow that it's unbearable, then you may have a problem, but it usually just takes a bit of time switching between tabs and such. It definitely won't be as fast as switching tabs in a web browser.

Frank Fu
Frank Fu
2,999 Points
Frank Fu
Frank Fu
2,999 Points

Thanks for your reply Ben!

I went with option 2 it made a sufficient performance improvement!

Frank Fu
Frank Fu
2,999 Points
Frank Fu
Frank Fu
2,999 Points

I might add that switching to the 32bit helped a bit too.