Compiling Android .apk Files

[PEB]

Google is switching to OpenJDK for the next version of Android (http://www.programmableweb.com/news/goo ... 2015/12/30).

I was wondering if this will make it any easier to give Hollywood the capability of compiling .apk files?

[airsoftsoftwair]

I'm afraid that won't help. Since every *.apk must be code-signed it's impossible to create *.apks without the Android NDK/SDK toolchain. It could be possible to create some scripts which combine Hollywood and the Android NDK/SDK to make Hollywood compile *.apks directly but you certainly would require the Android NDK/SDK toolchain for it and it wouldn't be as convenient as the standard Hollywood compiler. On top of that, it would be a hell to maintain since there Google updates these tools quite frequently.

[PEB]

Hi Andreas,

I'm sure you've got plenty of other ideas and projects competing for your time, but it would be really great to have the option of creating .apk files---even if it requires a Windows machine with the Android NDK/SDK installed, and is not as quick and easy as a .hwa compile.

If you could make some scripts that would allow for the creation of *.apks on Windows, how tricky do you think it would it be for us users to edit those scripts (updating paths and file names as needed) when Google updates their tools? (I have absolutely no clue, which is why I'm asking.)

I certainly appreciate the ease with which applets are created by Hollywood, and run very well on the Android player. I would probably still use .hwa files more than 95% of the time. But after I have extensively tested one of my apps, and am finally ready to share it with others, it would be very nice to be able to compile an Android application package and provide a download link for the .apk file.

(I'm guessing that I'm not the only one who would even be willing to buy such packaging/compiling scripts from you.)

But I can also completely understand if you don't want to waste your limited time with such a project. (I just figured that there was no harm in asking/begging.)

[bitRocky]

Wouldn't it be possible to use an "online-compiler" for creating apk files?
So one could send the Hollywood source to a server and the server would compile/code-sign-it and send back the created apk file?
The benefit would be that the user wouldn't need a Android NDK/SDK for himself.

[airsoftsoftwair]

I agree that an *.apk compiler would be a really nice add-on and many people have already asked about it. Actually, I haven't ever thought of bitRocky's server idea but the more I think about it, the more I like it. This could really be a clever solution and it would also solve some other problems related to compiling apks. For example, parts of Hollywood for Android had to be written in Java and every Java file has to start with a package identifier which in Hollywood's case is

Code: Select all

package com.airsoftsoftwair.hollywood

This of course would also have to be adapted in case Hollywood is used to compile apks. It would have to be set to the identifier of the apk you are about to compile. This in turn means that I'd have to give all Java sources of Hollywood's Android backend away which I'd also like to avoid (although there's really no magic in there ) The server solution could workaround all these problems. Sounds tempting. I'm currently busy with other stuff but I think I'll give this a go when I have some more time and see if I can come up with something.

[PEB]

Thank you so much for trying to make this work!

(I'm sure that this will make a lot of people happy.)

[Allanon]

Ooooh, yeeeessss!!
I'm one of those that could be incredibly happy to release Hollywood apps as standard .apk!!
Thank you Andreas for looking into this

[bitRocky]

Nice, that you like my idea!
I think it will "boost" sales for hollywood if one could directly create stand alone apps for Android!
I would finally buy Hollywood if you could implement this feature!

[xabierpayet]

this will be the better new of the year for me, pleasse, do it

[zylesea]

I agree that an *.apk compiler would be a really nice add-on and many people have already asked about it. Actually, I haven't ever thought of bitRocky's server idea but the more I think about it, the more I like it. This could really be a clever solution and it would also solve some other problems related to compiling apks.

I would also welcome this very much. And thinking the server side compilation a bit further-couldn't such a solution also result in some Hollywood for IOS? That would be quite a major thing.