Creating a Gideros plugin using Android Studio

simwhi · February 2017

Hi everyone,

Over the last few days I have been trying to build the example plugin project as outlined on: http://appcodingeasy.com/Gideros-Mobile/Creating-plugins-for-Android-in-Gideros

Of course that guide refers to Eclipse which is no longer supported by Google, as well as being dropped by the Gideros project.

So, I have done a lot of research and resolved a lot of build issues, but I still can't seem to get it working in AS. When I rebuild the project the .so are not built, but there are no build errors. It could be something to do with the Android.mk file or the build system itself. I'm a bit stuck now.

I'm using the latest NDK and the gradle experiemental build v0.9.0-beta4.

Here's the AS project and Gideros project in drop box

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/40935009/plug-in-example.zip

I'm nearly there. I just need a little help/advise from either a Gideros maintainer or a forum user that has already built a plugin.

Many thanks in advance,

Simon

simwhi · February 2017

Hi, Is there anyone here that can help me with this?

antix · February 2017

I personally feel this would be a good thing to get updated. All these outdated documents are a constant source of frustration to everyone.

Maybe if the tutorial can not be updated currently, then the obsolete one at least could be removed?

@simwhi, sorry I can't be of any actual help here

@hgy29, didn't you share some french document recently that was about writing plugins? If you could post it again I'd have a go at converting it since my current project is nearly finished.

simwhi · February 2017

@antix Here is the link to the document; http://giderosmobile.com/forum/discussion/6796/can-we-add-google-firebase-api-to-gideros-by-using-c-sdk/p1

antix · February 2017

@simwhi, arghh it's rather involved

simwhi · February 2017

Hi all,

Is there no none on this forum that can assist with this? I think I am close!!!

I, as well as other forum members have been asking for help on this important topic for a long time now. I would like to make some plug-ins as well as contribute, but I do not have the prequisite knowledge to build the projects in Android Studio. The complete build process is overly complicated.

According the the main spiel on the Gideros website;

"You can easily extend the core with plug-ins. Import your existing (C, C++, Java or Obj-C) code, bind to Lua and interpret them directly."

Maybe this should be reworded to: "It is possible to extend the core..." as this is a more precise.

I have found that this is not just an issue with Gideros, but also affects a lot of other game frameworks. The developers seem to gloss over the extensions / plug-ins in favour of game features instead. My research into other frameworks have shown that they either a) have no extensions / plug-ins system or b) have extensions / plug-ins but the documentation is outdated / sparse.

There are some exceptions of course to the above such as Corona, but their plug-in development have restrictions attached (you cannot write an ad provider plug-in).

If you are a hobbyist game developer I suppose this is less of a problem. However, if you are trying to grow a business then extensions start to become more of a main focus. We could of course pay someone to help us create our plug-ins, but in that case we would not be willing to share, or we would share at a cost. I personally would like to share with the community.

In order to grow this community we need to have either an easy Gideros plug-in architecture or real world tutorials.

To summarise what I have done already (based on Eclipse / Gideros plug-in):

1. I have created a basic Gideros project.
2. I Exported to Android Studio project.
3. I added Gideros specific header files etc
4 I added specific java code.
5. I added the blinding C/ C ++ code.
6. I Added Android.mk / Application.mk files.
7. I Configured gradle files to build using Android.mk file.
8. The project builds with errors but no . so files are created.

The above is the extent of my knowledge / experience so far.

Cheers,

Simon

keszegh · February 2017

i also think that the fact that
"You can easily extend the core with plug-ins. Import your existing (C, C++, Java or Obj-C) code, bind to Lua and interpret them directly."
was always a distinguishing feature of gideros, right from the beginning. so it should be doable, if not easily but at least by someone motivated, which @simwhi definitely seems so.

simwhi · February 2017

@keszegh Thanks for the comment and support. Surely, there must be a better way to this.

hgy29 · February 2017

@simwhi, don't you use ndk-build to build the .so files ? This how gideros build script does it.

simwhi · February 2017

@hgy29

The gradle build system in Android Studio is configured to use ndk-build.cmd, but it doesn't seem to do anything (well, I haven't seen anything). I have followed multiple tutorials on this, but to no avail. I think one of the problems is that the build system is always changing. I used the experimental build tools as suggested on an Android development site.

