Develop Reference

Using a linked file in Assets directory - FileNotFound Exception

I am trying to link to an external file from a shared repository between my iOS and Android apps. This does not present a problem for iOS, but it does for Android. My current solution is to create a copy of the file from the external repository and place it in my projects Assets folder. This solution works, but is not much of a good one in my opinion and involves too many extra steps.
Using Eclipse, I am able to link to a resource. It's as simple as copying a file into my Assets folder and being prompted to either copy the file or link to the resource. If I link to the resource and try to run my app, I get a FileNotFoundException. If I copy the file instead, the app file is found just fine.
Ideally, I'd like to link to the file so that when I pull a new update from git then I don't need to copy the file over every single time. I'd prefer to link to the file.

I don't know what Eclipse uses "under the covers" for "Link here" drag-and-drop stuff. However, it is an Eclipse-ism. Android's build tools are fairly isolated from Eclipse proper, and so they won't know about those links.
Using a hardlink, or perhaps a symlink, at the OS X filesystem level should work, as both Eclipse and Android's build tools should treat it like a local file.

Font file not loading on Libgdx Android

I am using the following code to load font in my libgdx project.
BitmapFont(Gdx.files.local("fonts/test.fnt"))
This is working fine when i launch using Desktop Launcher.
however when I launch using Android Launcher i get the following error.
com.badlogic.gdx.utils.GdxRuntimeException: File not found: fonts/test.fnt (Local)
I am not sure What am i doing wrong here. My Android project's assets for folder contains fonts folder and has the files test.fnt and test.png.

On Android, assets can only be accessed using the internal file system:
Gdx.files.internal("filename");

Are you using different assets folders for both desktop and android so that you have separate copies of your files? Or are you using the same assets folder for both desktop and android?
If your are using the same assets folder, then both desktop and android have to use the android assets folder. Android is finicky in this way. So you will have to set your desktop assets folder to point to the android assets folder, then anytime you add new assets you have to add them to the android folder.

This is how I initialize my fonts.
fontTexture = new Texture(Gdx.files.internal("assets/texture/font.tga"));
buttonFont = new BitmapFont(Gdx.files.internal("assets/texture/font.fnt"), new TextureRegion(fontTexture), true);
By using internal it searches your project for the folder containing the assets for me that folder is "assets" my project looks something like this:
Eventhough I clearly have my assets packed into my project, I will get the same error when I export my application just like this.
Now here's how to solve that issue. You need to open up your exported project with something like 7z or Winrar, and manually drop in the 'assets' folder. In your case "fonts". This should should fix it, atleast I always have to do that, it never packs the assets for me.

Where do I put assets in a PlayN project?

I've set up a new PlayN project, and it runs some trivial code. I want to add asset files and load them, but where do I put the assets? I found the documentation for the Assets class, but it doesn't say anything about where the actual files go, and how I know what path to request.

After some more digging, I found an article describing the migration from PlayN 1.5 to 1.6. That includes a description of where to put your asset files in versions 1.6 and up.
In the new app organization, games have a top-level assets submodule which contains all of their assets. The android and ios submodules do not depend (in the Maven sense) on the assets submodule, but instead symlink the assets directly into their respective project directories so that they can be found by the Android and iOS build systems. This ensures that the assets are not included twice into the project (once in the jar file and once via the custom Android and iOS build systems). The other backends (HTML, Flash, Java) still load assets via the classpath and do have a dependency on the new assets submodule (in addition to their existing dependecy on the core submodule).
When Maven creates the project skeleton, you should see a project called yourapp-assets with a folder src/main/resources/assets. Anything you put in there can be loaded with the Assets class. If you create a file src/main/resources/assets/images/smile.png, then you can load it with PlayN.assets().getImage("images/smile.png").

PhoneGap 3 and IDEs

I'm trying to grok the best practices workflow for PhoneGap 3, and was wondering how all this is supposed to tie together:
For generic functionality, the code that is developed is in the top-level www folder.
For phone-specific functionality, the code that is developed is under the platforms/platform/ directory.
BUT when using an IDE, the project files seem to be down in the /platforms directory (for example -- the .xcodeproj file for ios is in the /platforms/ios directory), and only includes the files under /platforms, not the top-level www directory.
My question / issue is this. We have a team that's used to working in IDEs like VS / Xcode. How do I set up a project that allows them to work on the top-level www files and emulate on the platform(s) they're focusing on?

