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Quickstart

The main tech stack comprises of:

  • Angular
  • Ionic
  • Capacitor

Additional Developer Prerequisites

  1. Install angular CLI - npm i -g @angular/cli
  2. Install ionic CLI - - npm i -g @ionic/cli

Building / Running app on Android

Setting up Building for Android (on Windows)

  1. Install Android Studio (https://developer.android.com/studio)
  2. Install Android SDK Tools (26.0.1 or greater), as illustrated here: https://capacitorjs.com/docs/android#getting-started
  3. Ensure that the active deployment is fully configured in accordance with the requirements detailed in Android app management.
  4. To populate the Android build files with the app ID, app name and version number (content_tag_latest) defined in the deployment config, run 
    yarn workflow android configure
  5. Build the project locally and sync android files 
    yarn build
npx cap sync android
  6. Open the project in Android Studio npx cap open android
  7. From Android studio you can manage the app build, emulate and run processes, as illustrated here: https://capacitorjs.com/docs/android#running-your-app

Android studio should handle the process of downloading required tools, find below guidance for manual configuration.

Manual configuration steps - (Windows)

This will automatically install required

  1. First install JDK 8 and make sure environment variable JAVA_HOME points to the folder that looks like this C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.8.0_241
  2. Secondly install the Android SDK (which will be installed if you install Android Studio).
  3. Set the environment variable ANDROID_HOME to the location of your Android SDK install. This will probably look like C:\Users\<USER_NAME>\AppData\Local\Android\Sdk
  4. Download Gradle extract it to a folder in your program files folder for example C:\Gradle\gradle-6.3\
  5. Add the following to your PATH environment variable so we can execute java, gradle and android commands.
%JAVA_HOME%\bin
C:\Gradle\gradle-6.3\bin
%ANDROID_HOME%\emulator
%ANDROID_HOME%\tools
%ANDROID_HOME%\platform-tools
  1. Open Android studio, now open Tools > SDK Manager and install

Manual configuration steps - (Linux or MacOS)

If you want to setup building for Android on Linux or MacOS then you'll need to install

  • JDK 8: https://www.oracle.com/java/technologies/javase-jdk8-downloads.html
  • Gradle: https://gradle.org/install/
  • Android Studio: https://developer.android.com/studio/index.html

Once you've installed those tools you'll also need to make sure you PATH and ANDROID_HOME environment variables are correct. More on this here: https://cordova.apache.org/docs/en/latest/guide/platforms/android/index.html#os-x-and-linux

Running on an Android Emulator

  1. Open Android studio and follow the steps here https://developer.android.com/studio/run/managing-avds#createavd to create an Android emulator. When choosing a system image to create an emulator for do not choose a version of Android older than 5.0 Lollipop (API Level 21).
  2. In case you are having problems with running the AVD you might receive an error message saying something like - How to Enable Intel Virtualization Technology (vt-x) ……… you will need to get into your bios and enable virtualization if you are not sure what that is, then you can google it up for your computer model.
  3. Once you've created an emulator run directly from Android Studio

Running on a physical Android device (developing on Windows)

  1. Make sure you've followed all the setup steps in Setting up Building for Android Devices.

  2. In order to run on a physical Android device you will need to download the adb driver for your device onto your Windows computer.

  3. If you have a Google Nexus or Pixel device use this tutorial: https://developer.android.com/studio/run/win-usb

  4. If you have an Android phone from any other manufacturer use this tutorial: https://developer.android.com/studio/run/oem-usb

  5. Plug in your Android device and make sure from within the settings you've enabled USB debugging.

  6. Run in the command line adb devices to check that your device is connected via ADB.
  7. Now to run the parenting app on your device, click the run button in Android Studio

Running on a physical Android device (Linux or MacOS)

  1. Make sure you've followed the previous steps for setting up JDK8, Gradle and Android Studio.
  2. If on Linux run sudo apt-get install adb
  3. Plug in your Android device and make sure from within the settings you've enabled USB debugging.
  4. Run in the command line adb devices to check that your device is connected via ADB.
  5. Now to run the parenting app on your device, click the run button in Android Studio

I'm sure this wont cause problems later