Titanium Android Module Developer Guide

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Hello, Here is Guide to Build a Android Module in Titanium, And Creating the dist.zip file. For More Details Please follow this link below.

http://docs.appcelerator.com/titanium/latest/#!/guide/Android_Module_Development_Guide


Titanium Android Module Developer Guide



Requirements:

* Titanium Mobile SDK 1.5.0 or above
* A recent version of Python (>= 2.5) on your PATH or configured with PYTHONHOME. 
  - In Windows, Titanium Developer / Desktop ships with Python 2.5, so no extra configuration is needed.
* Sun JDK 6.0
  - Android SDK, with both Google APIs and SDK version 4 installed You can target other versions of Android, but version 4 is a requirement for building
* Ant 1.7.1 or above in your PATH
  - If you don't want to install Ant separately, you can optionally use Eclipse
  
  
Environment setup


The titanium script in the Mobile SDK is the frontend to creating and testing modules. It's recommended that you setup an alias or add it to your PATH so you can call it directly, for example:

In Windows: Open your environment variable settings by going to:

* Start Menu > Right click on "Computer" > Properties > Advanced System Settings
* Click on the "Advanced" tab, and the "Environment Variables" button near the bottom
* Double click or create a new entry for PATH under User Variables
* in Window Vista or Windows 7:
  - Add C:\ProgramData\Titanium\mobilesdk\win32\1.5.0
  
* In Windows XP:
  - Add C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Titanium\mobilesdk\win32\1.5.0

In OSX, Add this to your ~/.bash_profile <pre>alias titanium="/Library/Application\ Support/Titanium/mobilesdk/osx/1.5.0/titanium.py"</pre> or <pre>alias titanium="$HOME/Library/Application\ Support/Titanium/mobilesdk/osx/1.5.0/titanium.py"</pre> depending on where your mobile SDKs are installed.

In Linux, Add this to your ~/.bash_profile <pre>alias titanium=$HOME/.titanium/mobilesdk/linux/1.5.0/titanium.py</pre>


Testing the titanium script


Once you have the environment setup, you should be able to run titanium in a console window, and see the following output: <pre>$ titanium Appcelerator Titanium Copyright (c) 2010 by Appcelerator, Inc.

commands:

create - create a project run - run an existing project emulator - start the emulator (android) help - get help</pre>


Creating a module


To create a module, we need to pass some arguments to the titanium create command, namely:

* The module's name ($MODULE_NAME) and ID ($MODULE_ID)
* The platform we're creating a module for (android)
* The top-level path to your installation of the Android SDK ($ANDROID_SDK) (e.g. /opt/android-sdk)

For an Android module, we can create it with the following command from the parent directory of where you want the module created: <pre>titanium create --platform=android --type=module --name=$MODULE_NAME --id=$MODULE_ID --android=$ANDROID_SDK</pre>

As an example, we'll create a module that performs simple addition and subtraction, call it the "calc" module, and give it an ID of "org.appcelerator.calc". Here we use /path/to/android-sdk to point to the place where we extracted the Android SDK. <pre>titanium create --platform=android --type=module --name=calc --id=org.appcelerator.calc --android=/path/to/android-sdk</pre>

If this was successful, there should be a calc folder under the current directory.


Module project layout


Inside the module folder, you'll see a tree of files and directories that have been generated:

* LICENSE - The module's full license text
* build.properties - An Ant properties file that contains the location to the Titanium SDK and Android SDK
* build.xml - The main Ant build script - You will use this to build, distribute, and test your module
* manifest - The module's manifest that contains version, author, license, copyright, name, id, GUID, and platform information
* timodule.xml - A place to put custom activities, and general XML for insertion in AndroidManifest.xml (more doc coming soon)
* hooks - A directory with scripts that will be called when a module is added/installed/removed/uninstalled from a project (this is still a WIP)
* documentation - A generated Markdown file lives here that contains example documentation for your module
* assets - Module specific assets such as images live here (see the README)
* lib - Place any third party JAR dependencies here and they will be automatically added to your project's classpath and module zip
* src - The source code for your module(s)
* example - The module example project


Eclipse integration


Titanium also creates the necessary files so that you can import your module project directly into Eclipse. In Eclipse, simply follow these steps:

* In the top level menu, Click on File > Import...
* Expand the General folder, and double click on Existing Project into Workspace
* Click on Browse... next to the Select root directory text field
* Choose your module project's folder
* You should see your module project under the Projects list: Eclipse Module Project Import
* Press Finish and your module project should now be visible from the Package Explorer view in Eclipse


Building the module zip


The zip under the dist folder is the module's distributable form. It generally follows the naming pattern <pre>$MODULE_ID-android-$MODULE_VERSION.zip</pre>

The zip contains:

* The compiled JAR with classes, generated bindings, and resources from the module project (built from the src folder)
* Third party JARs found in the lib folder
* The module manifest, which includes deployment metadata such as author, version, license, copyright, etc
* The module's timodule.xml


Building from command line / Ant


If ant is already on your PATH, then simply execute it from the top level directory of your module.

On the first build, you should see output similar to this: <pre>$ ant Buildfile: /Users/marshall/Code/test/test_modules/calc/build.xml

init: [mkdir] Created dir: /Users/marshall/Code/test/test_modules/calc/build/classes [mkdir] Created dir: /Users/marshall/Code/test/test_modules/calc/dist

process.annotations: [javac] Compiling 2 source files to /Users/marshall/Code/test/test_modules/calc/build/classes [javac] Note: [KrollBindingGen] Running Kroll binding generator. [javac] Note: [KrollBindingGen] No binding data found, creating new data file. [javac] Note: [KrollBindingGen] Found binding for module Calc [javac] Note: [KrollBindingGen] Found binding for proxy Example

compile: [javac] Compiling 2 source files to /Users/marshall/Code/test/test_modules/calc/build/classes [copy] Copying 1 file to /Users/marshall/Code/test/test_modules/calc/build/classes

dist: [jar] Building jar: /Users/marshall/Code/test/test_modules/calc/dist/calc.jar [zip] Building zip: /Users/marshall/Code/test/test_modules/calc/dist/org.appcelerator.calc-android-0.1.zip

BUILD SUCCESSFUL Total time: 1 second</pre>