Build Android apps(Locally)

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Build Android apps(Locally)

Build Android app in Debug Mode
Build Android app in Release Mode

How to build Android app using Ant

Build an Android app locally with enabling Android specific features. Don't use this output to replace other platform's www content (ex: enabled Swipe Up and Down).

Procedure 3. Install and configure Android

  1. Download the Android SDK from developer site.

  2. Extract it into directory where you like to install it. Ex: it extracted as android-sdk-linux in linux.

  3. Execute the file :

    1. On Windows, double-click the SDK Manager.exe file at the root of the Android SDK directory.

    2. On Mac or Linux, open a terminal and navigate to the tools/ directory in the Android SDK, then execute android sdk

    Ex: In Linux,execute the file android in tools directory which is inside extracted folder android-sdk-linux/tools/android . Then add Platforms and Packages.

  4. Add the directories which include "android" and "adb" into PATH variables. ( those will be in android-sdk-<OS>/tools and android-sdk-<OS>/platform-tools )

Create an Android project

  • Create Mobile Output for Android

    Locate in mobile directory and run command using terminal : 

    $ ant mobile.android

    This will create chunk of html files which can use to build Android app using PhoneGap.

    Warning

    The bash scripts file mobile/android/bin/create has some modification from orginal PhoneGap package file. This is due to unexpected behaviour and some syntax errors while running on Linux. Current script is successfullly running on Ubuntu-12.04 64bit. Any changes that add to orginal script commented out in a way that user can identified those with "docbook" tag. On any error, change them into previous bash lines.

  • Important

    IMPORTANT : The current script,always perform with newest sdk on your machine. If you want to decide the version, then change the line of android/bin/create shell script file: 

    TARGET=$($ANDROID_BIN list targets \
| grep id: | tail -1 | cut -f 2 -d ' ' )

    with 

    TARGET=<target_number>

    . This means the platform number of Android target vertion which is given under 

    $ android list targets

    Please refer for more details about Managing AVDs.

    Warning

    Also check the "Type: Platform", but not "Type: Add-on".

  • Run the create command with the following parameters:

    • Path to your new Cordova Android project

    • Package name, following reverse-domain style convention

    • Project name 

    $ ./path/to/cordova-android/bin/create \
/path/to/my_new_cordova_project \
com.example.cordova_project_name \
CordovaProjectName

    Ex: $ bin/create ~/Desktop/Mobile \
docbook.xsl.Mobile Mobile

    This command creates Android apps called "Mobile" in ~/Desktop/Mobile directory with "docbook/xsl/Mobile.java" class in Android project's src directory.

    on windows 

    $ path\to\cordova-android\bin\create.bat ^
 path\to\my_new_cordova_project ^
com.example.cordova_project_name ^
CordovaProjectName

    Ex: $ bin/create.bat Android xsl.Mobile DocBook

    This command creates Android apps called "DocBook" in Android directory(in the current directory) with "xsl/Mobile.java" class in Android project's src directory.

Important

Go to newly created Android project path/to/my_new_cordova_project and replace path\to\my_new_cordova_project/asserts/www directory with mobile/www directory.