25 July 2023

Android Studio Giraffe is stable

Posted by Mayank Jain, Product Manager

Today, we are thrilled to announce the stable release of Android Studio Giraffe 🦒 : The official IDE for building Android apps!

In this Android Studio release, we have upgraded the IntelliJ platform to 2022.3, including a brand new visual look and feel in Android Studio, improvements to Live Edit, Compose animation previews, a new Device Explorer, a new SDK upgrade assistant, ability to use Kotlin DSL in your Gradle build scripts and much more. Read on to learn more about how Android Studio Giraffe 🦒 can help supercharge your developer productivity.

Thank you to all of you who have given us feedback and used Android Studio since we launched our initial version just over 10 years ago. Download the latest stable version today and we look forward to continuing to deliver on our commitment of delivering a best-in-class integrated development environment (IDE) focused on Android app development!

IDE Enhancements

New UI for Android Studio (Preview)

Along with the much anticipated IntelliJ Platform update, we are excited to share a preview of the visual look that we call the “New UI” for Android Studio Giraffe. The redesigned theme aims to reduce visual complexity, provide easier access to essential features, and disclose complex functionality as needed—resulting in a modern, cleaner look and feel.

The New UI was first released as an early preview in IntelliJ 2022.2 to gather feedback from users and other IntelliJ-based IDEs to ensure it could fully replace the previous UI. Since then, it’s progressed to beta in IntelliJ 2022.3, with many bug fixes and improvements.

With the Giraffe release, we’ve started adopting the new UI, with several Android Studio specific changes, such as optimizing the default main toolbar and tool windows configurations for Android and refreshing our iconography in the style. We are excited by this new design direction and will continue adoption through the Hedgehog release and onward.

To use the New UI, enable it in Settings > Appearance & Behavior > New UI. For a full list of changes, see the IntelliJ New UI documentation.

Image showing the new UI adopted from IntelliJ — *The New UI adopted from IntelliJ*

New diagnostic & bug reporting tool

As you try the New UI, please provide us detailed feedback through our new diagnostic & bug reporting tool that makes it easier to report bugs with relevant log files already attached. The new bug reporting tool is found at Help > Collect Logs and Diagnostic Data.

Updated Device Explorer

Also shipping with the new UI, is an updated Device Explorer (known as the Device File Explorer in previous versions of Android Studio). In the Device Explorer, files and related actions are located in the Files tab. Additionally, in the new Processes tab, you can view a list of debuggable processes for the connected device. From there you can also select a process and perform a kill , force-stop, or attach the debugger to a given process.

Updated Device Explorer

Coding Productivity

Use Live Edit to update composables in real time

Live Edit lets you update composables in Android emulators and physical devices in near real time. You can now edit composables and see the UI changes on the running device without re-deploying your app.

This helps you by minimizing the context switching between writing and building your app, letting you focus on writing code longer without interruption. To try Live Edit, enable it via Settings > Editor > Live Edit and use Android Gradle Plugin (AGP) 8.1 or higher and Jetpack Compose Runtime 1.3.0 or higher.

Moving image illustrating updating composables in real time in Live Edit — *Use Live Edit to update composables in real time*

Compose Animation Preview - Extend animation support Compose Animation Preview now supports a number of additional Compose APIs, such as animate*AsState, CrossFade, rememberInfiniteTransition, and AnimatedContent (in addition to updateTransition and AnimatedVisibility). Additionally, now there are new pickers that let you set non-enum or boolean states to debug your Compose animation using precise inputs. For all supported Compose Animation APIs, you can play, pause, scrub & control speed.

Moving image illustrating extended animation support in Compose Animation Preview — *Compose Animation Preview - Extend animation support*

Android SDK Upgrade Assistant

The new Android SDK upgrade assistant lets you see the steps required to upgrade the targetSdkVersion, or the API level that your app targets, directly in the IDE. It also pulls upgrade-related documentation directly from the Android Developer site into its tool window, so you don't have to jump back and forth between your browser and the IDE. For each migration step, it highlights the major breaking changes and how to address them, and even filters the full list of changes to only show steps relevant to your app.

To open the Android SDK Upgrade Assistant, go to Tools > Android SDK Upgrade Assistant.

Image of Android SDK Upgrade Assistant — *Android SDK Upgrade Assistant*

Improvements to the build system

Kotlin DSL in your Gradle build scripts

Kotlin is not only more readable, it also offers better compile-time checking and IDE support. With Android Studio Giraffe, we are excited to offer the official support for Kotlin DSL in your Gradle build scripts. This means that Kotlin is the default language used in your project code, including UI with Jetpack Compose, and now editing the build scripts too!

Now, when you are creating new projects or modules starting from Android Studio Giraffe, you get the Kotlin DSL by default. And if you want to migrate existing builds, check out the Kotlin DSL migration guide.

We've been working with the Gradle and JetBrains teams on this improvement, and you can read more in their related announcements: Gradle Blog; JetBrains Blog.

Additionally, we’ve also added experimental support for TOML-based Gradle Version Catalogs, a feature that lets you manage dependencies in one central location and share dependencies across modules or projects. Android Studio now makes it easier to configure version catalogs through editor suggestions and integrations with the Project Structure dialog, plus the New Project Wizard.

Download info during Gradle sync

If you’ve ever wondered if any unexpected dependency downloads are negatively impacting your sync performance, the new Sync tool window now includes a summary of time spent downloading dependencies, and a detailed view of downloads per repository. This view updates live as sync takes place. It can even help you identify inefficiencies in how you configure your repositories.

Automatic per-app language support

Typically, multilingual users set their system language to one language—such as English—but they want to select other languages for specific apps, such as Dutch, Chinese, or Hindi. Android 13 introduced support for per-app language preferences, and now Android Gradle plugin 8.1 and higher can configure your app to support it automatically based on your project’s resources. Learn more.

Make selected modules toolbar button

With Android Studio Giraffe, you can now build only the current module you're working on by selecting the Make Selected Modules build option in the toolbar. This new option lets you check that the code you just wrote compiles without building more than needed. Learn more.

Summary

To recap, Android Studio Giraffe includes these new enhancements and features. You can always learn more with our detailed release notes.

IDE Enhancements

Upgraded to IntelliJ Platform 2022.3 : Includes a number of features and bug fixes

New UI for Android Studio : Android Studio now adopts a number of improvements from the IntelliJ's modern design language

Updated Device Explorer : Offers two new tabs : Files & Processes from where you can view a list of debuggable processes, perform a kill, force-stop, or attach the debugger

New diagnostic & bug reporting tool : Easier to report bugs for Android Studio with relevant log files already attached

Coding Productivity

Use Live Edit to update composables in real time : Update composables in real time, edit composables and see the UI changes on the running device without re-deploying your app

Compose Animation Preview - Extend animation support : Now supports a number of additional Compose APIs and new pickers that let you set non-enum or boolean states to debug your Compose animation using precise inputs

Android SDK Upgrade Assistant : Now lets you see the steps required to upgrade the targetSdkVersion, or the API level that your app targets directly in Studio

Improvements to the build system

Kotlin DSL in your Gradle build scripts : With official support for Kotlin DSL in your Gradle build scripts, Kotlin is now the single default language for project code, UI with Jetpack Compose, and now for build scripts

Download info during Gradle sync : Shows a summary of time spent downloading dependencies and a detailed view of downloads per repository

Automatic per-app language support : AGP can now automatically configure per-app language preferences

Make selected modules toolbar button : build only the current module you're working on by selecting the Make Selected Modules build option in the toolbar

Download Android Studio Today!

Now is the time to download Android Studio Giraffe 🦒 to incorporate the new features into your workflow. As always, we appreciate any feedback on things you like and issues or features you would like to see. If you find a bug or issue, please file an issue and also check out known issues. Remember to also follow us on Twitter, Medium, or YouTube for more Android development updates!

Android Android SDK Upgrade Assistant Android Studio Android Studio Giraffe androidstudio coding productivity Compose Animation Previews device explorer Featured Gradle sync latest live edit