/************************************************************************** ** ** Copyright (c) 2014 Digia Plc and/or its subsidiary(-ies). ** Contact: http://www.qt-project.org/legal ** ** This file is part of Qt Creator ** ** ** GNU Free Documentation License ** ** Alternatively, this file may be used under the terms of the GNU Free ** Documentation License version 1.3 as published by the Free Software ** Foundation and appearing in the file included in the packaging of this ** file. ** ** **************************************************************************/ /*! \contentspage index.html \previouspage creator-deployment.html \page creator-deploying-android.html \nextpage creator-deployment-bb10.html \title Deploying Applications to Android Devices On Android, applications are distributed in specially structured type of ZIP packages called APK. \QC supports the following methods of deployment for Android applications: \list \li As a stand-alone, distributable application package (APK). \li As a minimal APK that contains a dependency to the Ministro tool. The Ministro tool downloads the necessary Qt libraries from a repository of your choice. \li As an incomplete APK that is suitable for testing and debugging applications on a device connected to the development host. The APK relies on the device containing the Qt libraries in the correct location. \QC copies the libraries to that location the first time you deploy the application. \endlist The default option depends on whether you are developing with Qt 4 or Qt 5. The Necessitas SDK does not support bundling Qt libraries with applications, so you must use Ministro when developing with Qt 4. To specify the deployment method, select \gui Projects > \gui Run > \gui {Deploy configurations} > \gui Details \section1 Creating Distributable APK Packages To copy Qt libraries and files to the project directory and to bundle them as part of the APK, select the \gui {Bundle Qt libraries in APK} option. This is the default option when developing with Qt 5. It is not supported when developing with Qt 4. \section1 Using Ministro to Install Qt Libraries To minimize the size of your APK, you can package the application with an external dependency called Ministro. If a user downloads your application, and it is the first application on their device to depend on Ministro, they are asked to install Ministro before they can run your application. Ministro serves as a central repository for Qt libraries. This enables several applications to share the libraries, which only need to be installed once. To use this deployment method, you must set up a repository for the libraries that you want to distribute. To specify the repository URL, edit the file \c {android/res/values/libs.xml}, which is created by \QC. To use Ministro to install the Qt libraries, select the \gui {Use Ministro service to install Qt} option. This is the default option when developing with Qt 4. \section1 Deploying Qt Libraries for Debugging To test your application on a device that is physically connected to the development host (or on an emulator), you can copy the Qt libraries into a temporary directory on your device and run the application against them. An APK built in this way is not distributable, since it relies on the device containing the Qt libraries in the correct location. However, as the Qt libraries are only copied into the device once, this method provides a fast turn-around time, and is therefore convenient for testing the application during development. Select the \gui {Deploy local Qt libraries to temporary directory} option to deploy Qt libraries to the \c{/data/local/tmp/qt} folder on the device and to run the application against them. To deploy new Qt libraries to the device, select \gui {Clean Temporary Libraries Directory on Device}. The next time you deploy the application, Qt libraries are copied to the device again. \section1 Packaging Qt 4 Applications When you select a \gui {Qt for Android Kit} that specifies Qt 4 for a project, \QC creates and maintains a set of files that are required to make your application run on Android devices. \QC adds the following files to your project: \list \li Java files, which serve as the entry point into your application and that automatically load Qt and execute the native code in your application. \li AndroidManifest.xml, which provides meta-information about your application. \li Other XML files, which specify the dependencies of your application. \li Resource files. \li Libraries and QML files, which can be included in the project depending on the deployment method that you select. \endlist \QC adds the files to the project to a subdirectory called \c android. The contents of the \c android folder are used to create a distributable application package. To view the packages that \QC created, select the \gui {Open package location after is complete} check box. To specify information for the Android manifest file, open it in \QC. For more information, see \l{Editing Manifest Files}. \section2 Specifying Settings for Qt 4 Packages \include creator-projects-settings-run-android.qdocinc \section1 Packaging Qt 5 Applications Because bundling applications as APK packages is not trivial, Qt 5 provides a deployment tool called \c androiddeployqt. When you deploy an application using a \gui {Qt for Android Kit}, \QC uses the \c androiddeployqt tool to create the necessary files and to bundle them into an APK. To view the packages that the \c androiddeployqt tool created, select the \gui {Open package location after