Programming can be fun when done with the right tools – development tools that let you write and test the source code without pestering. Coding on the computer is surely more congenial, but it cannot beat the convenience of viewing or editing the source code from anywhere. This is where mobile devices come in handy – you can carry them anywhere and do your tasks from your own comfortable place.
The Android app ecosystem offers a plethora of applications for programming. The Google Play Store is full of apps for all your coding needs – code editors, compilers, and development environments, just to name a few. They are all different and come with a varied set of features and drawbacks, which makes selecting the best tool a challenge. This is where we come in. Let’s take a look at the top 5 code editors for Android that can help you code, edit, compile and run your source code on the move.
1. Quoda
Quoda is certainly the best free multi-language code editor for Android. It is a powerful yet easy source code editor, and comes with nearly all the essential features that a software programmer would need. It also bundles various productivity-enhancing functionalities that can boost the developer’s efficiency. It is packed full of many useful features such as syntax highlighting, auto-suggestions, line bookmarking, auto-indentation, etc.
Syntax highlighting comes with variety of themes and fonts, and works for various programming languages including HTML, XML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP, C, C++, C#, Java, ActionScript, Lisp, Markdown, Haskell and more. It has support for code templates and snippets, which can help minimize the coding work. It adds extra keys to your keyboard that gives you the ability to boost your typing speed. Other features include find and replace, comment and uncomment, preview for HTML files, website source downloader, HTML cleaner, etc.
Quoda understands your uploading requirements and offers various solutions. It can open, edit and upload files to an unlimited number of FTP or FTPS servers. It can even store and fetch files from popular cloud storage services such as Dropbox and Google Drive, and support for Box and Skydrive is expected in a future release.
2. DroidEdit
DroidEdit is a source code editor and text writer with a clean and simple interface. It has multi-language support with features to help you achieve your goal easily and effectively. It is for Android as Notepad++ is for desktop operating systems – that means it can be used to open and modify simple text files as well as source code files of various programming languages.
DroidEdit offers syntax highlighting that comes with support for more than 200 languages, and many built-in themes as well as an option to create custom color themes. Writer mode turns off the auto-correct and switches on the spell-checker. Emmet can be used to expand simple expressions into full-fledged HTML code. Other features include line wrap, search and replace, extra keys on your keyboard for faster code typing and even support for editing system files on your rooted device.
DroidEdit has support for downloading and uploading files from remote storage providers. You can upload and download files from (s)FTP servers. It even supports reading and writing to cloud storage providers such as Dropbox, Google Drive and Box. Additionally, it has a rare feature of built-in support for Git that allows you to checkout, edit, commit and push directly from your phone or tablet.
3. AWD
Android Web Developer (AWD) is a simple yet feature-rich integrated development environment. It lets you code and develop web projects using your Android phone or tablet. You can use it to edit and code HTML, CSS, JavaScript and PHP as well. It comes with full-screen mode and tablet-ready user interface that improves the overall coding experience.
AWD is a simple yet effective code editor for writing or editing the source code of your project’s files. It supports various productivity features including code highlighting, code completion, error checking, code beautifying, fast navigation, search and replace among other things. It even offers a quick preview of your web pages inside the application.
AWD supports managing remote projects easily by providing many quick ways to reach your project. It allows you to work with local as well as remote files. You can upload and download files from FTP, FTPS and SFTP servers. To top it off, it even supports WEBDav for accessing and storing your web projects.
4. AIDE
AIDE, which stands for Android IDE, is a complete integrated development environment for Android development. It lets you code and develop Android applications right on your Android device without the need of a computer system. You can also learn how to develop Java and Android applications. Programming lessons are interactive with step-by-step instructions, which help amateurs to easily learn the skills of app development for Java and Android platforms.
AIDE lets you develop Android apps, Java apps or PhoneGap apps using Java, C/C++, HTML5, CSS and JavaScript. Visual Designer lets you visually design the user interface of the app without the need of writing XML code. There’s also the feature-rich editor which comes with code completion, real-time error checking, refactoring, and smart code navigation. It offers a one-click solution to compile and run your project.
AIDE is compatible with the popular desktop IDEs for Android – Eclipse and Android Studio. This means that it can open and run projects created with the given desktop IDEs and vice-versa. It can integrate with Dropbox for uploading and downloading files from the popular cloud storage. Best of all, there’s support for Git, and it can edit, checkout, commit and push files directly.
5. CppDroid
CppDroid is a simple yet powerful integrated development environment for C and C++ development. It is a fresh baked application, which brings the GCC compiler to Android. It allows you to code, edit, compile and execute C/C++ programs on your Android device without any difficulty. It comes with various demos or practice programs, which can help you learn the basics of programming in C and C++ languages.
CppDroid offers an intuitive code editor that comes with various features for productive coding. Syntax highlighting is smart enough to highlight various parts of the program, and offers an option for configurable themes. Other features include auto-indentation, code-completion, real-time diagnostics (warnings and errors), file and tutorial navigator, and terminal emulation to run your compiled programs.