1189306 - Integration of Android Design Support library

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Firefox for Android Graveyard :: General, defect)

Description

[Sebastian Kaspari (:sebastian; :pocmo)]

The Android team recently released a design support library. Theoretically we could replace some of our custom components (for example TabMenuStripLayout) with tested and standardized components (TabLayout, Snackbar, TextInputLayout, ..).

The library will also be helpful in continuing to 'materialize' Fennec (-> Material design). But the library will come at a price and we do not want to grow the APK size unbounded. This bug is just about exploring how we could integrate the library and how expensive this will actually be. 

Resources:
* http://developer.android.com/tools/support-library/features.html#design
* http://android-developers.blogspot.de/2015/05/android-design-support-library.html

Comment 1

[Anthony Lam (:antlam) Find me, @antlam on Slack!]

Thanks for filing this Sebastian, I know we've talked about this for a while. I'm all for it, especially since I see this having more and more benefits for us as we move forward.

Comment 2

[Sebastian Kaspari (:sebastian; :pocmo)]

Just adding the library to the gradle based build let's the APK grow by 102596 bytes (~ 100 KB)

> -rw-r--r--  1 sebastian  staff  34359294 Aug  5 17:52 after-lib.apk
> -rw-r--r--  1 sebastian  staff  34256698 Aug  5 17:46 before-lib.apk

Actually I was expecting more growth. I wonder how much we get back by getting rid of our implementations of TabMenuStripLayout etc.

Comment 3

[Michael Comella (:mcomella) [NI reported issues only: ex-Mozilla]]

Keep in mind the library in its current form may be getting ProGuarded out - as we start to use it, the size of the APK could increase.

Comment 4

[Sebastian Kaspari (:sebastian; :pocmo)]

(In reply to Michael Comella (:mcomella) from comment #3)
> Keep in mind the library in its current form may be getting ProGuarded out -
> as we start to use it, the size of the APK could increase.

Yeah, definitely. This was just a first basic test. Mostly because this just requires a one line change. ;) Will definitely do some more investigation and try to add it to the mach build too. Also maybe trying to replace a simple component with one of the library and see how this changes overall size.

Comment 5

[Nick Alexander :nalexander [he/him]]

For the record, this ticket will get *MUCH* easier post Bug 1108782 (so much so that I'm calling that a pre-requisite).  I fully support using these standardized libraries to ease our lives.

Comment 6

[Sebastian Kaspari (:sebastian; :pocmo)]

I'm going to look into this to see whether we can use snackbars soon (bug 1157526).

Comment 7

[Sebastian Kaspari (:sebastian; :pocmo)]

Try build without android design support library:
https://treeherder.mozilla.org/#/jobs?repo=try&revision=6440390fe2f0

Try build with library added and dummy usage of snackbar:
https://treeherder.mozilla.org/#/jobs?repo=try&revision=5123e22c33b9

Comment 8

[Sebastian Kaspari (:sebastian; :pocmo)]

(In reply to Sebastian Kaspari (:sebastian) from comment #7)
> Try build with library added and dummy usage of snackbar:
> https://treeherder.mozilla.org/#/jobs?repo=try&revision=5123e22c33b9

This did not include my patch from bug 1214630. New push:
https://treeherder.mozilla.org/#/jobs?repo=try&revision=3ad86c428a63

Comment 9

[Sebastian Kaspari (:sebastian; :pocmo)]

Size comparison:

Android 2.3 API9 opt:
 Without: 40606188 bytes
 With:  40848354 bytes
+242166 bytes (~ 236 KB)

Android 4.0 API11+ opt: 
 Without: 42543954 bytes
 With: 42814779 bytes
+270825 bytes (~ 264 KB)

Comment 10

[Sebastian Kaspari (:sebastian; :pocmo)]

The AAR itself is 238 KB (v23.0.1).

Comment 11

[Sebastian Kaspari (:sebastian; :pocmo)]

Attachment: 1189306-android-design-support-library.patch

That's the patch for the build changes.

Comment 12

[Sebastian Kaspari (:sebastian; :pocmo)]

(In reply to Sebastian Kaspari (:sebastian) from comment #10)
> The AAR itself is 238 KB (v23.0.1).

The uncompressed AAR is 339057 bytes (~ 331 KB)

Comment 13

[Nick Alexander :nalexander [he/him]]

Comment on attachment 8674179 [details] [diff] [review]
1189306-android-design-support-library.patch

Review of attachment 8674179 [details] [diff] [review]:
-----------------------------------------------------------------

Looks good.  Can you post before and after APK sizes, so we really know what to expect?  (It's reported in TH.)

Comment 14

[Nick Alexander :nalexander [he/him]]

Ah, you already posted APK sizes.  Thanks.

fabrice, reuben: it is possible that this is, or will be, a dependency of GV and not just Fennec.  Just letting you know that it may be needed in b2gdroid, although I expect it won't be on day one.  Like the appcompat-v7 library.

Comment 15

[[:fabrice] Fabrice Desré]

ok, thanks for the heads up.

Comment 16

[Sebastian Kaspari (:sebastian; :pocmo)]

https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/fx-team/rev/5b8473ca678da4daa637109a0a96aee9281e5532
Bug 1189306 - Add Android Design Support library to gradle and mach builds. r=nalexander

Comment 17

[Reuben Morais [:reuben]]

Thanks for the ping.

Comment 18

[Carsten Book [:Tomcat]]

https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/5b8473ca678d