chfr / android

GPII on Android

android

GPII on Android is currently in development release. You can follow the steps below to download, build, and install the necessary components to develop against. For future production releases, everything will be bundled into an apk(s) build.

In development you can keep the gpii javascript on the sd card, and make changes to them there while testing.

Build Steps

# From a shell

# Clone this android module and cd in to it.

# Set the ANDROID_HOME environmental variable with your system's path
# where the Android SDK is located.
export ANDROID_HOME=/path/to/your/adt-bundle-linux/sdk/

# cd in to platform directory
cd platform

# It's important that you source rather than execute prebuild.sh
# because it needs to export some env variables.
source ./prebuild.sh
cd app
ant debug
adb install ./bin/GpiiApp-debug.apk
cd ../..

# You can skip the get-universal step if you're planning on working
# with a universal branch and set it up manually. However, if you
# use this command and are working on a branch, be sure to go to
# ../node_modules/universal and checkout the correct branch.
./android-gpii.sh get-universal

# Tar gzips the android and universal JavaScript code and moves it to
# the device's SD card and unzips it.
./android-gpii.sh install-js

# Starts gpii on port 8081 (by default)
./android-gpii.sh start

What happens during the build

What follows is a general list of what is happening when we build this project.

• The gpii android module containing this readme file is clone with git.
• Initial work is performed in the platform directory, starting with fetching the anode project. Then we make create an assets directory in /app, and download the prebuilt node.js binaries to put in that directory.
• We set the anode root env variable and check to make sure the android home variable is set.
• We copy the jtar jar dependency from anode to our app directory.
• Then we go into /app and use 'ant debug' to build the Gpii activity apk.
• Then we create the node_modules directory and clone the universal repository into it.
• Inside the universal repository 'npm install' is run to fetch all the dependencies.
• The android and universal gpii javascript is copied to the device, to the sdcard for development. ( For production builds we will bundle it in the apk )
• The gpii activity apk is 'adb installed' to the device.
• The first time running, you need to manually start the Gpii activity. ( This will be fixed in the future )
• Then we can start the GPII via intent.

Notes

• Currently, the main activity screen must be launched for the broadcast intent that starts GPII to work.