Deploying Kanzi applications to Android

When you are developing Kanzi applications for Android you can use Android Studio, the Clang toolchain, and the Gradle build system. This development approach is tested on Ubuntu/Linux 16.04.5, Ubuntu/Linux 18.04.1, and Windows 10.

Submit the request for the Kanzi Android platform package using the Kanzi Support Portal at support.rightware.com.

To build and deploy Kanzi applications created with Kanzi 3.6.3 or older, see Building and deploying Kanzi 3.6.3 and older applications to Android.

Requirements

To build and deploy Kanzi applications to Android devices using the Kanzi Android platform package, you need:

Installing the Android platform package

Extract the Kanzi Android platform package zip file to the <KanziWorkspace> directory. When you extract the zip file, skip duplicate files instead of overwriting those files.

Setting up the build environment

After you install the Kanzi Android platform package, set up your build environment.

To set up the build environment:

  1. Open Android Studio and in the welcome screen select Open an existing Android Studio project.
    The Open File or Project window opens.
  2. In the Open File or Project window go to <KanziWorkspace>/Engine/applications/kzb_player/configs/platforms and select the android_gradle project.
    The kzb_player project contains C++ and Java source files which you can use as a starting point for your application. The build process combines those source files, packs the kzb and configuration files located in the bin directory into assets, and includes those assets in the Android package.
  3. In Windows Explorer go to <KanziWorkspace>/Engine/applications/kzb_player and create a bin directory.
  4. In Kanzi Studio export the kzb file for your Kanzi application to the bin directory that you created in the previous step. See Using kzb files.
  5. In the <KanziWorkspace>/Engine/applications/kzb_player/bin directory create a plain text file called binaries.cfg and in that file list the kzb files that your Kanzi application uses. Add the name of only one kzb file on each line.
    For example:
    MyFirstProject.kzb
MySecondProject.kzb
  6. In Android Studio in the main menu select Build > Make Project to build the application package.
    If you do not have the required Android SDK and NDK installed, Android Studio asks you whether you want to download and install them. If you install the Android SDK and NDK, repeat this step once the installation is complete.

    By default Android Studio uses the debug build configuration. When you build the kzb_player project, you can find the Android package at <KanziWorkspace>/Engine/applications/kzb_player/configs/platforms/android_gradle/app/build/outputs/apk/debug.
    To build using the release build configuration, open the Build Variants window and set the Build Variant to release.
  7. Deploy your Kanzi application to an Android device or an Android Virtual Device:
    1. Connect your Android device to your computer. To deploy to an Android Virtual Device, you must create one. See https://developer.android.com/studio/run/emulator.
    2. In the Android Studio main menu select Run > Run 'app' and select the device to which you want to deploy your application.

Troubleshooting

Building and deploying Kanzi applications from Kanzi Studio

In Kanzi Studio you can build and deploy your Kanzi application to an Android device using a single command. This approach is useful when you want to see how your application works and looks on an Android device while you are still prototyping or developing your application.

Before you can build and deploy Kanzi applications from Kanzi Studio to Android devices, you need to set up the Kanzi build environment for Android and install on your computer the USB device drivers for your Android device. See Installing the Kanzi build environment for Android.

If your Kanzi application includes a Kanzi Engine plugin, you have to build and deploy your application manually. See Building and deploying Kanzi 3.6.3 and older applications to Android.

To build and deploy Kanzi applications from Kanzi Studio:

  1. If you add content to your application using the Kanzi Engine API, make sure to include that content in the <ProjectName>/configs/android/build.xml file in the <target name="-pre-compile"> target. For example, to add all .xml and .png files in the <ProjectName>/Application/bin directory use
    <target name="-pre-compile">
        <echo>Copying assets</echo>
        <copy todir="${asset.absolute.dir}">
            <fileset dir="${asset.absolute.dir}/../../../../bin">
                <include name="**/*.kzb"/>
                <include name="**/*.cfg"/>
                <include name="**/*.xml"/>
                <include name="**/*.png"/>
  2. Connect your Android device to your computer.
  3. In Kanzi Studio create or open the project for your Kanzi application and select File > Export > Build Android Package.
    Kanzi Studio builds the application source code, creates .apk package, and installs the package to your Android device.

