Android Studio, an official IDE launched by Google on May 15, 2013. Eclipse was used before for Android application development, but later Google stopped giving support to ADT to make Android Studio as official IDE for Android Development. Android Studio is itself a powerful tool however true power of Android Studio can be unlocked by installing additional plugins. Installing these plugins can help developers to increase their productivity, streamline workflow as well as reduce unnecessary efforts.
In this article, we will explore the top 10 Plugins that every developer must start using to ease their development. Let’s get started
Top 10 Android Studio Plugins in 2024
Android Studio, the official integrated development environment (IDE) for Android app development, provides a robust platform for developers. To further enhance the development experience, various plugins are available that offer additional features and tools. So Let’s see the top Android studio plugins for 2024:
1. ADB Idea:
The ADB(Android Debug Bridge) is a command-line tool used to integrate with Android Devices. ADB Idea simplifies the use ADB by giving graphical UI with in Android Studio. Developers who runs their apps on Physical Android Devices must start using this plugin to make debug and testing process more simple. It allows developers to perform common ADB commands such as Uninstall the app, Clea App data etc. to with few clicks. Below are list of operation that ADB Idea plugin supports.
- ADB Uninstall App
- ADB Kill App
- ADB Start App
- ADB Restart App
- ADB Clear App Data
- ADB Clear App Data and Restart
- ADB Start App With Debugger
- ADB Restart App With Debugger
- ADB Grant/Revoke Permissions
- ADB Enable/Disable Wi-Fi
- ADB Enable/Disable Mobile Data
Link – Plugin home page
Total downloads: 1.3M
2. Flutter:
Android Studio IDE also supports developing Flutter application development. To start developing Flutter applications using Android Studio, developer needs to install Flutter plugin. Installing this plugin also install Dart(Official laanguage for Flutter development) plugin. If Flutter developers are using Android studio for development then this plugin is must. Installing this plugin will start showing Create Flutter Project in Android Studio File menu.
Link – Plugin home page
Total downloads: 16.2 M
3. SonarLint:
Code quality us very important aspect to consider while developing software. To maintain code quality while application development is quite tricky and time consuming as its require saprate code review process. SonarLint is plugin that helps to maintain code quality standards. Enabling this plugin helps developers to view realtime feedback on code issues, get suggestions on improvements and detect bugs and security vulnerabilities. Integrating SonarLint in Android Studio ensures cleaner code. It also helps developers to improve code skills and productivity.
Link – Plugin home page
Total downloads: 7.1M
4. RoboPOJOGenarator:
Developers frequently needs to create POJO/Model classes that align with Json(like API request and response). Creating those POJO classes from JSON String is complax and time consuming process.This plugin helps to create Java, kotlin POJO classes from Gson, Json, FastJson, Jackson and empty annotation template. This plugin saves developers time that would require to create POJO classes from large and compax JSON. This plugin also supports defining annotations before variable names.
Below image show how easily developers can create Kotlin/Java POJO classes for complex JSON string.
Link – Plugin home page
Total downloads: 364K
5. Android Drawable Preview:
In Android drawables are resources that can be used to define images, icons and various shapes. Drawable can used to set background for views, set images etc. Drawables are created with xml files that dont have visual display With Android Drawable Preview it make visualizing and managing Android drawable more easy. This plugin helps to preview darawble directly in IDE. It helps to eliminate the need of switching between file and run it to see changes. This plugin streamlines the design process and accelerates the development process of visualiing the UI.
Below image shows how this plugin will help developer to visualize drawables.
Link – Plugin home page
Total downloads: 96.1K
6. Key Promoter X:
Efficiency in development comes when developers start takin advantage of using key board shortcuts. Key Promoter X gives notification and suggestions of key board shortcuts when you use mouse actions. This is ideal plugin for developers as it helps to increases developers productivity and time saving coding. This plugin helps to replace compax mouse actions with handy keyboard shortcuts. This plugin also helps to create new shortcuts for the actions which are not supported by KeyPromoter X.
Below image represent how KeyPromotor X displays window for keyboard shortcut suggestion.
Link – Plugin home page
Total downloads: 5.5M
7. Android WIFI ADB:
Android developers mostly uses USB cabels to connect their physical device to their system. Android WIFI ADB plugin helps them to connect their device using WIFI – that means connect your physical device without wire(USB cabels). Developers need to connect their device with USB cable in first step, then press Android WIFI ADB Button and thats it, Connection success window will appear and developers can dittach USB cables and they can build, run and debug their applications using this plugin.
Link – Plugin home page
Total downloads: 627.6K
8. JsonHelper:
Being a developer we frequently require to play with JSON mostly while making API calls. Responses of those APIs are mostly comes in un formatted, complax and clumsy style. Formatting complax JSON in Json make it easy for developers to read them easily. Json Helper plugin is a tool window that helps developers to perform string manipulation directly from IDE. It allows developers to pretify, uglify the JSON string. It also gives options to developers to add and remove escape characters. This plugin elemetates the use of online websites that developes user for JSON string manipulations.
Below Snapshot represent how JsonHelper plugin formats JSON string with few clicks.
Link – Plugin home page
Total downloads: 162.6K
9. Material Theme UI:
Customizing the look and feel of your IDE(Android Studio) helps developers to enhance their development experience. Material Theme UI plugin brings Material experience to your IDE. This plugin is not fully free.This plugin provides beautiful color schemes, it replace all icons with material icons, customization of IDE controls. Along with enhancing IDE look and feel this Plugin also contributes to providing enjoyable coding environment.
Link – Plugin home page
Total downloads: 14.6M
10. GitToolBox:
Effective and version control plays important role in collaborative development. Using Git command termilal sometime is bit tricky, also developers needs to remember all these git commands. GitToolBox is a feature rich plugin which enhances Git integration in Android Studio. Using this plugin developers can view history in more easy way, it makes branch management very easy, it provides variety of shortcuts for git actions that helps developers to save time.This plugin is free up to some context then you can get more features in paid version.
Link – Plugin home page
Total downloads: 5.5M
Bonus
Apart from above list there are few more Plugin like .Ignore – Helps deveopers to add files in .gitingore to avoid commiting un nassasary files, Database Helper – Ease database creation, CodeGlance – Adds a small preview window that displays miniature version of code scrollbar. Adding those plugins helps developers to increase productivity, save development time, imrove code quality and ease development.
Conclusion
By installing above listed plugin in your Android Studio can help developers to boost their productivity, improve code quality and making enjoyable development environment. Adding those plugin helps developers to save lots time development time along with no compromise in code quality. As Android ecosystem is in evolving stage staying equipped with these plugins will surely empowers developers to build robust and high quality Android applications with ease.
