The Android Support Library

Supporting multiple devices can pose issues, particularly when users expect apps to function seamlessly on every device, in the same way. This expectation rises even when users know very well that there is a significant difference in the software and hardware of the phone. While Google releases, latest updates to Android, it is not necessarily true that all OEMs follow up on this update on their smartphone. This leads to the fact that most of the users tend to use releases which are approximately 15 months old or older.

If that is held true, developers would have to compromise a lot in order to support most of their users, running several versions of Android. Fortunately, the Android team is aware of this and endeavors to provide consistent help for the developer in this regard. This is a tricky issue, especially considering the consistency of the app feature that shouldn't affect the architectural structure. Google's Android team has a strategic answer to this: The Android Support Library.

The Android Support Library is a collection of libraries, which are available on several API levels, that help developers to focus on the unique parts of their app, supporting new functionality and compatibility issues that might arise due to different versions running on different devices.

Setting up Android Support Libraries in your development environment depends entirely on what features you want to use and what range of Android platform versions you are targeting with your application. The Android Support Repository package is provided as a supplemental download to the Android SDK, and using the Android SDK manager you can grab the same.

Please follow the steps given as follows to set up the Support Library files:

1. Open the Android SDK Manager option in Android Studio by selecting Tools > Android > SDK Manager.

This will open the window as selected:

In the Support Repository option, select Android Support Repository. If you have opened the standalone SDK Manager, this option would be in the Extras section, as shown in the following image:

1. Click on the Install Package option

After downloading, the tool installs the Support library files to your existing Android SDK directory. To view these library files, you can navigate to the following subdirectory of your SDK: <sdk_path_on_your_system>/extras/android/m2repository/com/android/support/ directory

Android offers several support library features you can add to your project, specifically:

• v4 Support library
• v7 Support library
• Multidex Support library
• v8 Support library
• v13 Support library
• Annotations Support library
• Design Support library
• Custom Tabs Support library

Let us now take a look at what is offered by these individual support library features: