What’s New in HarmonyOS 2.0? A Deep Dive into DevEco Studio and Resource Changes

At the Huawei Developer Conference on September 10, HarmonyOS 2.0 was officially launched, with a beta testing phase and an open‑source repository made available.

Key points for developers: the beta version of the DevEco Studio IDE and the new open‑source website.

OpenHarmony source repository

The HarmonyOS source code has been donated to the Open Atom Open‑Source Foundation. The official repository can be accessed at https://openharmony.gitee.com/openharmony.

DevEco Studio IDE

HarmonyOS uses DevEco Studio, a heavily customized version of IntelliJ IDEA. It can be downloaded from https://developer.harmonyos.com/cn/develop/deveco-studio.

Project structure differences between HarmonyOS and Android

Resource directory changes

Android’s res becomes resources (with base and rawfile subfolders).

Android’s res/values becomes resources/element; Android’s raw becomes rawfile.

Some resource types such as float.json, plural.json, and a profile folder are added, while others are removed.

XML resource files are replaced by JSON files in the element directory.

Illustrative comparison images are provided in the original article.

Configuration file changes

The Android AndroidManifest.xml is replaced by config.json in HarmonyOS.

Java code changes

Java source layout differs; a full comparison diagram is included in the source.

HarmonyOS vs. WeChat Mini‑Program project structure

JS directory layout for HarmonyOS closely mirrors that of WeChat Mini‑Programs, as shown in the accompanying diagrams.

Advantages of HarmonyOS development

Multi‑device development and debugging : Supports TV, Wearable, LiteWearable, and future devices with a single codebase.

Low learning curve : DevEco Studio strips unnecessary IDEA features, focusing on HarmonyOS SDKs.

Language support : Java and JavaScript for TV/Wearable; only JavaScript for LiteWearable, plus the proprietary .hml markup similar to HTML.

Framework familiarity : Java APIs resemble Android’s, while JavaScript development feels like WeChat Mini‑Program coding.

Fine‑grained permission handling : Permissions are declared in config.json and can be requested dynamically in code.

Cloud‑based testing : Developers can test on cloud devices without installing local emulators.

The article concludes that DevEco Studio offers a convenient, developer‑friendly environment for building HarmonyOS applications, with many more features to explore.