Android

Building and Running

Building

What you need:

• Linux
• Android NDK Crystax version (with android_native_app_glue.h copied into <TOOLCHAIN_ROOT>/sysroot/usr/include)
• Android SDK
• Android device
• Git
• CMake
• Ant
• ADB (optional but very useful)

Irrlicht

Clone https://github.com/sfan5/irrlicht-android.

Make sure you have arm-linux-androideabi-gcc and arm-linux-androideabi-g++ usable and run make in source/Irrlicht.

This will build Irrlicht as static and shared library and place it in lib/Linux

Minetest

Clone https://github.com/sfan5/minetest.git and switch to the android_new branch. Configure it using CMake like this:

$ cmake . \
    -DCMAKE_C_COMPILER=`which arm-linux-androideabi-gcc` \
    -DCMAKE_CXX_COMPILER=`which arm-linux-androideabi-g++` \
    -DCMAKE_FIND_ROOT_PATH=<sysroot of your android toolchain> \
    -DCMAKE_FIND_ROOT_PATH_MODE_INCLUDE=ONLY \
    -DCMAKE_FIND_ROOT_PATH_MODE_LIBRARY=ONLY \
    -DCMAKE_FIND_ROOT_PATH_MODE_PROGRAM=BOTH \
    -DCMAKE_SYSTEM_NAME=Linux \
    -DIRRLICHT_LIBRARY=<path to libIrrlicht.a> \
    -DIRRLICHT_INCLUDE_DIR=<path to include/ of Irrlicht> \
    -DANDROID=1 \
    -DRUN_IN_PLACE=1

Now just enter make package. After make is done go into the Android directory and run <SDK_DIR>/tools/android update project --path ..

Then copy the .so using <NDK_DIR>/ndk-build and build the apk using ant debug.

You will then have the resources in minetest-x.x.x.tar.gz and the apk at Android/bin/Minetest-debug.apk. You will only need to do the "android update project" step once.

Running

For this step you need minetest-x.x.x.tar.gz and Minetest-debug.apk from the previous step.

Put all resource files & folders (builtin, client, ...) into /sdcard/minetest on your Android device. Install Minetest-debug.apk.

Now touch the Minetest icon and the lovely main menu should appear. ;-)

Dev Notes

General notes

• cURL does not work

• TLS support is needed too

• Idea: Use GnuTLS, because OpenSSL is a nightmare to cross-compile, it's code is shit and I don't like it

• Add Bluetooth support for local multiplayer (maybe)

• see (http://people.csail.mit.edu/albert/bluez-intro/x559.html or http://people.csail.mit.edu/albert/bluez-intro/x502.html) and https://github.com/sfan5/minetest/tree/bluetooth

Moving away from Crystax NDK

Situation

Crystax NDK seems to be unmaintained, would be good if we could move away from it.

• Builds with small tweaks to the code
• Works, but everything that goes through wchar_t is messed up

Ideas

• use Android's support library (verify if it does support locale stuff good enough)
• use uClibc

Android's support library

pro:

• Do not need to depend on more (Android-)external libraries
• (Probably) Tuned for usage with Android

contra:

• -

uClibc

pro:

• Completely independent from Android -> avoids upcoming problems in Android
• Also fixes some other problems we have with the libc

contra:

• Increases executable size (uClibc is pretty small, this does not really count)
• OpenGLES / Android libs may not work (verify this!)

References: