Building pimentaCHAT for mobile apps
Android
Background
If you’ve downloaded our Android app on Google Play, you noticed it connects to any server pimentaCHAT server.
In this document we explain how to build your own version that can be restricted to connect to your own server only and have your own branding.
This is NOT the Meteor official way to build Android client for pimentaCHAT.
Download and Run
If you do not want to build your own, or learn about the technical details, just download this APK and install it on your Android device:
You must first enable developer mode, and allow non-Google Play APK installation on your device.
If you have the Google Play version installed already, you must uninstall it first.
(please add instructions to change package id)
How does it work?
This app is a shim. It presents a screen to collect the server URL of your choice, and then loads pimentaCHAT into a webview using that URL. It can also save and manage a list of such server URLs.
In addition, this app replaces your Android device’s webview with an up-to-date webview from the crosswalk-project. This enables devices with old Android versions, as far back as 4.0, to run pimentaCHAT.
Requirements
Since this app is built with Cordova, the same requirements apply:
- Node.js
- Android SDK:
- This tool will not work unless you have the absolute latest updates for all Android SDK components.
- Also you will need the SDK’s tools and platform-tools directories on your system path otherwise Android support will fail.
Install Cordova
$ sudo npm install -g cordova
Additional information here: https://cordova.apache.org/docs/en/4.0.0/guide_cli_index.md.html
Install dependencies
$ sudo npm install -g underscore
$ sudo npm install -g coffee
Get the App
Clone the pimentachat.cordova repo:
$ git clone https://bitbucket.org/pimenta-group/pimentachat.cordova
$ cd pimentachat.cordova
Create/Edit conf files
$ echo 'Bugsnag.apiKey = "YOUR-API-KEY-HERE";' > www/js/bugsnag_apikey.js
$ echo 'window.ANDROID_SENDER_ID = "YOUR-ANDROID-ID-HERE";' > www/shared/js/android_sender_id.js
Install app dependencies
$ sudo npm install
Build the Android App
In theory this is as simple as:
$ cordova build android
But if you get some errors (which seems kinda normal), make sure you have installed the SDK or tools in the Requirements section. Even though meteor may install it’s own version of the SDK or tools, you still need the standalone version installed and the environment variables set for the Cordova build to succeed.
NOTE: for android build, this Cordova build only supports android-22 target which is Android 5.1.1. NO OTHER target is supported at this time. Please make sure you have SDK Platform, SDK build tools for API 22 installed.
If there are a lot of cannot find module build problems, try adding and removing the cordova android platform:
$ cordova platform remove android
$ cordova platform add android
Test the App on an Emulator or Device
SDKs for mobile platforms often come bundled with emulators that execute a device image, so that you can launch the app from the home screen and see how it interacts with many platform features. This command rebuilds the app and views it within android’s emulator:
$ cordova emulate android
You may need to first associate a device with an emulator.
Publish to your devices
Alternately, you can plug the handset into your computer and test the app directly:
$ cordova run android
You would have to enable a USB debugging option on the device, and perhaps add a USB driver depending on your development environment.
Run the app
And you’ll see an UI that allows you to connect to a custom server instance.
Have fun! ;)
Build for Android with Docker
In order to build pimentaCHAT for Android, you must have docker installed on your Linux (or OS/X) system.
You must have at least 4GB of RAM (16 GB recommended) and 10 GB of disk space available.
Then:
$ docker pull pimentachat/meteor12androidbuilder
Follow the instructions of the docker image.
Additional Information
Check out the How to submit your Android app to the Play Store.