The answer to this question appears to have come from the folks over at Adobe.
Brackets is a relatively new open source IDE that is directory structure-focued, along the same vein as Smultron or TextWrangler, for those who are familiar with OS X editors. Hopefully this removes the temptation to go playing around in the /platforms directory instead of editing files in the top-level /www directory.
It has a plugin architecture, with support for Git / GitHub and PhoneGap Build. So far it looks pretty promising.

how to reference an asset in a library project

In a class belonging to a Library project I call:
webview.loadUrl("file:///android_asset/info.html", null);
Unfortunately, this only works if I duplicate the file info.html into the Application's project asset folder as well.
Is there a way to tell an Android library code: "look for this file in the library's assets folder, not in the application's assets folder" ?

This answer is out of date, the gradle build system and AAR files support assets.
From the Android Docs:
Library projects cannot include raw assets
The tools do not support the use of raw asset files (saved in the assets/ directory) in a library project. Any asset resources used by an application must be stored in the assets/ directory of the application project itself. However, resource files saved in the res/ directory are supported.
If you want to include files from a Library project, you'll need to put it in the resources instead of the assets. If you're trying to load HTML files from your library project into a WebView, this means that you'll have to go a more roundabout method than the usual asset URL. Instead you'll have to read the resource data and use something like loadData.

This is now possible using the Gradle build system.
Testing with Android Studio 0.5.0 and v0.9 of the Android Gradle plugin, I've found that files such as
MyLibProject/src/main/assets/test.html
are correctly packaged in the final application and can be accessed at runtime via the expected URL:
file:///android_asset/test.html

You can achieve this by creating a symbolic link in the project's asset folder that points to the directory in the library project.
Then you can access as below:
webview.loadUrl("file:///android_asset/folder_in_a_libary_project/info.html", null);

Okay. Ive been stressing out and losing sleep about this for a while. Im the type of person that loves API creation, and HATES complicated integration.
There arent many solutions around on the internet, so im quite proud of what Ive discovered with a bit of Eclipse Hackery.
It turns out that when you put a file in the Android Lib's /assets folder. The target apk will capture this and place it on the root of the APK archive. Thus, making general access fail.
This can be resolved by simply creating a Raw Java Library, and placing all assets in there, ie (JAVALIB)/assets/fileX.txt.
You can in turn then include this as a Java Build Path Folder Source in
Project > Properties > Java Build Path > Source > Link Source.
Link Source
Click on Variables. and Add New Variable, ie VAR_NAME_X. location : ../../(relative_path_to_assets_project)
Click Ok
Now, when you build and run your app, the assets folder in the APK will contain your (GLOBAL Library) files as you intended.
No need to reconfigure android internals or nothing. Its all capable within a few clicks of Eclipse.

I confirm that Daniel Grant's approach works for at least the following situation: target project does NOT have an asset folder (or the folder is empty, so you can safely delete it).
I did not setup any variable.
Simply setup a LinkSource as follows (just an example)
Linked folder location: /home/matthew/workspace_moonblink/assetsForAdvocacy/assets
Folder name : assets
The "assetsForAdvocacy" is a Java project, (created with New- Project - Java Project) with empty src folder, and a new folder named "assets", which now provides the entire assets folder for the target project.
This is a fairly straightforward way within Eclipse to provide assets re-use across many different projects IF they do not already have assets, good enough to get going with. I would probably want to enhance it to become a content provider in the long run, but that is a lot more development.
My project accesses the assets with the following code:
String advocacyFolderInAssets = "no_smoking/"; //a folder underneath assets/
String fn =advocacyFolderInAssets+imageFilename;
Bitmap pristineBitmapForAdvocacy = getBitmapFromAsset(context, fn);
I use Motodev Studio 3.1.0 on Ubuntu. It would not let me 'merge' a new assets folder in the new assets-only project onto an existing assets folder in the target project.

If you want to use a setup where multiple derivate products are created from one library you might consider using svn:externals or similar solution in your SCM system. This will also do the trick that static assets like online help may be versioned seperately from the android source code.

I found this older question, it might help you, too.
This is the official way Google uses to archive this (from the above post): Link