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The Android Device Monitor is a powerful tool for controlling our device. In this video we'll see some of the more useful features and go over how to use them.
* With the new Android emulator the emulator control tab is greyed out and inaccessible. It's functionality has been moved to 'Extended controls' pop up which is accessed through the ' . . . ' on the toolbar next to the emulator.
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Another important tool in our arsenal
is the Android Device Monitor.
0:00
From the Android Device Monitor, we can
take screenshots, spoof incoming calls and
0:03
texts, spoof location data and much more.
0:08
And actually,
ever since Android Studio 2.0,
0:11
a lot of these functionality can
be done right from the emulator.
0:14
But there's still a few good reasons
to use the Android Device Monitor.
0:17
To open it click on Tools >
Android > Android Device Monitor.
0:20
Once it's open, we can click on our device
on the side bar on the left to select it,
0:30
but for now let's leave this behind and
jump back to the emulator.
0:34
One of the cool things we can do from
here is, send fake phone calls and
0:40
text messages to our virtual device.
0:44
Testing how an app responds
to incoming phone calls and
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text messages, is an important
part of the testing process.
0:49
You wouldn't want your music player
to keep playing during a phone call.
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So if we click over here on the three
dots, and then click on phone,
0:57
we can type in an arbitrary number,
Like 123456789 and
1:02
then send this text message to our device.
1:10
Look I got a text.
1:16
Cool, and if you wanted to call
the device with that number,
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you just click the call device button.
1:25
Hey, now's not really a good time for
a phone call.
1:29
Another cool thing we can do from here is
set the location of our virtual device
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by specifying a latitude and longitude.
1:38
An easy way to get latitude and longitude
information is by using Google Maps.
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Just find a location you're interested in,
let's say Tokyo,
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Then right click on the map and
select what's here,
1:53
to have Google Maps show
you the coordinates.
1:57
Now you can copy and paste in
the first coordinate, As the latitude,
2:02
On the location tab, And
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copy and paste in the second
coordinate as the longitude.
2:17
Then when you hit send, Android will
start to think your device is in Tokyo.
2:30
To check this, all we need to do, is go
home and since for our virtual device we
2:37
decided to include the Google APIs, we can
just click in here, go to Google Maps,
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And click on the Where am I button.
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And awesome, it thinks we're in Tokyo.
3:03
Another thing you might wanna
change while your app is running,
3:07
is the network speed and latency.
3:09
We saw earlier how we can set these
as properties of our virtual device.
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But changing them from in here,
on the Cellular tab,
3:16
let us modify the network speed and
latency in real time.
3:21
Let's test it out.
3:25
I'm going to go to Google Images,
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And look up pictures of alpaca,
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Looks like that loaded pretty quickly.
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Now let's change the speed
of our network to EDGE,
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which is a little slower than 3G,
and refresh the page.
3:55
Wow, this is taking a lot longer to load.
4:07
Being able to change network settings
on the fly is a useful feature for
4:11
making sure an app handles
network transitions gracefully.
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And being able to test your app on a
really slow network is a great way to see
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what some of your users
might be dealing with.
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While this keeps loading, another useful
thing we can do right from the emulator,
4:32
is take screenshots.
4:36
This can be useful for gathering
screenshots on many different types
4:38
of device to use in a listing
on the Google Play Store.
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We can take a screen shot by clicking
on the camera icon over here.
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Also, taking a screenshot
might take a few seconds.
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That's because it takes the screenshot
at the full resolution of your
4:53
virtual device.
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Just like if you were taking
a screen shot on an actual device.
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Also, the screenshots should
be stored on your computer.
5:01
For me on a Mac,
it puts it in the Desktop folder.
5:05
Getting back to the Android Device
Monitor, one thing we still can't do
5:12
directly from the emulator is manage
the files on our virtual device.
5:17
Let's click on the file explorer tab,
to see what we can do.
5:21
On the top right, we have options to pull
files from the device to our computer,
5:26
push files from our computer to the
device, delete files and add new folders.
5:31
I really like that picture
I took in the last video.
5:38
Let's see how I would
pull onto my computer.
5:41
Start by expanding the storage folder,
and then emulated, and then zero.
5:46
And let me give a little more
room to this name column.
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These should be the folders you're
familiar with seeing if you've ever used
5:58
a File Explorer on your Android device.
6:02
And to find that picture
I took with the camera,
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we just need to go into the DCIM
folder and then the camera folder.
6:07
Then I'll highlight my file and
6:11
click to pull it from
the device to my computer.
6:15
And that's a fine place to put it.
6:19
And now, it's on my computer.
6:24
Hopefully, you now have a better
idea of how to make the most
6:27
of the Android emulator.
6:31
It really is a powerful tool for
thoroughly testing your apps.
6:32
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