MOTODEV Studio vs. Android Google plugin [closed]

Answer 1

All right. Looks like these days man has to do everything himself. So here it goes: My main beef with MOTODEV that there's no way (or at least no easy way) to install it as a plugin. The install contains full Eclipse + MOTODEV studio stuff. For me it's a big turn-off since I mix my development and can work on very different projects at the same time. And I use "Pulse" to maintain my favorite set of plugins across multiple machines.

• Said that - first feature I really liked was "snippets" - ability to insert pre-cooked pieces of code such as Toast, for example. Code-completion on steroids, very handy.
• Then you can browse SQLLite db - something you cannot do OOB with Google plugin.
• The emulator is built-in, that's cool or is it? I use 2 monitors and I like to have emulator outside of IDE, so - no big deal
• There's handy localization editor in MOTODEV, allows you to edit all your string values in one place
• More features but these are tight to the browser - again, no big deal
• And it retains all Google plugin stuff so you get extra without loosing anything

So as I said in the beginning - I will use it if only they provide me with way of installing it as plugin

Answer 2

I'm the product manager and tech lead for MOTODEV Studio, so let me jump in and try to help. Sorry about the delay, I wasn't aware any conversations about MOTODEV Studio were occurring on StackOVerflow. I'll make a point of following the conversations here as well.

MOTODEV Studio is a branded version of the IDE. It is not an RCP application. We integrate the Google ADT plugins into the Eclipse Core along with CVS, SVN, and Mylyn. You will need to add connectors for your specific backends if you use Mylyn as there are way to many choices for us to bundle all of them. We support Studio through our discussion boards at http://developer.motorola.com and if you visit, you won't see my teams' responses being "it works on my machine".

The next version of MOTODEV Studio comes out next week (~March 23). It will install as a single application and (despite what Fred suggests) you can also use the Eclipse update mechanism to install the Studio plugins into an existing Eclipse shell. We've also added support for 64-bit VMs on Windows, Mac, and Linux. Linux support is tested on Ubuntu and Fedora, but it may or may not work on others.

In addition to the Google ADT plugins, we add our own features, as DroidIn mentioned. Some of these you may find useful and others you may not. We're not in competition with Eclipse or Google on any of this--I and my team are committers and leaders on Eclipse OSS projects and we work with the Google tools team on joint efforts. If you like MOTODEV Studio, we'd love to hear from you and find ways to improve it. If it's not your cup of tea, that's fine, too. Let us know if there's anything we can do to change your mind.

Answer 3

Well, in my experience if you have problems with MotoDev Studio and you go to the forums to ask for help about the most useful reply you'll get is "works for me". Whereas standard Eclipse + plugins worked fine "out of the box".

Not very scientific though, I know.