/android-gradle-plugin

This is fork of Google's Android gradle plugin which basically supports NDK.

Primary LanguageJava

I added simple NDK support. To use it just specify ndk.dir in local.properties of your project.

What is this?

A prototype Gradle plugin to build Android applications. This is intended to be used to explore how such a plugin would look and to develop some ideas about how such a plugin would be implemented.

The plugin is functional, if a bit rough, and can generate packaged applications ready to install.

DSL

The plugin adds 2 concepts to the Gradle DSL:

  • A build type. There are 2 predefined build types, called release and debug. You can add additional build types.
  • A product flavor. For example, a free or a paid-for flavour.

If you do not define any flavors for your product, a default flavor called main is added.

From this, the plugin will add the appropriate tasks to build each combination of build type and product flavor. The plugin will also define the following source directories:

  • src/main/java - Java source to be included in all application variants.
  • src/main/res - Resources to be included in all application variants.
  • `src/main/AndroidManifest.xml' - The application manifest (currently shared by all application variants).
  • src/$BuildType/java - Java source to be included in all application variants with the given build type.
  • src/$BuildType/res - Java source to be included in all application variants with the given build type.
  • src/$ProductFlavor/java - Resources to be included in all application variants with the given product flavor.
  • src/$ProductFlavor/res - Resources to be included in all application variants with the given product flavor.
  • src/test/java - Test source to be included in all test applications.
  • src/test$ProductFlavor/java - Test source to be include for the test application for the given product flavor.

You can configure these locations by configuring the associated source set.

Compile time dependencies are declared in the usual way.

Have a look at the basic/build.gradle and customized/build.gradle build files to see the DSL in action.

Configuration options

  • android.packageName - defaults to that specified in src/main/AndroidManifest.xml
  • android.versionCode - defaults to that specified in src/main/AndroidManifest.xml
  • android.versionName - defaults to that specified in src/main/AndroidManifest.xml
  • android.target - defaults to android-16.
  • android.productFlavors.$flavor.packageName - defaults to ${android.packageName}
  • android.productFlavors.$flavor.versionCode - defaults to ${android.versionCode}
  • android.productFlavors.$flavor.versionName - defaults to ${android.versionName}
  • android.buildTypes.$type.zipAlign - defaults to true for release and false for debug
  • sourceSets.main.java.srcDirs - defaults to src/main/java
  • sourceSets.main.resources.srcDirs - defaults to src/main/res
  • sourceSets.$flavor.java.srcDirs - defaults to src/$flavor/java
  • sourceSets.$flavor.resources.srcDirs - defaults to src/$flavor/res
  • sourceSets.$buildType.java.srcDirs - defaults to src/$buildType/java
  • sourceSets.$buildType.resources.srcDirs - defaults to src/$buildType/res
  • sourceSets.test.java.srcDirs - defaults to src/test/java
  • sourceSets.test$Flavor.java.srcDirs - defaults to src/test$Flavor/java
  • dependencies.compile - compile time dependencies for all applications.

Contents

The source tree contains the following:

  • The gradle directory contains the plugin implementation.
  • The testapps/basic directory contains a simple application that follows the conventions
  • The testapps/customized directory contains an application with some custom build types, product flavors and other customizations.
  • The testapps/multiproject directory contains an application composed from several Gradle projects.

Usage

To build the plugin, run ./gradlew uploadArchives

To import the plugin into the IDE, run ./gradlew idea or ./gradlew eclipse.

To build a test application:

  1. cd into the root directory of the test application.
  2. Edit the local.properties file to point at your local install of the Android SDK. Normally, these files would not be checked into source control, but would be generated when the project is bootstrapped.
  3. Run ../../gradlew tasks to see the tasks that are available.

You can also run these tasks:

  • assemble - builds all combinations of build type and product flavor
  • assemble$BuildType - build all flavors for the given build type.
  • assemble$ProductFlavor - build all build types for the given product flavor.
  • assemble$ProductFlavor$BuildType - build the given application variant.
  • install$ProductFlavor$BuildType - build and install the given application variant.

Implementation

For each variant (product-flavor, build-type):

  • Generates resource source files into build/source from resource directories (main-source-set, product-flavor-source-set, build-type-source-set)
  • Compile source files (main-source-set, product-flavor-source-set, build-type-source-set, generated-source).
  • Converts the bytecode into build/libs
  • Crunches resources in build/resources
  • Packages the resource into build/libs
  • Assembles the application package into build/libs.

Some other notes:

  • Uses sourceSets.main.compileClasspath as the compile classpath for each variant. Could potentially also include sourceSets.$BuildType.compileClasspath and sourceSets.$ProductFlavor.compileClasspath as well.
  • Currently, the plugin signs all applications using the debug key.
  • No support for building test applications.
  • No support for building library projects.
  • No support for running ProGuard.