如何为Android选择正确的API级别与 <uses-sdk /> AndroidManifest.xml中的属性？

Question

I need my Android device to run on Ice Cream Sandwich, Jelly Bean, KitKat (and if not very painful on Gingerbread). I've got confused founding two properties to set:

1. Choosing API level (as I've read the device will not be able to run my app, if it uses lower API);
2. <uses-sdk android:minSdkVersion="8" android:targetSdkVersion="19"/> in AndroidManifest.xml

How these two setting are related?

As I know I can choose only one API in project->Android settings but the uses SDK needs a range. Can you explain that?

And do you think, it's still worth to make the app available for GingerBread? Or this version is already too old - 15% are still using it - but from the GUI point isn't it too old/not comfortable?

Answer 1

There's a minimum and a target version. The minimum must be equal to or below the lowest version of phone you want to use this program. For your purposes, 11. The target is the version you claim to support, so if Android has any compatibility issues it knows how to act. It must be equal to or higher than the minimum. Basically set this to whatever version you tested and built against.