Configuring Android builds

You can configure the building of your Kanzi applications for Android using the application configurations in Kanzi Studio. For example, you can set the target architecture, and whether Kanzi should deploy the built package to the attached target device. You can set which application configuration you want to use when you select File > Export > Build Android Package in Project > Properties in the Default Build Configuration property.

  1. In Kanzi Studio in the Library right-click Applications and select Create Application Configuration.
  2. In the Properties set the configuration for the Android build.
    For example:

Building and deploying Kanzi 3.6.3 and older applications to Android

NOTE

Use this approach to build and deploy to Android only Kanzi applications made with Kanzi 3.6.3 or older.

SCons runs the SConstruct file in the configuration directory of the platform from which you run the scons command. SConstruct file is the entry point for building the application and contains the information about the Kanzi Engine location and runs these files:

To build and deploy Kanzi 3.6.3 and older applications to Android:

  1. If you add content to your application using the Kanzi Engine API, make sure to include that content in the <ProjectName>/configs/android/build.xml file in the <target name="-pre-compile"> target. For example, to add all .xml and .png files in the <ProjectName>/Application/bin directory use
    <target name="-pre-compile">
        <echo>Copying assets</echo>
        <copy todir="${asset.absolute.dir}">
            <fileset dir="${asset.absolute.dir}/../../../../bin">
                <include name="**/*.kzb"/>
                <include name="**/*.cfg"/>
                <include name="**/*.xml"/>
                <include name="**/*.png"/>
  2. Connect your Android device to your computer.
  3. Open the command line in the configuration directory of the platform for which you want to build the Kanzi application (<ProjectName>/Application/configs/platforms/<PlatformName>) and make sure you have the correct environmental variables set. See Setting the Kanzi environment variables.
    For example, to build your Kanzi application for:
  4. Run the scons command with the build parameters for your Kanzi application.

    Syntaxscons <library> <type> <name>
    Parameters
    library

    (Optional) the graphics library:

    • ES2 builds the application with OpenGL ES 2.0
    • GL builds the application with OpenGL
    type

    (Optional) the build type:

    • Release builds the application with compiler optimizations enabled. The release option builds smaller files than the debug option. Use this option for production purposes. Default value.
    • Debug builds the application with disabled compiler optimizations and contains full debug information you can use with a debugger. The debug option builds larger files and debug applications run slower. Use this option for development purposes.
    • Profiling builds the application with compiler optimizations enabled and links the application against the Profiling build. Use this option when you want to measure the performance of different parts of Kanzi Engine. For example, when you want to find out how much time Kanzi uses on different tasks during application startup, or which parts of the application take a lot of time to run. See Measuring application performance.
    name(Optional) the name of the project
    Examples

    // Builds the application with the default settings as specified
// in config.py and SConstruct configuration files.
scons
    // Builds the debug version of the application with
// the OpenGL graphics library.
scons GL debug
    // Builds the debug version of the application with the
// OpenGL ES 2.0 graphics library from the Kanzi Studio
// project named MyProject.
scons ES2 debug MyProject

    Scons builds the Kanzi application source code and binary files in the <ProjectName>/Application/output directory.

  5. In the <ProjectName>/Application/output directory run adb install or ant release install to install the .apk package of your Kanzi application on your Android device.
    For example, if your project is called MyProject and is stored in the <KanziWorkspace> run:
    adb install MyProject.apk

    or
    ant release install

Setting the Java version for Kanzi applications

To set the Java version for your Kanzi applications for Android, add to the Application/configs/platforms/android/build.xml as the first child elements of the top level <project> element and set the value attribute to the Java version you want to use

<property name="java.target" value="7" />
<property name="java.source" value="7" />

Troubleshooting

See also

Installing the Kanzi build environment for Android

Building Kanzi applications for Android using a script

Installing the Kanzi build environment manually

Tutorial: Create a simple in-vehicle infotainment application

Android OEM USB Drivers

Deploying Kanzi applications

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