[Ohrrpgce] Plan for Android 8.0 target

Ralph Versteegen teeemcee at gmail.com
Thu Sep 27 20:17:25 PDT 2018


It drives me crazy that Android and its SDK and NDK use so many different
version numbers and names, which don't match up in any way!

A week ago there was this commit to pelya's port:
"SDL: support for NDK r18, set minimum API level to 16 (Android 4.1), which
is the minimum level NDK r18 supports"
Switching to r18 is a big change because it gets rid of GCC and libstdc++.
That's why so a bunch of work has been required in the SDL port. But if we
can continue to use an older NDK then we don't need all these upstream
changes from the SDL port.

NDK r18+ supports Android 4.1+ (API 16+)
NDK r15-17 support Android 4.0.0+ (API 14+)
NDK r12-14 support Android 2.3+ (API 9+)
Also, NDK r17 removed ARMv5 (armeabi) support, which is what we build for
by default. Various deprecations as well.
NDK r15 *(July 2017) *added Android 8.0 native APIs.

So clearly NDK r15 can be used with Android 8.0 as the target, and it might
even be possible to target Android 8.0 with earlier NDKs and SDKs. So I
recommend we try to build with r15.

Of course it would be nice to not be stuck on a years-old fork of pelya's
port.
Many of our additions to pelya's SDL 1.2 port should be moved to .java
files contained in the OHRRPGCE source code rather than mixed in with
unrelated code in project/java/Video.java

Oh, also I just found this:
"The Play Store will require 64-bit support when uploading an APK beginning
in August 2019" "*32-bit support is not going away. Apps that include a
32-bit library just need to have a 64-bit version too"*



On Fri, 28 Sep 2018 at 12:43, James Paige <Bob at hamsterrepublic.com> wrote:

> Oh, and I forgot to mention.
>
> Android 8.0 is the "target" but the apk files will still run on older
> versions of android too.
> The current "minimum" version supported by pelya's commadergenius
> sdl_android is Android version 4.1
>
> (I looked up statistics, and apparently the percentage of android devices
> running versions older than 4.1 is something like half of 1%)
>
>
>
>
> On Thu, Sep 27, 2018 at 8:31 PM James Paige <Bob at hamsterrepublic.com>
> wrote:
>
>> So starting pretty soon, only android apks that target Android version
>> 8.0 will be allowed in Google play.
>>
>> I have done a little research, and I learned that pelya has done a lot of
>> recent work on updating the commandergenius sdl for android port to work
>> with the latest Android NDK.
>>
>> So here is my current plan:
>> * I will clone a new fork of pelya's source
>> * I will patch in or re-implement all the modifications that the ohrrpgce
>> needs (this is mostly gamepad stuff and a few platform-detection functions.
>> The ouya store purchase stuff can be removed completely)
>> * I should be able to re-build the games that I have already packaged as
>> apks
>>
>> I am glad I have a plan now, I was worried about that part-- but the bad
>> news is that this plan is a lot of work, and my current free time is very
>> limited right now.
>>
>> I am budgeting my time and so one hour each Thursday evening is "OHRRPGCE
>> time" for the foreseeable future.
>>
>> Persons wondering how they can help without knowing how to comb through
>> git commits and patch them onto a newer tree can help by sending me kind
>> words and encouragement via e-mail on Thursday mornings to get me hyped up
>> ;)
>>
> _______________________________________________
> Ohrrpgce mailing list
> ohrrpgce at lists.motherhamster.org
> http://lists.motherhamster.org/listinfo.cgi/ohrrpgce-motherhamster.org
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.motherhamster.org/pipermail/ohrrpgce-motherhamster.org/attachments/20180928/c9381b0e/attachment.html>


More information about the Ohrrpgce mailing list