We use Gradle build flavors to enable a number of different build variants of OneBusAway Android.
We have one Gradle "platform" flavor dimension:
- google = Normal Google Play release
...and three Gradle "brand" flavor dimensions:
- oba = Original OneBusAway brand
- agencyX = A sample rebranded version of OneBusAway for a fictitious "Agency X"
- agencyY = A sample rebranded version of OneBusAway for a fictitious "Agency Y"
This results in a total of 1 * 3 = 3 core build variants. Each of these core variants also has a debug/release build type - the end result is that you'll have 6 build variants to choose to build.
The below instructions assume you're going to be building for the google platform flavor and original oba brand by default (e.g., obaGoogleDebug
).
If you want more info about building the other brands, please see the Rebranding OneBusAway Android page.
- Clone this repository
- Install Java Development Kit (JDK)
- Download, install, and run the latest version of Android Studio.
- At the welcome screen select
Import Project
, browse to the location of this repository and select it then select Ok. - Open the Android SDK Manager (Tools->Android->SDK Manager) and add a checkmark for the necessary API level (see
compileSdkVersion
inonebusaway-android/build.gradle
) then select OK. - Connect a debugging enabled Android device to your computer or setup an Android Virtual Device (Tools->Andorid->AVD Manager).
- Open the "Build Variants" window (it appears as a vertical button on left side of workspace by default) & choose obaGoogleDebug to select the Google Play version.
- Click the green play button (or Alt+Shift+F10) to build and run the project!
- Set the
JAVA_HOME
environmental variables to point to your JDK folder (e.g.C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.6.0_27
) - Download and install the Android SDK. Make sure to install the Google APIs for your API level (e.g. 17), the Android SDK Build-tools version for your
buildToolsVersion
version, the Android Support Repository and the Google Repository. - Set the
ANDROID_HOME
environment variable to your Android SDK location. - To build and push the app to the device, run
gradlew installObaGoogleDebug
from the command line at the root of the project. - To start the app, run
adb shell am start -n com.joulespersecond.seattlebusbot/org.onebusaway.android.ui.HomeActivity
(alternately, you can manually start the app).
If trip planning is active, you'll need to provide an API key for geocode.earth.
Add the following to onebusaway-android/gradle.properties
:
Pelias_oba=XXXXXX
...where XXXXXX
is your API key. Note that the suffix of _oba
can be changed to configure API keys for other build flavors.
To set up a release build, you need to create a gradle.properties
file that points to a secure.properties
file, and a secure.properties
file that points to your keystore and alias.
The gradle.properties
file is located in the onebusaway-android
directory and has the contents:
secure.properties=<full_path_to_secure_properties_file>
The secure.properties
file (in the location specified in gradle.properties) has the contents:
key.store=<full_path_to_keystore_file>
key.alias=<key_alias_name>
key.storepassword=<your_keystore_password>
key.keypassword=<your_key_password>
Note that the paths in these files always use the Unix path separator /
, even on Windows. If you use the Windows path separator \
you will get the error No value has been specified for property 'signingConfig.keyAlias'.
Before doing each release build, you'll need to:
- Bump
onebusaway-android/build.gradle
versionCode
by 1 and setversionName
to the appropriate next semantic version name. - Check
onebusaway-android/src/main/res/values/strings.xml
elementmain_help_whatsnew
to make sure that the latest changes we want to highlight for the user are entered there. After update, users see this in a dialog.
Then, to build all flavors run:
gradlew assembleRelease
(If you want to assemble just the Google variant, use gradlew assembleObaGoogleRelease
The APK files will show up in the onebusaway-android/build/outputs/apk
folder. obaGoogleRelease-vx.y.z.apk
is the file that's uploaded to Google Play for release.
Prior to uploading the app to Google Play, below is the release testing protocol. This effectively mirrors what a user would experience - installing the new release as an update to the existing release.
- Uninstall any existing version of OBA Android
- Opt into beta testing if you haven't already
- Download the latest version available on Google Play
- Launch the app, approve location permissions, ignore tutorial in those popups. Tap on a bus stop and "star" it by tapping on star next to bus stop name. Go to "Starred stops" in the main menu to ensure it saved the stop. This saves something to the database to ensure that data isn't lost in the update.
- Install the new APK over the existing APK as an update. I usually upload the new APK to Dropbox, then download to my device using "Export" from the Dropbox app, then using a file manager app to launch it by tapping on it. It will ask you if you want to install as an update, agree.
- Openly the newly updated app. Go to "Starred stops" in the main menu and confirm that the stop you starred in the above step is still there.
After testing a release, I create a tag locally by using Android Studio "Git->New tag", and I enter a name in the format of vx.y.z
and a summary of changes (see the GitHub Releases) for examples).
I then push this tag to GitHub using:
git push origin vx.y.z
Then I create a new release on GitHub using https://github.com/OneBusAway/onebusaway-android/releases/new, and reference this tag. I also attach the compiled APKs. I'll also mark "This is a pre-release" because releases go to the OBA beta testing group first.
After you've created the release on GitHub, head to the Google Play developer console and follow these steps to publish a beta release:
- Go to OneBusAway main app and then "Testing->Open testing"
- Create a new release and upload the new
obaGoogleRelease-vx.y.z.apk
APK - Keep all the existing APKs that are already there as "Included", except the current production release. This makes sure that everyone with older version Android devices can still download the app. So only the current production release should be under "Not Included".
- Type in the version number
vx.y.z
in the release name, and you can typically copy the release notes from a previous release and edit accordingly for whatever you want users to see in the "What's new" section of Google Play (typically this should match the in-app stringmain_help_whatsnew
mentioned above). - Review and publish release to beta testing group (I usually immediately push to all beta testing users)
- Announce beta release on the onebusaway-developers Google Group.
After the beta has soaked for at least a week or two and there have been no complaints (I typically check for crashes using Google Play Developer console for this version too), you can push the beta to production:
- Go to OneBusAway main app and then "Testing->Open testing". You should see your release listed there
- Click on "Promote release", and then "Production". I usually start at 5% or 10% depending on the predicted likelihood of introducing new bugs (e.g., from invasive changes or lots of new code), and roll out over a week to two weeks, again depending on predicted likelihood of new bugs. To update rollout you'll need to look at "Production" "Releases" tab to see your release there, and click on "Manage rollout" and increase percentage. At 100% is full production rollout.
Hot fixes can be released straight to production (similar process as above, but starting on "Production" tab) but are only advised in emergency scenarios where unforeseen events lead to a large number of users experiencing adverse affects that a patch would relieve.
Note that after promoting a beta to production you should go back to GitHub and edit the release and uncheck "This is a pre-release". I typically also include the date of the rollout in the release notes.
We have fully deprecated support for the Amazon App Store. We won't pull the existing release from there, or remove the existing APKs from GitHub, but consider support for this platform to be EOL'd.