Alpaka Gradle Plugin

Upload your app to the Alpaka App Distribution, label your launcher icon with some flavors, and have some build metadata in the BuildConfig and the Android manifest.

Functionality

The plugin contains the following functionality:

• Enables the generation of the BuildConfig class
• Writes build information as fields to the BuildConfig class (see section Build information)
• Registers a task injectMetadataIntoManifest<VARIANT> for each variant that injects the build information into the Android manifest
• Registers a task labelAppIcon<VARIANT> for each variant that generates an app icon with the flavor name as overlay
• Registers a task uploadToAlpaka<VARIANT> for each release variant that uploads the APK to the Alpaka backend

Configuration

plugins {
    id("ch.ubique.gradle.alpaka") version "8.7.0"
}

The major and minor version goes in lockstep with the Android Gradle Plugin, also see Releases.

After applying the plugin to your project, you can set the following configuration in your build.gradle.kts:

android {
    defaultConfig {
        launcherIconLabel = "tescht" // The default icon label per flavor (optional, nullable)
        alpakaUploadKey = "..." // The upload key identifying an application in the Alpaka backend
    }

    productFlavors {
        create("dev") {
            launcherIconLabel = "tescht" // Modify the default icon label per flavor (optional, nullable)
            alpakaUploadKey = "..." // Modify the default uploadKey per flavor (optional)
        }
    }
}

alpaka {
    changelogCommitCount = 10 // The number of commits to include in the changelog (optional, defaults to 10)
    proxy = "host:port" // An optional proxy to set for the upload task. Use for local debugging only 
    labelAppIcons = false // Globally configure the generateAppIcon tasks to label with flavor name (optional, default is enabled)
}

Build information

These are the build information that are written to the BuildConfig class and Android manifest:

BuildConfig field	Android manifest meta-data name	Description	Value
BUILD_BATCH	ch.ubique.alpaka.build.batch	An ID for a group of builds that belong together (e.g. multiple flavors)	build_batch Gradle property, defaults to 0
BUILD_ID	ch.ubique.alpaka.build.id	An ID for this build	build_id or ubappid Gradle property, defaults to localbuild
BUILD_NUMBER	ch.ubique.alpaka.build.number	An incremental number of this build	build_number Gradle property, defaults to 0
BUILD_TIMESTAMP	ch.ubique.alpaka.build.timestamp	The timestamp of this build	build_timestamp Gradle property, defaults to System.currentTimeMillis()
BRANCH	ch.ubique.alpaka.branch	The Git branch this build was created from	branch Gradle property, defaults to calling the systems Git command line
FLAVOR	ch.ubique.alpaka.flavor	The product flavor this build was created from	Product flavor name of the variant that started the gradle task

Development & Testing

To test any changes to this plugin locally, you can use the example apps shipped with this repository, or alternatively, deploy an artifact to your local maven repository and include that in an application of your choice:

1. Define a custom version by setting the VERSION in alpaka/gradle.properties*
2. You might need to disable signAllPublications()*
3. Deploy the plugin artifact by running ./gradlew publishToMavenLocal
4. Reference mavenLocal() in your application's build script's dependency repository list.
5. Apply your local plugin version.

^{* do not accidentally commit these changes.}

Deployment

Create a Release, setting the Tag to the desired version prefixed with a v.

Each release on Github will be deployed to Maven Central.