Use Sublime Text 2 to develop Phonegap applications for Android

Question

I've been using eclipse to develop Android apps with phonegap until, a few weeks ago, I decided to try Sublime Text 2. I found it to be so much better than the eclipse editor so I would like to keep using it. Only thing I'm missing is a quick way to test the app on the device inside Sublime.

Luckily, someone else also had the same idea and developed a plugin for this: https://github.com/Korcholis/Andrew

Sadly, I cannot get it to work, I installed ant and pointed the plugin to adb but then nothing happens when I try to create a new project (and there is no error message in the console).

I also found this other plugin: https://bitbucket.org/ucomesdag/sublime-android But I have no idea on how to install and run it.

Did someone else found a way to do this?

Answer 1

A quick update into 2014.

As of PhoneGap Cordova 3.0, it is no longer required to develop Android apps via eclipse. You are free to use any code editor or IDE you wish as app building is done independently from eclipse via a simple command line.

1. cordova run android to package the .apk and install on any active devices detected by adb or
2. cordova build android to package the .apk only.

In your case, you can keep using Sublime and pop in the cordova run android command whenever you ready to go on a test run.

Answer 2

While I agree with Insane Coder that you should stick with supported IDEs to develop for Android, according to this link and existing Sublime Text 2 Ant support, you could build and develop your android project with this IDE (It will just take some time to set it all up... as opposed to using a supported IDE like IntelliJ or Eclipse).

Using PackageControl, look for "Ant". That will install syntax highlighting for Ant. Another plugin that enables the build command (ctrl+b) to work for Ant files, "Super Ant". You should be able to code for android in sublime text 2 with those installed.

On another note... Do you use windows? The Andrew project you link to, seems to have Windows compatibility issues. Apparently related to locating the "SDK" (he says sdk in Andrew's github page but, probably he means JDK?) in your hard drive. Which is probably a hassle because Windows typically installs stuff to "Program Files" and in code, that turns into "Progra~1" because of the space. In the link I give you there is another approach to it, so when you install the JDK set a folder that has no spaces in its name, like c:\java\jdk1.6.0_02 or something else that strikes your fancy. The problem you could be having with Andrew is that it isn't finding the jdk in your hard disk.