Another way to make the .so files would be to use CMake, but I decided against that because I want to stay as close to the old Eclipse tutorial as possible.

Do you think there are any ways to improve / ease plug-in integration?

Regards,

Simon

hgy29 · February 2017

I never used the NDK integrated with AS, so I can't say how to build plugins with this.
When building gideros plugins for a release, the build scripts just invoke ndk-build command from within the android side of the plugin source tree, and nothing more: the .so files are build.

Can you try this from a command line prompt ?
Navigate to the folder containing the subfolders jni, libs, src, objs, etc, then just invoke 'ndk-build.cmd' from there.

Note that we use NDK R10, we had trouble using more recent versions of the NDK.

simwhi · February 2017

@hgy29 Thanks for the info. I'll take a look at reverting to NDK R10 first and then go from there.

Many thanks.

antix · February 2017

@simwhi, sorry I've been really slack doing renovations on our house. I'll get onto that document this evening

simwhi · February 2017

@antix No problem. It's more the Android Studio side of things that I need help with at the moment. But many thanks anyway.

simwhi · March 2017

Hi all,

Sorry for the delay in posting my progress. I've been ultra busy with app updates etc. Anyway, after having a Skype chat with @hgy29 (really appreciate it), I have managed to make some progress. I got the following output from running the ndk-build.cmd from the Android Studio jni folder:

<img class="emoji" src="https://forum.giderosmobile.com/resources/emoji/anguished.png" title="D:" alt="D:" height="20" />\plug-in-example\android-studio-project\ExamplePlugin\app\jni>ndk-build.cmd
[armeabi] Prebuilt       : liblua.so <= jni/../jniLibs/armeabi/
[armeabi] Prebuilt       : libgideros.so <= jni/../jniLibs/armeabi/
[armeabi] Install        : libexampleplugin.so => libs/armeabi/libexampleplugin.so
[armeabi] Install        : libgideros.so => libs/armeabi/libgideros.so
[armeabi] Install        : liblua.so => libs/armeabi/liblua.so
[armeabi-v7a] Prebuilt       : liblua.so <= jni/../jniLibs/armeabi-v7a/
[armeabi-v7a] Prebuilt       : libgideros.so <= jni/../jniLibs/armeabi-v7a/
[armeabi-v7a] Install        : libexampleplugin.so => libs/armeabi-v7a/libexampleplugin.so
[armeabi-v7a] Install        : libgideros.so => libs/armeabi-v7a/libgideros.so
[armeabi-v7a] Install        : liblua.so => libs/armeabi-v7a/liblua.so
[x86] Prebuilt       : liblua.so <= jni/../jniLibs/x86/
[x86] Prebuilt       : libgideros.so <= jni/../jniLibs/x86/
[x86] Install        : libexampleplugin.so => libs/x86/libexampleplugin.so
[x86] Install        : libgideros.so => libs/x86/libgideros.so
[x86] Install        : liblua.so => libs/x86/liblua.so

The next issue is that the .so files are located in the libs folder. When I run the Android Studio project I get this error in the log:

