ActionBarActivity: cannot be resolved to a type

Check if you have a android-support-v4.jar file in YOUR project's lib folder, it should be removed!

In the tutorial, when you have followed the instructions of Adding libraries WITHOUT resources before doing the coorect Adding libraries WITH resources you'll get the same error.

(Don't know why someone would do something like that *lookingawayfrommyself* ^^)

So what did fix it in my case, was removing the android-support-v4.jar from YOUR PROJECT (not the android-support-v7-appcompat project), since this caused some kind of library collision (maybe because in the meantime there was a new version of the suport library).

Just another case, when this error might shows up.

This way work for me with Eclipse in Android developer tool from Google -righ click - property - java build path - add external JAR

point to: android-support-v7-appcompat.jar in /sdk/extras/android/support/v7/appcompat/libs

Then

import android.support.v7.app.ActionBarActivity;

It does not sound like you imported the library right especially when you say at the point Add the library to your application project: I felt lost .. basically because I don't have the "add" option by itself .. however I clicked on "add library" and moved on ..

in eclipse you need to right click on the project, go to Properties, select Android in the list then Add to add the library

follow this tutorial in the docs

http://developer.android.com/tools/support-library/setup.html