# Host system configuration
-Some configuration is required to compile for the Android platform from a GNU/Linux host.
+To compile Android apps from a 64 bits GNU/Linux host you can reuse an existing Android Studio
+installation or make a clean install with command line tools only.
-1. Download and install the latest Android SDK __and__ NDK.
+Note that this guide supports only 64 bits GNU/Linux hosts with support for a Java 8 JDK,
+it may be possible to support other platforms with some tweaks.
-2. Update PATH so it includes the tools `android`, `ndk-build` and `ant`.
- You should add something like the following snippet to your .bashrc or equivalent,
- be careful to replace `ANDROID_SDK` and `ANDROID_NDK` with the full path where you installed each package.
+1. Install the required SDK packages using one of these two methods:
+
+ a. Using Android Studio, open `Tools > Android > SDK Manager`, in the SDK Tools tab,
+ install "Android SDK Build-Tools", CMake and NDK.
+
+ b. From the command line, run this script for a quick setup without Android Studio.
+ You will probably need to tweak it to you system or update the download URL
+ to the latest SDK tools from https://developer.android.com/studio/index.html#command-tools
+
+ ~~~
+ # Fetch and extract SDK tools
+ mkdir -p ~/Android/Sdk
+ cd ~/Android/Sdk
+ wget https://dl.google.com/android/repository/sdk-tools-linux-3859397.zip
+ unzip sdk-tools-linux-3859397.zip
+
+ # Update tools
+ tools/bin/sdkmanager --update
+
+ # Accept the licenses
+ tools/bin/sdkmanager --licenses
+
+ # Install the basic build tools
+ tools/bin/sdkmanager "build-tools;27.0.0" ndk-bundle
+ ~~~
+
+3. Set the environment variable ANDROID_HOME to the SDK installation directory, usually `~/Android/Sdk/`.
+ Use the following command to setup the variable for bash.
~~~
- export PATH=$PATH:ANDROID_SDK/tools/:ANDROID_SDK/platform-tools/:ANDROID_NDK/
+ echo "export ANDROID_HOME=~/Android/Sdk/" >> ~/.bashrc
~~~
-2. Using the `android` executable, download the latest `tools, build-tools` and within the Android 4.0.3 (API 15) folder, install `SDK platform`.
- You may have to install additional SDK platforms for applications with different targets.
-
-3. Using your OS package manager, install `apt openjdk-7-jdk lib32stdc++6 lib32z1`.
- On Debian and Ubuntu the command is:
+4. Install Java 8 JDK, on Debian/Ubuntu systems you can use the following command:
~~~
- sudo apt-get install apt openjdk-7-jdk lib32stdc++6 lib32z1
+ sudo apt install openjdk-8-jdk
~~~
-# Configure your Android application
+# Configure the Android application
The _app.nit_ framework and this project offers some services to
customize the generated Android application.
application in the specified orientation. This can be useful for games and
other multimedia applications.
+## Resources and application icon
+
+Resources specific to the Android platform should be placed in an `android/` folder at the root of the project.
+The folder should adopt the structure of a normal Android project, e.g., a custom XML resource file can be placed
+at `android/res/values/color.xml` to be compiled with the Android application.
+
+The application icon should also be placed in the `android/` folder.
+Place the classic bitmap version at `android/res/mipmap-hdpi/ic_launcher.png` (and others),
+and the adaptive version at `android/res/mipmap-anydpi-v26/ic_launcher.xml`.
+The Nit compiler detects these files and uses them as the application icon.
+
+Additional `android/` folders may be placed next to more specific Nit modules to change the Android resources
+for application variants. The more specific resources will have priority over the project level `android/` files.
+
# Compilation modes
There are two compilation modes for the Android platform, debug and release.