Build custom android apps

Building apps for Android

There are two locations to configure settings that affect how your app is built:

• Player settings — Allows you to configure runtime settings for the app. For more information on Player settings, see Player settings for the Android platform.
• Build settings — Allows you to configure build system parameters and build the app.

The output package includes an APK, and an APK expansion file (OBB) if the Split Application Binary option is selected in the Player settings. For more information on OBB files, see OBB Support.

To optimize for download and installation size, enable the Split APKs by target architecture option in the Player settings. The Split APKs by target architecture option produces one set of APKs and OBBs for each device architecture selected in the Target Architecture list in the Player settings. You can upload this set of APKs (and OBBs, if enabled) to the Google Play, or other, store instead of a FAT APK in which all of the selected architectures are included into a single APK. For more information on this feature, see Multiple APK support on the Android Developer website.

Configuring Build Settings

To configure and build apps for Android, access the Build Settings window (File > Build Settings). In Platform, select Android.

To set Android as your default build platform, click the Switch Platform button.

After you specify your build settings, click the Build The process of compiling your project into a format that is ready to run on a specific platform or platforms. More info
See in Glossary button to create your build. To build the app, click Build And Run to create and run your build on the platform you have specified.

Setting	Function
Texture Compression A method of storing data that reduces the amount of storage space it requires. See Texture Compression, Animation Compression, Audio Compression, Build Compression. See in Glossary	The Unity Android build system supports the following texture compression format options: Don’t override, DXT (Tegra), PVRTC (PowerVR), ETC (default), ETC2 (GLES 3.0), and ASTC. For advice on using these formats, see the Texture Compression section below.
ETC2 fallback	32-bit, 16-bit, and 32-bit, half resolution.
Build System
Internal (deprecated) — Generate the output package (APK) using the internal Unity build process, based on Android SDK utilities. Selecting Internal hides the Export Project checkbox.
Gradle — Generate the output package (APK) using the Gradle build system. Supports direct Build and Run and exporting the Project to a directory. This is the default Build System for Unity.
Export Project	Export the Project as a Gradle project that you can import into Android Studio.
Build AppBundle (Google Play)	Build an Android App Bundle for distribution on Google Play. Selecting this option also lets you configure the Warn about App Bundle Size option in the Player settings Settings that let you set various player-specific options for the final game built by Unity. More info See in Glossary .
Run Device	A drop-down list of attached devices on which you can test your build. If you connect a new device or you don’t see an attached device in the list, click the Refresh button to reload the list.
Development Build	A development build includes debug symbols and enables the Profiler A window that helps you to optimize your game. It shows how much time is spent in the various areas of your game. For example, it can report the percentage of time spent rendering, animating, or in your game logic. More info See in Glossary . Selecting Development Build allows you to select the Autoconnect Profiler, Script Debugging, and Scripts A piece of code that allows you to create your own Components, trigger game events, modify Component properties over time and respond to user input in any way you like. More info See in Glossary Only Build options.
Autoconnect Profiler	Allows the Profiler to automatically connect to the build. Selectable when the Development Build option is selected. For more information on the Profiler, see Profiler Overview.
Script Debugging	Allow script debuggers to attach to the Player remotely. Enabled when the Development Build option is selected.
Scripts Only Build	Check this option to build just the scripts in the current Project. Enabled when the Development Build option is selected.
Compression Method	Compress the data in your Project at build time. Choose between the following methods:
Default — The default compression is ZIP, which gives slightly better compression results than LZ4 and LZ4HC, but data is slower to decompress.
LZ4 — A fast compression format that is useful for development builds. Using LZ4 compression can significantly improve loading time of games/apps built with Unity. For more information, see BuildOptions.CompressWithLz4.
LZ4HC — A high compression variant of LZ4 that is slower to build but produces better results for release builds. Using LZ4HC compression can significantly improve loading time of games/apps built with Unity. For more information, see BuildOptions.CompressWithLz4HC.
SDKs for App Stores	Select which third party app stores to integrate with. To include an integration, click Add next to an App Store name. The Unity Package Manager automatically downloads and includes the relevant integration package.

Texture compression

Unity uses the Ericsson Texture Compression (ETC) format for textures that don’t have individual texture format A file format for handling textures during real-time rendering by 3D graphics hardware, such as a graphics card or mobile device. More info
See in Glossary overrides. When building an APK to target specific hardware, use the Texture Compression 3D Graphics hardware requires Textures to be compressed in specialized formats which are optimized for fast Texture sampling. More info
See in Glossary option to override this default behavior. Texture Compression is a global setting for the Project. If a texture has a specific override on it, that texture is not affected by the Texture Compression setting. For additional information, see Textures An image used when rendering a GameObject, Sprite, or UI element. Textures are often applied to the surface of a mesh to give it visual detail. More info
See in Glossary .

For additional information on textures and texture compression, see the Mobile and WebGL specific formats and Notes on Android sections on the Texture compression formats for platform-specific overrides page.

Note: Texture Compression is a global setting. Individual textures override the global setting.

ETC2 fallback

For Android devices that don’t support ETC2 (which don’t support GL ES3), you can override the default ETC2 texture decompression by choosing from 32-bit, 16-bit, or 32-bit with half the resolution formats.

This option allows you to choose between the uncompressed image quality and the amount of memory the uncompressed texture occupies. 32-bit RGBA texture is the highest quality format, and takes twice the required disk space as the 16-bit format, but a texture in 16-bit might lose some valuable color information. 32-bit half-resolution reduces the memory requirement further, but the texture is likely to become blurry.

Build system

Unity supports two Android build systems: Gradle An Android build system that automates several build processes. This automation means that many common build errors are less likely to occur. More info
See in Glossary and Internal.

The steps involved with building for Android are:

Preparing and building the Unity Assets.

Processing the plug-ins A set of code created outside of Unity that creates functionality in Unity. There are two kinds of plug-ins you can use in Unity: Managed plug-ins (managed .NET assemblies created with tools like Visual Studio) and Native plug-ins (platform-specific native code libraries). More info
See in Glossary .

Splitting the resources into the parts that go to the APK and the OBB, if Split Application Binary is selected.

Building the Android resources using the AAPT utility (internal build only.)

Generating the Android manifest.

Merging the library manifests into the Android manifest (internal build only.)

Compiling the Java code into the Dalvik Executable format (DEX) (internal build only.)

Building the IL2CPP A Unity-developed scripting back-end which you can use as an alternative to Mono when building projects for some platforms. More info
See in Glossary library, if IL2CPP Scripting Backend is selected.

Building and optimizing the APK and OBB packages.

Gradle build system

The Gradle build system uses Gradle to build an APK or export a Project in Gradle format, which can then be imported to Android Studio. When you select this build system, Unity goes through the same steps as the Internal build system excluding resource compilation with AAPT, merging manifests, and running DEX. Unity then generates the build.gradle file (along with the other required configuration files) and invokes the Gradle executable, passing it the task name and the working directory. Finally, the APK is built by Gradle.

Internal build system

The Internal build system creates an APK using the Android SDK utilities to build and optimize the APK and OBB packages. For more information about OBB files, see OBB Support.

Exporting the Project

If you need more control over the build pipeline, or to make changes that Unity does not normally allow (for example, fine tuning the manifest files that are automatically generated by Unity), you can export your Project and import it into Android Studio. Exporting a Project is only available when you have selected Gradle as your Build System.

To export the Project:

1. From the Build System drop-down menu, select Gradle.
2. Check the Export Project checkbox. When Export Project is checked, the Build button is relabeled Export and the Build And Run button is disabled.
3. Click the Export button and select a destination folder for the project.

When the export finishes, open Android Studio and import your project. For more information on importing projects to Android Studio, see the Migrate to Android Studio section of the Android Developer documentation.

Build or Build and Run

The Build Settings window offers two options: Build and Build and Run. Using either option saves the output packages (APK and OBB, if enabled) to the path that you select. You can publish these packages to the Google Play Store, or install them on your device manually with the help of Android Debug Bridge (ADB). For further information about installing apps manually, see the Run your app section of the Android Developer documentation. For information on ADB An Android Debug Bridge (ADB). You can use an ADB to deploy an Android package (APK) manually after building. More info
See in Glossary commands, see the Android Debug Bridge section of the Android Developer documentation.

Selecting Build and Run saves the output packages to the file path you specify, while also installing your app on the Android device connected to your computer.

If the Split Application Binary option is enabled, the OBB file is pushed to the correct location on your device. If Development Build A development build includes debug symbols and enables the Profiler. More info
See in Glossary is checked, Unity also sets up a Profiler tunnel and enables CheckJNI. After that, the app is launched. The Split Application Binary setting is located in the Publishing Settings section of the Player settings.

Tip: Specify the output path for the packages and then use the Ctrl+B (Windows) or Cmd+B (macOS) keyboard shortcut to Build and Run using the saved output path.

2018–11–19 Page amended

Updated functionality in 5.5

Updated the Build Settings Configuration options

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How to make Android apps without IDE from command line

Nov 26, 2017 · 5 min read

A HelloWorld without Android Studio

Update: I’ve made a new course that explain how you can avoid Android Studio and Gradle, but still use IntelliJ iDE:

How to do Android development faster without Gradle

IntelliJ IDE, but not Gradle

In this tutorial, I will show you how you can build/compile an APK (an A n droid app) from your java code using terminal (on Linux) without IDE or in other words without Android Studio. At the end, I will also show you a script to automate the process. In this example, I will use Android API 19 (4.4 Kitkat) to make a simple HelloWorld. I want to say that I will do this tutorial without android command which is deprecated.

1. Install Java

First, you need to install java, in my case, I install the headless version because I don’t use graphics (only command line):

2. Install all SDK tools

Then download the last SDK tools of Android which you can find here:

Download Android Studio and SDK Tools | Android Studio

Download the official Android IDE and developer tools to build apps for Android phones, tablets, wearables, TVs, and…

I recommend to unzip it in the /opt directory inside another directory that we will call “android-sdk”:

Now, we have to install platform tools (which contain ADB), an Android API and build tools.

In fact, if you are on Debian, you can avoid installing platform-tools package and only install ADB like that:

3. Code the application

In this example, I want to compile a simple HelloWorld. So, first, we need to make a project directory:

Then we have to make the files tree:

If you use exernal libraries (.jar files), also make a folder for them:

You have an example here:

How to use JavaMail on Android (without Gradle)

Hello guys!

Make the file src/com/example/helloandroid/MainActivity.java and put that inside:

Make the strings.xml file in the res/values folder. It contains all the text that your application uses:

The activity_main.xml is a layout file which have to be in res/layout:

You also have to add the file AndroidManifest.xml at the root:

4. Build the code

Now, I recommend to store the project path in a variable:

First, we need generate the R.java file which is necessary for our code:

• -m instructs aapt to create directories under the location specified by -J
• -J specifies where the output goes. Saying -J src will create a file like src/com/example/helloandroid/R.java
• -S specifies where is the res directory with the drawables, layouts, etc.
• -I tells aapt where the android.jar is. You can find yours in a location like android-sdk/platforms/android-/android.jar

Now, we have to compile the .java files:

If you have use an external, add it the classpath:

The compiled .class files are in obj folder, but Android can’t read them. We have to translate them in a file called “classes.dex” which will be read by the dalvik Android runtime:

But if you use external libraries, do rather:

If you have the error UNEXPECTED TOP-LEVEL EXCEPTION , it can be because you use old build tools and DX try to translate java 1.7 rather than 1.8. To solve the problem, you have to specify 1.7 java version in the previous javac command:

The -source option specify the java version of your source files. Note that we can use previous versions of Java even we use OpenJDK 8 (or 1.8).

We can now put everything in an APK:

Be aware: until now, we used three AAPT commands, the first and the second one are similar but they don’t do the same. You have to copy the classes.dex file at the root of project like above! Otherwise, AAPT won’t put this file at right place in the APK archive (because an APK is like a .zip file).

The generated package can’t be installed by Android because it’s unaligned and unsigned.

If you want, you can check the content of the package like this:

5. Sign the package

To do so, we firstly create a new keystore with the command keytool given by Java:

Just answer the questions and put a password.

You can sign an APK like this:

Note that apksigner only exist since Build Tools 24.0.3.

6. Align the package

It’s as simple as that:

Alignment increase the performance of the application and may reduce memory use.

7. Test the application

To test the application, connect your smartphone with a USB cable and use ADB:

But before run this command, I recommend to run this one:

If there is an error during installation or running, you see it with that command.

Voila! Here’s the result:

8. Make a script

If you don’t want to run all these steps every time you would like to compile your app, make a script! Here’s mine:

Notes

• You can remove “test” if you just want to compile without testing.
• This script only compile and run the app on the phone. But I can also make a script to automatically generate a new project like this one. I think I have a good idea to do so, but I need to know if you are interested. If it’s the case, please leave a comment or send me an e-mail.
• I can also complete the script for external libraries. Likewise, let me know if you want this.

If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to ask them below or by e-mail ;-)! EDIT: Well I’m very busy actually…

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