The official Android programming IDE now has a new stable version: Android Studio Arctic Fox 2020.3.1. While the previous version was Android Studio 4.2, Google decided to change the numbering to be more equivalent to the version of InteliJ, on which it is based.
As usual, Android Studio comes with a good number of new features, perhaps the most important being Jetpack Compose 1.0, which has gained a lot of features. New templates and very useful improvements are also added to the Database and Task Inspector.
Support for Jetpack Compose 1.0
Jetpack Compose is the toolkit for building user interfaces in a modern and fast way. Reached the version 1.0 stable, accessible from Android Studio Artif FOX 2020.3.1 and with a good amount of new features.
Jetpack Compose 1.0 adds preview view, deployment preview view, and support for Compose in the Layout inspector Android Studio, among other changes.
New model sensitive
This version of Android Studio includes a new template when starting a new project. The staff sensitive adapts smoothly to all sizes and situations: phones, foldables, tablets or split screen.
The Unit tests Usan Gradle
To improve the consistency of test runs, Android Studio use Gradle to run all unit tests by default, transparently for the user. Of course, Android JUnit configurations are no longer recognized, which must be migrated to be used as Gradle runtime configurations.
New background task inspector
If your project uses the WorkManager 2.5.0 library or higher, you can use the new tool Background task inspector to monitor everything that is happening in the background in your application and the status of the various Workers.
Export data from the Database inspector
Android Studio Database Inspector gains an interesting new feature: you can save and share data from your application databases. It is now possible to export entire databases, tables and queries in DB, SQL or CSV format.
Test improvements on multiple devices at the same time
Now they can pass instrumentation testing on several devices at the same time in parallel, and review the results of each of the tests on each of the devices in the results panel. In this panel you can find out if the test failed at the API level or by the hardware of each device.
New wizard for pairing Wear OS
Android Studio Artic Fox 2020.3.1 includes a new step-by-step wizard for pair a Wear OS emulator with a mobile either real or virtual. The wizard guides you through installing the Wear OS app on your mobile and establishing the connection between the two.
Other changes
-
Android Gradle 7.0 plugin. After renumbering in the Gradle plugin, from version 4.2 we went directly to version 7.0.
-
New interface for Memory Profiler. Android Studio memory profiler receives a new interface for various recording activities, such as capturing a stack dump and recording native, Java, and Kotlin memory allocations.
-
Support for StateFlow in the data link. Kotlin applications that use coroutines can use StateFlow objects as a data binding source to automatically notify the user interface of data changes.
-
Improvements to import suggestions. The number of libraries supported by the import suggestion has been improved, and the list of these libraries is updated more frequently.
-
AGP Update Assistant enhancements. The Gradle plugin version update wizard now has its own window showing the list of steps to be performed.
-
Refactoring for non-transitive R classes. A new refactoring tool is added in You can Refactor> Migrate to non-transitive R classes.
-
Deploy to device. New tool to display a snippet of the interface to a device, without having to send the entire application.
Being an official update of Android Studio, the new version notice will be displayed automatically or via the menu Help> Check for updates. Also you can download Android Studio Artic Fox 2020.3.1 from its official website.
Table of Contents
