DoubleGIS port of Qt for Android (grym-android-lighthouse): first tagged version

[Sergey A. Galin]

Hello Folks,

The first beta version of our port Qt for Android has been tagged:
grym-android-01

Although the directory contains all files from android-lighthouse, it
is 99% another port done by our team and only our own plugin (called
Lite) is currently supported in our repo.

The primary goal of the development is:

Providing stability and functionality necessary to run and release
real-life, quality applications to Android Market ASAP.

At the moment we do not have QtCreator integration and to use our
version one needs to have some basic knowledge about Android
development and Qt functioning and be ready to read the scripts and
build files and etc. and debug using command-line and logs.

The port is released under BSD license.


Some differences with android-lighthouse:

- A lot of work has been done on stability. At the moment, there are
NO known crashes, screen blackouts, crashes on exit, and etc. We have
tested it on a dozen of devices in-house and have reports on many more
others.
- Qt run-times are always put into APK.
- Built using Crystax NDK4/QADK-based NDK. NDK5 is not tested.
Official support for NDK5 is planned soon.
- Supports Android 2.1 and up (tested on 2.1-2.3.3). Android 1.6 is
planned but not here yet.
- QtAndroidCore library which implements all Qt & Android integration
except QPA windowing system integration, which can be made OS-version
dependent and developed/released separately from QtAndroidCore. All
applications are linked against this library (like against QtCore and
QtGui) and can call some low-level fine-tuning functions it exports,
although this may be unnecessary for some apps.
- 90% completed keyboard support, including support for all languages,
voice input, predictive input and third-party keyboards, like Swype.
- Exported functions to some basic functionality like minimizing app,
controlling software keyboard (like in CE, Symbian), getting paths of
Android-specific directories, accessing Java environment, checking
memory status, getting device name and OS version.
- Workarounds for some current problems in Lighthouse, namely problems
with TLW widgets placed over QGraphicsScene which try to create
windowing system windows.
- More environment variables are set on startup, like HOME, TMPDIR,
LANG, and Android-specific paths (if you don't like using exported
functions).
- Optional keepalive service which makes sure Android won't terminate
your application until it get too low on memory or battery.
- Advanced build script (android.sh).
- Basic support for multiple top-level windows is in progress.


Plans:

- Finalizing support for keyboard: add support for multi-character
keys and full-screen keyboard mode.
- Support for NDK5.
- Support for Android 1.6.
- Integration with android-lighthouse support for QtCreator and with
Necessitas (spare time project).
- Improving multiple top-level window support (spare time project).


Where it is:

http://qt.gitorious.org/+grym/qt/grym-android-lighthouse

Branches to look at:

android-master - primary branch.
alh-integration - the branch fully merged with android-lighthouse/
android-stable, take this one if you want to help integrating the
repos.
unstable - the branch fully merged with current Lighthouse (may be
broken or buggy some times).

If you have any questions or want to try our version and got stuck and
need help please contact me via this mail list or via Google Talk.

--
Regards,
Sergey A. Galin

[Krzysztof Klinikowski]

Great news!

Thanks for all you work on your branch and thanks for many replied answers that I needed!

My future plans related to grym-android-lighthouse:

  - work on multiple top-level windows feature
  - native Android look (long-term feature, will be realized when I buy new laptop and will have possibility to work at train :))
  - maybe bugfixes, if there will be any bugs

That's from my side :)

--

Best regards,
Krzysztof Klinikowski