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digitalmars.D - Polling on D for Android

reply Hipreme <msnmancini hotmail.com> writes:
Hello Guys.
I have been implementing complete automatizations on my Game 
Engine for actually building easily for any platform. i.e: You 
don't need to set it up, you just run my script, select the 
platform you want and it will handle all the pesky details.

I have done that already for MacOS and WASM, and right now I'm 
finishing one for Android which basically tries to find your SDK 
and NDK, if doesn't find, it auto installs and set it up for you 
and also let you build your D code for it (currently only my 
engine is targeted).

And this is something I would like to ask: Is there anyone more 
wanting to use D for Android here? I could try making the code a 
little more flexible (not that much). I know that nowadays 
working D for Android requires quite a lot of reading and that is 
pretty bad and time wasting.

So, that being said:

1. What would you like to do between Android and D? I personally 
don't recommend anyone actually dealing with Android interface 
from D because this is a ground not yet explored by me (i.e: I 
don't use native activity, it is pretty painful).

2. What would you need? Currently my engine has a module that 
supports binding to java functions, it supports logging, those 
are the useful things. It is not as complete as arsd.jni. This 
part I don't really intend to develop for the community but it 
would be good to know what you need.


3. What more did I forgot here? What would be acceptable to you?

As far as I would like to help community for that, setting up 
both for WASM and Android has a lot of things related to what 
you're doing and this was proposed because it is a more generic 
requirement I found on D for Android.

The context in which I say is basically: I have an Android studio 
project setup with some folders and functions that calls my 
engine, same applies to WASM. But I think it is not that hard to 
make them more generic.
Apr 14 2023
parent reply "H. S. Teoh" <hsteoh qfbox.info> writes:
On Fri, Apr 14, 2023 at 03:57:12PM +0000, Hipreme via Digitalmars-d wrote:

 Hello Guys.
 I have been implementing complete automatizations on my Game Engine
 for actually building easily for any platform. i.e: You don't need to
 set it up, you just run my script, select the platform you want and it
 will handle all the pesky details.
 
 I have done that already for MacOS and WASM, and right now I'm
 finishing one for Android which basically tries to find your SDK and
 NDK, if doesn't find, it auto installs and set it up for you and also
 let you build your D code for it (currently only my engine is
 targeted).
 
 And this is something I would like to ask: Is there anyone more
 wanting to use D for Android here? I could try making the code a
 little more flexible (not that much). I know that nowadays working D
 for Android requires quite a lot of reading and that is pretty bad and
 time wasting.


I'd love to have a nicer D interface to Android.  I like to install the
SDK/NDK by hand, so it would be nice if it was possible to point your
script to a custom installation location.



 So, that being said:
 
 1. What would you like to do between Android and D? I personally don't
 recommend anyone actually dealing with Android interface from D
 because this is a ground not yet explored by me (i.e: I don't use
 native activity, it is pretty painful).

 2. What would you need? Currently my engine has a module that supports
 binding to java functions, it supports logging, those are the useful
 things.  It is not as complete as arsd.jni. This part I don't really
 intend to develop for the community but it would be good to know what
 you need.


[...]

It would be nice to have:

(1) An easy way to create a text window for displaying log messages /
debug messages for development. It's possible to do this manually of
course, but it's just an extra barrier (you have to debug the debug
window before you can debug the program!).

(2) An easy way to create window and get a GL / GLES rendering context /
canvas from it, that D code can use for further operations. I have an
Android project (currently on the backburner) that does this manually,
and it's just a lot of fiddly boilerplate. Would be ideal if a single
function call or two could do it all for me.

(3) An easy way to render text on a GLES canvas. There's a system
libfreetype on Android but it's not very accessible to user code the
last time I checked, you have to ship your own version of libfreetype,
etc., etc.. It's just a lot of manual work, and mostly just boilerplate.
Some way of automating this away would be very nice.


T

-- 
If it breaks, you get to keep both pieces. -- Software disclaimer notice
Apr 14 2023
next sibling parent Hipreme <msnmancini hotmail.com> writes:
On Friday, 14 April 2023 at 17:40:17 UTC, H. S. Teoh wrote:

 On Fri, Apr 14, 2023 at 03:57:12PM +0000, Hipreme via 
 Digitalmars-d wrote:

 Hello Guys.
 I have been implementing complete automatizations on my Game 
 Engine
 for actually building easily for any platform. i.e: You don't 
 need to
 set it up, you just run my script, select the platform you 
 want and it
 will handle all the pesky details.
 
 I have done that already for MacOS and WASM, and right now I'm 
 finishing one for Android which basically tries to find your 
 SDK and NDK, if doesn't find, it auto installs and set it up 
 for you and also let you build your D code for it (currently 
 only my engine is targeted).
 
