I'm not exactly a fan of the light theme that comes default with Android Studio. Also, it gets boring looking at the same colors, so I like to change them up once in a while. So here's a beginner tutorial in how to customize your Android Studio!

Changing the Default Theme

If you just want to change the default theme to another theme, for example, Darcula, just open the settings.

Go to File -> Settings (Android Studio -> Preferences for mac users). You can then select a new theme in the settings window under Editor -> Color Scheme.

If you aren't happy with the default themes Android Studio comes with, you can customize almost every aspect of the selected theme by expanding the Color Scheme menu.

More Custom Themes with the Material Theme UI Plugin

If you don't feel like customizing the existing themes that come with Android Studio, you can install the Material Theme UI plugin from the IntelliJ Marketplace.

To install the plugin, just open the settings window with File -> Settings (Android Studio -> Preferences for mac users) and select Plugins. Then search for "Material Theme UI" and click on install.

You are than asked to restart Android Studio to enable the plugin. After you restarted Android Studio, new themes you can select should've been added to the existing ones under Editor -> Color Scheme.

You can of course customize those themes too, if you're unhappy with any aspect of them.

Lots of amazing companies, such as Netflix, Lyft, and Pinterest have embraced Kotlin in their tech stacks. And ever since Google announced official support for Kotlin for Android development in 2017, there has been a huge surge in interest in the language.

But why should developers learn Kotlin? In this article, we'll take a look at Kotlin's benefits and explain why you should consider adding it to your skillset.

1. Kotlin makes development a lot faster

Kotlin requires fewer lines of code to do the same thing as other programming languages, such as Java. Because it's an inherently concise language it can solve many common development problems with just a few lines of code.

For example, you can filter a list by just using a lambda expression like this:

val evenNumbers = list.filter { it % 2 == 0 }

And if you want a singleton, you simply create an object with:

object SingletonObject {
	val userName: String = "SmallApe"
}

2. You can use it with existing java code

Kotlin is fully interoperable with Java, so apps you've already build can easily be migrated to Kotlin incrementally. You don't need to stop using Java, you can use both!

You can even add functionality to existing classes (even Java classes) by using extensions. This means you can take advantage of Kotlin's powerful features without having to abandon all the skills you've gained while building existing apps with Java.

3. Kotlin is officially supported by Google for Android development

Google announced official support for Kotlin at Google I/O in May 2017, saying:

Kotlin is a brilliantly designed, mature language that we believe will make Android development faster and more fun. It has already been adopted by several major developers — Expedia, Flipboard, Pinterest, Square, and others — for their production apps. Kotlin also plays well with the Java programming language; the effortless interoperation between the two languages has been a large part of Kotlin's appeal.

Just two years later Google announced that Android development will be Kotlin-first. Google hasn't officially said it, but it sure seems like Kotlin is now their recommended Android programming language

4. Kotlin has a large community and great resources

Anyone who ever used Java will find Kotlin's functionality very recognizable, so learning Kotlin is really straightforward. There are great resources available to quickly learn basic syntax and more advanced topics.

The language reference and Kotlin Koans (interactive exersices designed to help developers become familiar with Kotlin) are great ways to get started.

The Kotlin developer community is a great resource for expanding your knowledge and is growing rapidly. The Kotlin Slack channel is particularly active and is regularly recommended by new developers.

5. You'll improve the quality of the apps you build

Kotlin improves the quality of your released apps through "safety" features that have been designed to reduce the number of bugs and system failures.
For example, it has a strong type system based on null-safety. This means by default, variables can't be null, so you can catch more errors at compile-time before shipping to users.
This is really useful. Null references were famously called "billion-dollar mistake" by their inventor, Tony Hoare. This is because of the innumerable computer errors and system crashes they have caused since their inception in 1965.

The professional and business benefits of learning Kotlin are compelling. It improves developer’s productivity, makes debugging easier, and increases the pace of app development. It's easy to learn and can be used within existing apps because of its interoperability with Java. These benefits help explain why it's such a hit with developers.