Google Delivers Android Studio 3.4

Google has announced the availability of Android Studio 3.4, the latest version of its Android app development environment. As with the previous release, this version focuses on quality updates to the core experience. But there are a few new features as well.

“After nearly six months of development, Android Studio 3.4 is ready to download today on the stable release channel,” Google’s Jamal Eason announced. “This is a milestone release of the Project Marble effort from the Android Studio team. Project Marble is our focus on making the fundamental features and flows of the Integrated Development Environment (IDE) rock-solid. On top of many performance improvements and bug fixes we made in Android Studio 3.4, we are excited to release a small but focused set of new features that address core developer workflows for app building and resource management.”

According to Google, Android Studio 3.4 includes over 300 bug and stability enhancements, plus the following new features:

Resource Manager. This new tool helps you visualize the drawables, colors, and layouts across your app project in a consolidated view. It also supports drag and drop bulk asset import and bulk SVG to VectorDrawable conversion.

Import Intentions. Android Studio 3.4 will recognize common classes in libraries as you work and suggest, via code intentions, adding the required import statement and library dependency to your project files, a real time saver.

Layout Editor properties panel update. The Layout Editor properties panel has been updated to display only a single pane with collapsible sections for properties. Errors and warnings have their own highlight colors now, there is a resource binding control for each property, and an updated color picker.

Additionally, Android Studio 3.4 includes an update to IntelliJ Platform 2018.3.4, a user interface front end to manage Gradle project files called Project Structure Dialog (PSD), the R8 Java program shrinking and minification tool, and a major Android emulator update that includes the latest Google Pixel 3 & Google Pixel 3 XL device skins and access to downloadable Android Q Beta emulator system images.

Android Studio 3.4 is available from the Android Studio website. If you’re already using the product, you can update from the boot screen.