E/AndroidRuntime: FATAL EXCEPTION: main
                  Process: com.exanple.exampleplugin, PID: 23117
                  java.lang.UnsatisfiedLinkError: dalvik.system.PathClassLoader[DexPathList[[zip file "/data/app/com.exanple.exampleplugin-2/base.apk"],nativeLibraryDirectories=[/data/app/com.exanple.exampleplugin-2/lib/arm, /vendor/lib, /system/lib]]] couldn't find "libexampleplugin.so"
                      at java.lang.Runtime.loadLibrary(Runtime.java:378)
                      at java.lang.System.loadLibrary(System.java:998)
                      at com.giderosmobile.android.ExamplePluginActivity.<clinit>(ExamplePluginActivity.java:45)
                      at java.lang.reflect.Constructor.newInstance(Native Method)
                      at java.lang.Class.newInstance(Class.java:1572)
                      at android.app.Instrumentation.newActivity(Instrumentation.java:1068)
                      at android.app.ActivityThread.performLaunchActivity(ActivityThread.java:2303)
                      at android.app.ActivityThread.handleLaunchActivity(ActivityThread.java:2466)
                      at android.app.ActivityThread.access$1200(ActivityThread.java:152)
                      at android.app.ActivityThread$H.handleMessage(ActivityThread.java:1341)
                      at android.os.Handler.dispatchMessage(Handler.java:102)
                      at android.os.Looper.loop(Looper.java:135)
                      at android.app.ActivityThread.main(ActivityThread.java:5538)
                      at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Native Method)
                      at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:372)
                      at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit$MethodAndArgsCaller.run(ZygoteInit.java:960)
                      at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit.main(ZygoteInit.java:755)

From the above output I can see that it's looking for libexampleplugin.so in "lib" (no "s") folder. However, the .so files were created in the "libs" folder. How can I change this so that I can copy the created files into their respective jnilibs/arm, ... etc folders?

I hope you guys understand.

Cheers

Simon

EDIT- Here are the .mk files.

Application.mk:

APP_STL := gnustl_static
APP_CPPFLAGS += -fexceptions -frtti
APP_PLATFORM := android-8
APP_ABI := armeabi armeabi-v7a x86
APP_OPTIM := release

Android.mk:

# Set the current path - my-dir returns the path where Android.mk is located
LOCAL_PATH := $(call my-dir)
 
LOCAL_PATH := $(call my-dir)
 
###
 
include $(CLEAR_VARS)
 
LOCAL_MODULE            := lua
LOCAL_SRC_FILES         := ../jniLibs/$(TARGET_ARCH_ABI)/liblua.so
 
include $(PREBUILT_SHARED_LIBRARY)
 
###
 
include $(CLEAR_VARS)
 
LOCAL_MODULE            := gideros
LOCAL_SRC_FILES         := ../jniLibs/$(TARGET_ARCH_ABI)/libgideros.so
 
include $(PREBUILT_SHARED_LIBRARY)
 
###
 
include $(CLEAR_VARS)
 
LOCAL_MODULE           := exampleplugin
LOCAL_ARM_MODE         := arm
LOCAL_CFLAGS           := -O2
LOCAL_SRC_FILES        := exampleplugin.cpp
LOCAL_LDLIBS           := -ldl -llog
LOCAL_SHARED_LIBRARIES := lua gideros
 
include $(BUILD_SHARED_LIBRARY)

simwhi · March 2017

HI all,

Finally got there!!! I just need to write a tutorial with a real world example that the community can add to over time. Special thanks to @hgy29.

Cheers,

Simon

simwhi · March 2017

Hi all,

So, I've got the simple plug-in working, but I'm still scratching my head on how to get asynchronous calls to work. I've taken a look at the various plug-ins that are part of the Gideros installation, but to be honest I'm lost on how they work. I don't have the prerequisite knowledge in this specific area.

Basically, I want to create a plug-in that uses the Android text-to-speech (TTS) features. I think this would:

a) provide a simple demonstration of a real world situation using asynchronous and non
asynchronous calls between Lua <---> C/C++ <-----> java
b) be fairly easy to follow (I managed to write an Android app in about 10 minutes)
c) The plug-in could be useful to community members.
d) Additional features could be added in the future

Could someone give me some pointers / guidance on where to start?

Cheers

Simon

simwhi · April 2017

Hi there,

Just bumping this again to see if anyone can help me with asynchronous callbacks.

Alternatively, we would be willing to pay for someone to develop and document a small plug-in project for our games. The project would be to implement Text To Speech (TTS) plug-in for Android.

If you are interested, please send me a private message so that we can discuss the details further.

Thanks

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