Use IntelliJ: https://www.jetbrains.com/student/

Libraries: https://android-arsenal.com/ Slightly less daunting list of libraries: https://github.com/codepath/android_guides/wiki/Must-Have-Libraries

Quick icons http://shreyasachar.com/AndroidAssetStudio/index.html - you probably want near 100% white or http://materialdesignicons.com/ - you probably want to choose the lollipop option when you download

Colors: http://www.materialpalette.com/

HTTP: https://github.com/koush/ion Logging: https://github.com/orhanobut/logger Views/input events: https://jakewharton.github.io/butterknife/ Talking between things that can't easily talk: https://github.com/greenrobot/EventBus If something involves an intent for communicating data, or bundles, or parcelables, its probably easier to just use/ the event bus. Want to sort of store some data that other places might need? Sticky events pretty much work.

Resources:

https://github.com/codepath/android_guides/wiki/Beginning-Android-Resources

Particularly: http://guides.codepath.com/android http://developer.android.com/guide/faq/commontasks.html