android dev the simple way. take a set of html files, and turn them into an apk with one command. Proof of Concept.
dabbling occasionally in android dev... is a massive pain in the butt! why can't it just be easy? why do I have to install massive SDKs and all that crap? Since I only want to build my app with web tech, why isn't it as easy as creating a web site?
write some HTML and javascript, then hit deploy?
Then I had an idea: instead of recompiling the stupid java app from scratch every time (and requiring the enormous android sdk) just use a prebuilt apk, replace the text files, repack and resign.
Turns out, this was surprisingly easy.
npm install androidify -g
Almost, you'll also need to have java, to get the jarsigner
command, and adb command to deploy your app.
- ubuntu/debian:
sudo apt-get install default-jre android-tools-adb - archlinux:
sudo pacman -S jre8-openjdk-headless android-tools - osx:
brew cask install java android-platform-tools
and put your phone into developer mode (depends on your phone)
mkdir hello
echo '<h1> HELLO </h1>' > index.html
androidify #will output app.apk
adb install app.apk # will send it to your device.
A new app called "Hello World" will appear.
I havn't figured out how to change the name yet. So, it's called "Hello World" no matter what.
The apps are selfsigned, which is basically meaningless, so I just checked the key it in. My phone doesn't complain about this, maybe because it's in developer mode?
This is made an old hello world.apk i found at
simplificator/phonegap-helloworld
MIT