Android Development

This guide covers setting up your environment and building Blinc apps for Android.

Prerequisites

1. Android SDK & NDK

Install Android Studio or the standalone SDK:

# macOS (via Homebrew)
brew install --cask android-studio

# Or download from https://developer.android.com/studio

Set up environment variables:

export ANDROID_HOME=$HOME/Library/Android/sdk
export ANDROID_NDK_HOME=$ANDROID_HOME/ndk/26.1.10909125
export PATH=$PATH:$ANDROID_HOME/platform-tools

2. Rust Android Targets

rustup target add aarch64-linux-android
rustup target add armv7-linux-androideabi
rustup target add x86_64-linux-android
rustup target add i686-linux-android

3. cargo-ndk

cargo install cargo-ndk

Building

Debug Build

# Build for arm64 (most modern devices)
cargo ndk -t arm64-v8a build

# Build for multiple architectures
cargo ndk -t arm64-v8a -t armeabi-v7a build

Release Build

cargo ndk -t arm64-v8a build --release

Using Gradle

From the platforms/android directory:

./gradlew assembleDebug

The APK will be at app/build/outputs/apk/debug/app-debug.apk.

Project Configuration

Cargo.toml

[lib]
name = "my_app"
crate-type = ["cdylib", "staticlib"]

[target.'cfg(target_os = "android")'.dependencies]
blinc_app = { version = "0.1", features = ["android"] }
blinc_platform_android = "0.1"
android-activity = { version = "0.6", features = ["native-activity"] }
log = "0.4"
android_logger = "0.14"

AndroidManifest.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<manifest xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android">
    <uses-feature android:glEsVersion="0x00030000" android:required="true" />

    <application
        android:label="My App"
        android:theme="@android:style/Theme.DeviceDefault.NoActionBar.Fullscreen"
        android:hardwareAccelerated="true">

        <activity
            android:name=".MainActivity"
            android:configChanges="orientation|screenSize|keyboardHidden"
            android:exported="true">

            <meta-data
                android:name="android.app.lib_name"
                android:value="my_app" />

            <intent-filter>
                <action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN" />
                <category android:name="android.intent.category.LAUNCHER" />
            </intent-filter>
        </activity>
    </application>
</manifest>

Touch Event Handling

Android touch events are automatically routed to your UI. The touch phases map as follows:

Debugging

View Logs

adb logcat | grep -E "(blinc|BlincApp)"

Common Issues

“Library not found”

Ensure the native library is built and copied to app/src/main/jniLibs/:

cargo ndk -t arm64-v8a build
cp target/aarch64-linux-android/debug/libmy_app.so \
   platforms/android/app/src/main/jniLibs/arm64-v8a/

“Vulkan not supported”

Check device compatibility:

adb shell getprop ro.hardware.vulkan

Most devices with API 24+ support Vulkan, but some older devices may not.

Touch events not working

1. Verify the render context is created successfully
2. Check that android.app.lib_name in manifest matches your library name
3. Look for errors in logcat

Performance Tips

1. Use release builds for performance testing
2. Enable LTO in Cargo.toml:

   [profile.release]
   lto = "thin"
   opt-level = "z"
   

3. Test on real devices - emulators have different GPU characteristics