 And this is something I would like to ask: Is there anyone 
 more wanting to use D for Android here? I could try making the 
 code a little more flexible (not that much). I know that 
 nowadays working D for Android requires quite a lot of reading 
 and that is pretty bad and time wasting.


 I'd love to have a nicer D interface to Android.  I like to 
 install the SDK/NDK by hand, so it would be nice if it was 
 possible to point your script to a custom installation location.



 So, that being said:
 
 1. What would you like to do between Android and D? I 
 personally don't recommend anyone actually dealing with 
 Android interface from D because this is a ground not yet 
 explored by me (i.e: I don't use native activity, it is pretty 
 painful).

 2. What would you need? Currently my engine has a module that 
 supports binding to java functions, it supports logging, those 
 are the useful things.  It is not as complete as arsd.jni. 
 This part I don't really intend to develop for the community 
 but it would be good to know what you need.


 [...]

 It would be nice to have:

 (1) An easy way to create a text window for displaying log 
 messages / debug messages for development. It's possible to do 
 this manually of course, but it's just an extra barrier (you 
 have to debug the debug window before you can debug the 
 program!).

 (2) An easy way to create window and get a GL / GLES rendering 
 context / canvas from it, that D code can use for further 
 operations. I have an Android project (currently on the 
 backburner) that does this manually, and it's just a lot of 
 fiddly boilerplate. Would be ideal if a single function call or 
 two could do it all for me.

 (3) An easy way to render text on a GLES canvas. There's a 
 system libfreetype on Android but it's not very accessible to 
 user code the last time I checked, you have to ship your own 
 version of libfreetype, etc., etc.. It's just a lot of manual 
 work, and mostly just boilerplate. Some way of automating this 
 away would be very nice.


 T


So, about specifying the SDK/NDK, my engine does that quite 
simply: It downloads and installs them if not found in default 
paths, then it saves on a configuration file where your ndk is 
located. So, you will still be able to run it manually.


For 2 and 3 are really easy, all you need is to link to libGLES 
and use the same project structure I use in my Android Studio 
project, but since my engine already does that, I don't plan into 
implementing that myself. Also, I would not use libfreetype 
specially since we already have arsd-official:ttf out there, 
which is basically D code so it is easier to get working with.

For 1, why not use LogCat? I made my logging command to actually 
output there. You can connect to it without Android Studio also.
Apr 14 2023
prev sibling next sibling parent Adam D Ruppe <destructionator gmail.com> writes:
On Friday, 14 April 2023 at 17:40:17 UTC, H. S. Teoh wrote:

 (3) An easy way to render text on a GLES canvas. There's a 
 system libfreetype on Android



I betcha you could use the self-contained arsd.ttf (which is a 
port of stb_ttf plus some convenience functions i put on top of 
it). I do it with opengl on desktop easily enough.
Apr 14 2023
prev sibling parent Hipreme <msnmancini hotmail.com> writes:
On Friday, 14 April 2023 at 17:40:17 UTC, H. S. Teoh wrote:

 On Fri, Apr 14, 2023 at 03:57:12PM +0000, Hipreme via 
 Digitalmars-d wrote:

 [...]


 I'd love to have a nicer D interface to Android.  I like to 
 install the SDK/NDK by hand, so it would be nice if it was 
 possible to point your script to a custom installation location.



 [...]


 [...]

 It would be nice to have:

 (1) An easy way to create a text window for displaying log 
 messages / debug messages for development. It's possible to do 
 this manually of course, but it's just an extra barrier (you 
 have to debug the debug window before you can debug the 
 program!).

 (2) An easy way to create window and get a GL / GLES rendering 
 context / canvas from it, that D code can use for further 
 operations. I have an Android project (currently on the 
 backburner) that does this manually, and it's just a lot of 
 fiddly boilerplate. Would be ideal if a single function call or 
 two could do it all for me.

 (3) An easy way to render text on a GLES canvas. There's a 
 system libfreetype on Android but it's not very accessible to 
 user code the last time I checked, you have to ship your own 
 version of libfreetype, etc., etc.. It's just a lot of manual 
 work, and mostly just boilerplate. Some way of automating this 
 away would be very nice.


 T



Yo! I have been working towards making it easier and easier to 
use for Android. Maybe you could try using my engine for Android? 
  It works building to Android from all OSes, maybe you could try? 
https://github.com/MrcSnm/HipremeEngine


Just run `dub` on tools/user/build_selector, just follow the easy 
instructions in a manual setup there, for gamePath try 
`projects/start_here` for the time.
Apr 16 2023