How to Run Different Product Flavors in Android Studio

Question

I'm writing my first android app, and I'm just getting started with product flavors. I have an ad-supported app in beta, and I'm writing a paid version with no ads. I can compile both flavors, I think. When I open the gradle window, I see targets like "compile AdsDebugSources" and "compile PremiumDebugSources."

Now, if I double-click on either of those, the build runs to completion without error, but I can't figure out how to run the results. If I click on the green "Run" arrow at the top of the screen, I can never run the premium app.

There's only one entry, "app" that results in a an apk being installed and run on the attached device, and it's the AdsDebug version. I guess I need to add a new configuration, but I can't find any documentation that even mentions the word "flavor."

I've tried adding a configuration, but I don't understand what the questions mean. I looked at the settings for the default app, but they don't seem to mean much. How do I tell it that I want the premium version of my app?

Or does my problem have nothing to do with configurations? I've noticed that when I look at the Build/Edit Flavors the two flavors are listed, but none of the data fields are filled in. I would have thought that these would be copied from the manifest. Have I neglected something?

All I did to set up the flavors was to add this code to the app level build.gradle file:

flavorDimensions "dummy"  productFlavors {     ads {         dimension "dummy"         applicationId 'com.example.myApp.ads'     }      premium {         dimension "dummy"         applicationId 'com.example.myApp.premium'     } 

}

What else do I need to do?

Answer 1

Open the Build Variants tool in Android Studio. By default, this is docked on the left.

It will show a list of modules in your project, with a drop-down for each indicating the build variant that will be used by the Run button.