1259098 - (build-android-n) [meta] Build with Android N SDK (API 24/25)

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Firefox Build System :: Android Studio and Gradle Integration, defect, P3)

Description

[Nick Alexander :nalexander [he/him]]

This bug tracks bugs that need to be fixed in order to build with the Android N SDK.  In contrast, Bug 1255124 currently tracks all Android N runtime issues.

Comment 1

[Nick Alexander :nalexander [he/him]]

In theory, we can do all this build stuff against the in-tree Gradle configuration, in which case it's likely very easy.  If we need to support Android N earlier than Gradle, it's an unknown amount of work; sebastian posits that "we are required to use jack and java8".

Comment 2

[Sebastian Kaspari (:sebastian; :pocmo)]

If we need to switch to the Android N SDK before we migrate to Gradle then this article might be handy:
http://czak.pl/2016/05/31/handbuilt-android-project.html

Comment 3

[Sebastian Kaspari (:sebastian; :pocmo)]

I read somewhere that you do not need to use the new compiler if you do not use the new Java 8 features. I tried that and it kind of works but then it breaks Proguard which is not able to read the Android source code (android.jar?) compiled with Java 8 (SDK 24).

Comment 4

[Sebastian Kaspari (:sebastian; :pocmo)]

The SDK for API 25 has been released yesterday. Sooner or later we might be interested in implementing some of the new features (app shortcuts, round launcher icons, ..).

I see two options for us:
* Switching compilers to use jack/jill - See link in comment 2
* Finally switch to full gradle builds

My guess is that switching the compilers might be easier (if no blockers come up) but switching to gradle builds is more future proof and unlocks more build features (gradle plugins, easier dependencies, ..).

Comment 5

[Sebastian Kaspari (:sebastian; :pocmo)]

'jack' is going away again: https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2017/03/future-of-java-8-language-feature.html

Comment 6

[James Willcox (:snorp) ([e-mail]) (he/him)]

Attachment: sdk26.patch

This patch lets me build against SDK 26. I had to monkey patch the proguard in my SDK with an updated one, but otherwise not too bad.

Comment 7

[Takanori MATSUURA]

Bug 1352015 is now fixed.
Should we leave this bug open?

Comment 8

[Nick Alexander :nalexander [he/him]]

(In reply to Takanori MATSUURA from comment #7)
> Bug 1352015 is now fixed.
> Should we leave this bug open?

I imagine we want to make the dependencies of this ticket dependencies of Bug 1352015, or whatever the "target android-O" ticket is, but I've lost track of what is involved here.

Comment 9

[Jan Henning [:JanH]]

I think only multi-window support (bug 1278364) and App Shortcuts (bug 1311992) are related to the *target* API, so I've added some appropriate dependencies I hope.

For the former we should test how we behave with the target API set to 24+ and if necessary either fix things, or if we don't have the resources for that explicitly disable multi-window support in the manifest.
The latter I think simply won't work until our target API is at least 25.

Everything else looks like it should be fine if we're compiling with something >= 24, so I declare this as fixed.