build} check box. The packages are deployed on the connected Android devices. To switch the device used as a default device for the selected kit, select \gui {Reset Default Devices}. The setting applies until you restart \QC. For more information, see \l{Selecting Android Devices}. For more information about the \c androiddeployqt tool, see \l{Deploying an Application on Android}. \section2 Specifying Settings for Qt 5 Packages You can specify settings for the \c androiddeployqt tool in \QC and in the project .pro file. To specify settings in \QC, select \gui Projects > \gui Run > \gui {Deploy configurations} > \gui Details. \image qtcreator-android-deploy-configurations.png "Deploy configurations" The anddroiddeployqt tool uses the information in the project .pro file to create APKs. For more information about the qmake variables that you can set in the .pro file to tailor the APK, see \l{Deploying an Application on Android#qmake-variables}{qmake Variables}. You can view information about what the anddroiddeployqt tool is doing in the \gui {Compile Output} pane. To view additional information, select the \gui {Verbose output} check box. \section3 Selecting API Level In the \gui {Android target SDK} field, you can select the API level to use for building the application. Usually, you should select the newest API level available. This field does not specify the minimum supported API level nor the target API level, which you can specify in the Android manifest file. For more information about Android API levels, see \l{http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/manifest/uses-sdk-element.html#ApiLevels} {What is API Level?}. \section3 Signing Android Packages In the \gui {Sign Package} group you can sign the Android package by using a private key from the keystore. To create new keys, select \gui Create. \section2 Adding External Libraries \QC automatically detects which Qt libraries the application uses and adds them as dependencies. If the application needs external libraries, specify them in the \gui {Additional Libraries} field. The libraries are copied into your application's library folder and loaded on startup. For example, to enable OpenSSL in your application, add the paths to the required \c libssl.so and \c libcrypto.so libraries to the \gui {Additional Libraries} field. \section1 Installing Ministro The easiest way to install Ministro is to do it on the device via Google Play. When you run the application for the first time, a dialog pops up and guides you through the installation. To use \QC to install Ministro, you must first download the Ministro .apk from the Google Market or from the \l{http://necessitas.kde.org/necessitas/ministro.php}{Ministro} home page. Then select \gui {Install Ministro from APK}. You can use this option also to install any Android package (.apk). You can use this option to install applications on an Android Virtual Device (AVD). \section1 Editing Manifest Files When you develop with Qt 4, \QC creates the Android manifest file for you, and you can open it for editing in the Android Manifest Editor. When you develop with Qt 5, you can use the qmake variables to specify all the settings you need for the \c androiddeployqt tool and you do not need an Android manifest file until you want to publish the package in an application store. To specify additional settings for APK packages, you can create an Android manifest file and edit it in \QC. Select \gui {Create AndroidManifest.xml} to create the file and to open it in the Android Manifest Editor. \image qtcreator-android-manifest-editor.png "Android Manifest Editor" Select the \gui {XML Source} tab to edit the file in XML format. In the \gui {Package name} field, enter a package name for the application. The application is launched by an automatically generated Java launcher that is packaged with the application into an Android package (.apk). For more information, see \l{http://developer.android.com/guide/components/fundamentals.html} {Android Application Fundamentals}. You can specify an internal version number for the package in the \gui {Version code} field. It is used to determine whether one version of the application is more recent than another. In the \gui {Version name} field, specify the version number that is shown to users. In the \gui {Minimum required SDK} field, select the minimum API level required to run the application. The minimum API level is android-4 for Necessitas and android-9 for Qt 5. \QC does not allow you to select an API level that the Qt version specified for the kit does not support. \note The android-4 API level does not support multitouch. If your application needs multitouch, select a higher API level. In the \gui {Target SDK} field, select the targeted API level of the application. This affects the activation of some compatibility features in the OS. The value used by the \c androiddeployqt tool by default is 14, which means that the overflow button in the system navigation bar will not be enabled by default. In the \gui Application group, you can give the application a name and select an icon for it. The three icon fields can contain different versions of the icon with low, medium, and high DPI values, from left to right. In the \gui Permissions field, you can specify the permissions that your application needs. Users are asked to grant the permissions when they install the application. Android OS then grants the application access to the appropriate data and features. To add permissions, select \gui Add and select permissions from the list. */