Online APK packaging service

[Binh Nguyen]

Hi Guys,

I've been looking at the (Kivy) concept recently. However, one of the major things that has been bothering me is that the toolchain can be difficult/tedious to get up and running. I thought that the downloads and compilation efforts would be low to moderate. This is clearly not the case. 

I was also under the impression that the VM image also contained everything already without requiring further downloads. This is also not the case despite the description that was provided at the download URL, https://kivy.org/#download (prompting me that it requires installation of python-for-linux after running the usual sequence of buildozer commands)

I've heard it mentioned that there may be an online APK packaging service at, https://android.kivy.org/

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/22970158/create-an-apk-for-android-from-a-kivy-python-program

This URL does not seem to be functional at this moment in time though. Could you please tell me of any other options?

Even if you all you do is tell me how the packaging actually works would be helpful because I may be able to build something more lightweight and amenable to my particular circumstances...

Thank you

[Binh Nguyen]

As an aside, it sometimes feels as though setting everything up is like the ultimate 'Faustian Bargain'. Every time you think you have the entire toolchain setup you realise that it just wants to do more downloads and compilation. Please tell me that there are attempts at getting the toolchain setup a bit more streamlined in future?

[Geekademy]

The android toolchain is what it is, if you are unhappy with it, contact google
for a full refund (hahaha).

I did find a way to remove duplicate components that accumulated, which you'll
find described here:

https://github.com/kivy/buildozer/issues/146

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[Alexander Taylor]

> Even if you all you do is tell me how the packaging actually works would be helpful

All the build code is in the python-for-android repository on github: https://github.com/kivy/python-for-android. The documentation at http://python-for-android.readthedocs.io/en/latest/ has some higher level discussion.

> This URL does not seem to be functional at this moment in time though. Could you please tell me of any other options?

Unfortunately this service is no longer maintained (actually it hasn't been for many years), we currently only directly support the toolchain itself for use locally.

> Please tell me that there are attempts at getting the toolchain setup a bit more streamlined in future?

While we obviously try to make improvements where we can, the core of the toolchain is complicated mostly because the task is complicated, not because we do much that isn't necessary. That said, it would be possible to make things simpler in some cases and we've talked about providing some alternatives such as prebuilt dists. Actually there is an experimental pull request for this at https://github.com/kivy/python-for-android/pull/804 , but I never merged it due to concerns about flexibility and maintainability.

[Binh Nguyen]

Muhahaha! After a lot of really weird stuff that I didn't/couldn't believe was possible I got things going. Problems faced:

- ran out of space in home directory

- target API set wasn't the one being picked up

- 32 vs 64-bit NDK/SDK binary issues

- possible python-for-android setuptool oddities?

- JDK versioning issues

- funky/weird ass error and debug messages

- and more... LOL

Have outlined workarounds for issues faced on my blog in case anyone has similar issues,

http://dtbnguyen.blogspot.com/2017/04/prophetspre-cogs-11-kiviandroid.html