IDE setup for development of react-native JSI native modules - android

JSI is about to become quite popular in native module development but there's still very little information on how to get started with it.
One of the things I'm wasting more of my time on is setting up an IDE to get IntelliSense / code completion with the c++ side of things.
I have both CLion and Android studio and i couldn't figure out a way to make it work at all. Android studio seems to just ignore the CMakeLists.txt file inside the android/ folder. On clion when loading the CMakeLists.txt file it just can't find half the variables and paths needed and if i manually set the variables via the settings it keeps giving errors on errors.
I'm pretty new to c++ development but i managed to setup a few c++ projects so far, but i have no idea how to do this for RN.

Basically, you need two IDEs, one for react-native's codes, and one for C++ code.
In my experience, Qt Creator IDE had best support for CMakeLists.txt as project, but give newer MSVC versions a try (they added support recently).
Also, VS Code was good for react-native.
But if you don't write much C++ code, simply use VS Code for both.

Related

Xamarin android release with multiple c++ abis in one package?

I have spent some time learning Xamarin and so far I am finding it a great tool. Now that I have finally got to the point of releasing my software I have hit a problem. Only a single version of my C++ dll is included in the android package (Arm64).
I am working with Visual Studio 2017. I added the C++ code as a 'C++ Shared Library (Android, IOS)' so that it compiles as part of my solution. I then add the reference to my xamarin android project to the android C++ project.
This compiles the dll and works well during development but when I come to release it with the 'Archive' option all I get is the one dll for the currently active ABI.
I thought this would simply be solved by doing a batch build of all ABIs but sadly that hasn't worked.
I have all the ABI options ticked in the android projects advanced options and I have not ticked the 'create separate packages for each ABI' option so I expect to see a .so file in each of the architecture folders of the APK.
Has anyone else experienced this issue before? I am at a loss as to what I need to do after going through all the Xamarin documentation and searching online. I don't really want to go down the route of adding the .so files directly as content to the project as I am still actively developing and having the dependency link between the two projects seems like the right way to do it. Perhaps I'm wrong?

How do I begin working on the Project Tango?

after a couple of weeks I have been unable to get the android set of tools to a functioning level with c++ before and have been given the opportunity of using a project tango, and though that sounds awesome and wondrous and would open a world of opportunity for working with VR... I feel like I am stuck at step -4. My understanding is limited, so bear with me.
I stumbled upon the PCL built for running algorithms on point cloud data, it was open source and appeared like a wonderful solution, it is written in C++ and I have a mild understanding of both c++ and java.
I have tried using Eclipse and the NDK and actually managed to get a project 'deployed' to the tango, however upon attempting to edit any file in the project, java or c++, it breaks and will never deploy again.
Now I am trying to use Android Studio, and after following about 5 conflicting tutorials on 'how to get C++/ndk working in android studio' I have yet to get a working environment.
So here is my question, and we can start at step one, any help is appreciated. How does one get c++ and the PCL working on a google project tango, is there a better way for someone of my skill level? The end result is a mapped 3d space with the project tango, with exportable data sets of manageable size. I have seen it done in demos on youtube, but thus far, like i said, I am stuck on step -4.
we are working on converting all project to android studio based, for now, here is the walk around to get you started:
Open Android Studio, import the project from the repo you just cloned.
Take the motion-tracking-jni-example as the example, copy tango-gl-render, tango-service-sdk, and third-party into the motion-tracking-jni-example/app/src.
Run ndk-build in the motion-tracking-jni-example/app/src/main folder.
ndk will generate the libs folder, rename it to jniLibs.
Go to Android Studio, in build.gradle(Module:app) file, add line 'sourceSets.main.jni.srcDirs = []' to the defaultConfig section.
Just click the run button in Android Studio.
What we did here is basically disabled the Android Stdio's JNI compile and manually built it using ndk.
Start with unity3d, its easy to get a working demo with a week with Unity3D.
And support is very good, documentation is top notch.
Hope this will help.
Tango NDK Tutorial Will help but the basic layout is
Setup a new project
Create your Java activity
Create a JNI file to bridge Java to the C++
Create your C++ logic
Setup your Makefiles and Gradle (probably the most annoying part)

Google launcher building

I tried to build this project using JetBrains IntelliJ IDEA but it was unsuccessful (there were a lot of errors). The project has an Android.mk file, but I didn't see the C++ code.... How can I build this project? I've tried to use another IDE, then I tried building from the console but it was not useful. Perhaps, does Launcher3 need NDK to build it?
You'll need to isolate the launcher's code and then identify all of it's dependencies. If the code has any C++ code then it definitely requires the NDK and currently IntelliJ/Android Studio does not have any stable support for NDK based app development (though it is a work in progress) else if it is pure Java (most probably) then you'll have to manually add the classes and build the app from Android Studio! Either way you will have to dig deeper into the source and know for yourself. Unfortunately there seems to be no easier option, for now. I wouldn't mind being proved wrong for the matter.
EDIT :
I glanced through the code and I noticed there are no C++ source files or library (*.so) files. This isn't a gradle project and hence cannot be built as one. You'll need to setup a gradle based Android project and then begin adding the sources (src, tests etc.) and their dependencies (res etc.). You can start of here : Getting Started with Android development if you're new, else you can move to this : Gradle and Android

Building .so libraries on windows for use on android

I am building C libraries that will be used by an android app(through either JNI or the NDK, I've never used the NDK though) and I am wondering what IDE/development environment is best to use? I've basically only used Visual Studio for native development and I'm not sure how to adapt to building .so libraries for use on android.
Thanks
EDIT: Update -- I want to avoid makefiles if possible (never used them) and rather use a complete IDE such as the case with visual stuido to compile
Generally, cygwin (i.e. command line) is used for building Android native code. But you can also try to use Eclipse for this purpose. It doesn't help very much but it highlights syntax and you don't have to switch to other apps to write code and build your app. You can read more about using Eclipse for C/C++ Android development here.
I would strongly recommend that you use the NDK's compiler.
Normally this is done by writing an Android.mk in accordance with the instructions for the NDK. It is not complicated. The easiest thing to do is to grab the hello-jni sample app and just make the necessary changes, for example substituting your source files into its android.mk.
You can stay in visual studio if you like that as an editing environment, simply using the ability to bind an external command to a keystroke to launch the ndk build script. Ages ago I had figured out how to reformat GCC error messages with sed into something that VS could parse to make them click-able, though I soon moved development of that project under linux.
I think a lot of people use Eclipse as their IDE for Android development. I use it and its pretty good. You shouldn't have any problems if you're used to VS.
The Android SDK comes with a plugin, the Android Development Tools (ADT), to develop applications for Android inside the Eclipse IDE, which is same kind of beast as Visual Studio. And within that IDE, it is possible to use JavaCPP (disclaimer: I am the author) to have it compile all the native C/C++ stuff we need through the Android NDK, but without needing Makefiles and such. More details here:
http://code.google.com/p/javacpp/#Instructions_for_Android

Android NDK with Visual Studio

I'd like to build some native libraries for android using the NDK (native development kit), but i'd like to use Visual Studio 2010 to do it. I've googled quite a bit but haven't found any information on it. Does anyone have any experience with this and know the steps necessary to make this happen? I have CYGWin installed, made sure i get Make (per the NDK instructions), but i'm not really sure of the next steps in terms of setting up the project, compiler in visual studio, etc.
If anyone knows of any write-ups, tutorials, or links to sample projects, that would be awesome, as there isn't much on google yet.
thanks!
Here's another solution, which integrates the NDK fully within Visual Studio. No makefiles. It behaves like a proper Win32 project:
Here's an excellent blog post about how you can configure your environment to debug android NDK code using Visual Studio.
Visual Studio is officially not supported.
Some problems (but not limited to):
MSVS cannot create the proper ARM binaries
Android makefiles (.mk) are not supported by MSVS
There are however, third party solutions:
vs-android
VisualGDB
You might want to check out DS-5 as well, though it's not Visual Studio.
The answer depends on what kind of integration you require.
To just build the native Android code from Visual Studio you can create a new Makefile project, and make it run ndk-build.cmd when you press "build". If you would like to get the error messages mapped as well, you will need to parse the output of ndk-build.cmd and convert it to a format that Visual Studio can udnerstand.
If you want to debug your native Android code from Visual Studio, you will need a third party tool that will control ndk-gdb on behalf of Visual Studio and provide workarounds for several bugs (e.g. rebind breakpoints when libraries are loaded).
You can try our VisualGDB for Android tool that does exactly that - creates projects that wrap ndk-build and controls NDK debugger on behalf of Visual Studio. If you need more information, there is a step-by-step tutorial available.
I have not found a direct clean solution, here is my workaround.
I develop my native code on VS as a static library, and use some test project to try it as a console aplication.
When it is ok, from cygwin I use a little bash script that copies all needed files to the jni folder and launch the standard android ndk make command. (also copy some file to assets folder when needed), producing the executable in the right folder.
To use the pthreads I have linked my projects to pthreads-win32.
The only files I do not compile in VS are the jni code.
I hope this can help you.
There's also a couple of other third party alternatives for developing ANdroid apps with VS in addition to those above. There is the open source dot42 located at http://www.dot42.com and Remobjects, http://www.remobjects.com , which allows you to program in c#, Pascal, and Swift. I have played with the trial of Remobjects and am now starting to play around with dot42.
My use of the remobjects trial allowed me to recreate in c# the first five chapter projects in the textbook of the Android course I took. I haven't had the same success with dot42 so far but I need to find some time to really give it a chance.

Categories

Resources