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Running Skolplattformen Android app on Mac OS

Installing dependencies

You will need Node, Watchman, the React Native command line interface, a JDK, and Android Studio.

While you can use any editor of your choice to develop your app, you will need to install Android Studio in order to set up the necessary tooling to build your React Native app for Android.

Node & Watchman

We recommend installing Node and Watchman using Homebrew. Run the following commands in a Terminal after installing Homebrew:

brew install node
brew install watchman

If you have already installed Node on your system, make sure it is Node 12 or newer.

Watchman is a tool by Facebook for watching changes in the filesystem. It is highly recommended you install it for better performance.

Java Development Kit

We recommend installing JDK using Homebrew. Run the following commands in a Terminal after installing Homebrew:

brew install --cask adoptopenjdk/openjdk/adoptopenjdk8

If you have already installed JDK on your system, make sure it is JDK 8 or newer.

Android development environment

Setting up your development environment can be somewhat tedious if you're new to Android development. If you're already familiar with Android development, there are a few things you may need to configure. In either case, please make sure to carefully follow the next few steps.

1. Install Android Studio

Download and install Android Studio. While on Android Studio installation wizard, make sure the boxes next to all of the following items are checked:

Android SDK
Android SDK Platform
Android Virtual Device

Then, click "Next" to install all of these components.

If the checkboxes are grayed out, you will have a chance to install these components later on.

Once setup has finalized and you're presented with the Welcome screen, proceed to the next step.

2. Install the Android SDK

Android Studio installs the latest Android SDK by default. Building a React Native app with native code, however, requires the Android 10 (Q) SDK in particular. Additional Android SDKs can be installed through the SDK Manager in Android Studio.

To do that, open Android Studio, click on "Configure" button and select "SDK Manager".

The SDK Manager can also be found within the Android Studio "Preferences" dialog, under Appearance & Behavior → System Settings → Android SDK.

Select the "SDK Platforms" tab from within the SDK Manager, then check the box next to "Show Package Details" in the bottom right corner. Look for and expand the Android 10 (Q) entry, then make sure the following items are checked:

Android SDK Platform 29
Intel x86 Atom_64 System Image or Google APIs Intel x86 Atom System Image

Next, select the "SDK Tools" tab and check the box next to "Show Package Details" here as well. Look for and expand the "Android SDK Build-Tools" entry, then make sure that 29.0.2 is selected and check the "Android SDK Command-line Tools (latest)".

Finally, click "Apply" to download and install the Android SDK and related build tools.

You can also run the following command after setting ANDROID_HOME.

sdkmanager "platforms;android-29" "system-images;android-29;default;x86_64" "system-images;android-29;google_apis;x86"
sdkmanager "cmdline-tools;latest" "build-tools;29.0.2"

3. Configure the ANDROID_HOME environment variable

The React Native tools require some environment variables to be set up in order to build apps with native code.

Add the following lines to your $HOME/.bash_profile or $HOME/.bashrc (if you are using zsh then ~/.zprofile or ~/.zshrc) config file:

export ANDROID_HOME=$HOME/Library/Android/sdk
export PATH=$PATH:$ANDROID_HOME/emulator
export PATH=$PATH:$ANDROID_HOME/tools
export PATH=$PATH:$ANDROID_HOME/tools/bin
export PATH=$PATH:$ANDROID_HOME/platform-tools

.bash_profile is specific to bash. If you're using another shell, you will need to edit the appropriate shell-specific config file.

Type source $HOME/.bash_profile for bash or source $HOME/.zprofile to load the config into your current shell. Verify that ANDROID_HOME has been set by running echo $ANDROID_HOME and the appropriate directories have been added to your path by running echo $PATH.

Please make sure you use the correct Android SDK path. You can find the actual location of the SDK in the Android Studio "Preferences" dialog, under Appearance & Behavior → System Settings → Android SDK.

Preparing the Android device

You will need an Android device to run your React Native Android app. This can be either a physical Android device, or more commonly, you can use an Android Virtual Device which allows you to emulate an Android device on your computer.

Either way, you will need to prepare the device to run Android apps for development.

Using a physical device

If you have a physical Android device, you can use it for development in place of an AVD by plugging it in to your computer using a USB cable. Read running on a device for more information.

Using a virtual device

If you use Android Studio to open ./apps/skolplattformen-app/android, you can see the list of available Android Virtual Devices (AVDs) by opening the "AVD Manager" from within Android Studio. Look for an icon that looks like this:

If you have recently installed Android Studio, you will likely need to create a new AVD. Select "Create Virtual Device...", then pick any Phone from the list and click "Next", then select the Q API Level 29 image.

Click "Next" then "Finish" to create your AVD. At this point you should be able to click on the green triangle button next to your AVD to launch it, then proceed to the next step.

Running the app

Go to the root of the project and run the following command

yarn run start:android

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