> Every time I think about using Scala and go through the list of configurations I need to do, I just give up.
It's pretty easy. You have to setup less things than with Gradle, because SBT deals with all the downloading, installing and managing of the two dozen SDKs Google wants you to use.
> I want a setup that embraces Gradle (even though we love to hate it), Android Studio GUI designers, plugins and annotations.
You can keep all you Gradle configuration. SBT-Android has a Gradle support mode so you can e. g. use the Gradle definitions for your IDE, but enjoy the fast turn-around and compile-times of compilation with SBT.
"The update includes the Android Studio 2.0 features: faster Emulator, experiment GPU Debugger, faster full builds, and code generation and testing for App Indexing. Note, Instant Run is not fully-merged yet."
If you want to drive adoption, it should work on Android Studio as well.
This is what I usually mean by using first party platform languages versus relying on third party support.
For Kotlin, all I need is to install the plugin on Android Studio and am off to the races.
And still I am not using it, because there are a few rough edges with all the Android workflows.
> For Kotlin, all I need is to install the plugin on Android Studio and am off to the races.
What is preventing you from doing that with Scala?
I see that you filed a ticket that the setup of IntelliJ != Android Studio, but is there anything that works in one, but not the other? (Except having to skip the "install android support" from the install guide?)
I guess no-one cares enough to support it? Definitely a shame though. (In the rare cases where I write Android apps I stick to Eclipse, stick to Maven, use Scala, and for me it all works - but presumably people have their reasons for preferring android studio/intellij).
I don't want a SBT based build that eschews the way Android developers work.
I want a setup that embraces Gradle (even though we love to hate it), Android Studio GUI designers, plugins and annotations.
Last time I mentioned this, someone pointed me to
http://scala-on-android.taig.io/editor/android-studio/
which hasn't been updated in ages.
Using InteliJ with Android support means always being outdated as it is usually two versions behind from Google's fork.