How should I be starting an ebiten mobile project?

[airtonix]

Inspired by the ebitenmobile document, i set out to turn a simple desktop playground into adesktop/mobile monorepo.

Disclaimer, I've only just learnt golang in the last few days.

1. First Attempt

Starting with the ebiten-aseprite/example directory, I attempted to reproduce it running on my android phone.

1. add the mobile.go as described by the blog post.
2. run the ebitenmobile bind ... command

😢 No success

• errors about ebitenutil.NewImageFromFile being undefined or something?
• running and installing the example from https://github.com/golang/go/wiki/Mobile works
• running gomobile install -tags=example github.com/hajimehoshi/ebiten/v2/examples/paint works

2. Second Attempt

So I thought maybe the errors about ebitenutil.NewImageFromFile being undefined are something to do with a filesystem problem.

So I looked at what https://github.com/hajimehoshi/go-inovation was doing with regards to loading sprites.

I noticed it was there was some relationship between something called embed, some magic comments and how they were accessed.

I set out to replicate that.

But first I split the repo into more of a monorepo structure.

cmd/
  desktop/
    main.go
pkg/
  game/
    assets/
      images/
        *.png/json/aseprite
    core/
      aseprite.go
      images.go
    game.go    

I added the mobile cmd according to the ebitenmobile document

cmd/
  desktop/
    main.go
  mobile/
    mobile.go
pkg/
  game/
    assets/
      assets.go 🗨️ 
      images/
        *.png/json/aseprite
    core/
      aseprite.go
      images.go
    game.go 

result: https://github.com/airtonix/golang-ebiten-multiplatform-aseprite-monorepo/tree/1491c44

😢 No success

• running gomobile install ./cmd/mobile errors, complaining it can't find an apk

3. Third Attempt

So from my experience that is react-native on ios and android, my next thought was that I need to provide all the ugly and boring files that android studio and xcode like to magically generate 🤮 .

So i proceeded to copy what ever was in the android dir from https://github.com/hajimehoshi/go-inovation, replacing any app id references in file contents or file/folder names

I end up with

cmd/
  desktop/
    main.go
  mobile/
    android/
      🤮 *
    mobile.go
pkg/
  game/
    assets/
      assets.go 🗨️ 
      images/
        *.png/json/aseprite
    core/
      aseprite.go
      images.go
    game.go 

• running gomobile install ./cmd/mobile works and now I have an app on my phone... but it just hangs when i launch it and have to force kill it.

Conclusion

So this is where I'm at.

I'll be coming back to this to understand more about what's required.

However, it might be worth updating the ebitenmobile document to mention that nothing will work until the user provides the android and ios project files generated by respective android and ios tools.

My other thought was to provide a generator that could make use of https://github.com/StephanHCB/go-generator-cli/ to quickly scaffold these two directories.

[hajimehoshi]

This sounds like how to use go:embed. If go:embed succeeds, you no longer have to care about the location of your resources, right? I'm not sure what failed in your second attempt.

[airtonix]

apologies, perhaps the title misrepresented that I was trying to ask a question :)

[staatzstreich]

Hi, i am also interested in this topic. I have created a simple card game that's running on Mac and WebAssembly. All work fine so far. Now I want to try doing an IOS Build but struggling with warnings and error messages.
I grabbed a copy of go-inovation and executed the steps written at the documentation .... same result. Warnings and errors as follow:

gomobile: ios/arm64: go build -buildmode=c-archive -o /var/folders/87/bjbghrss6wx045w885y2xqd40000gn/T/gomobile-work-4219530336/Mobile-ios-arm64.a ./gobind failed: exit status 2
# golang.org/x/mobile/app
darwin_ios.m:89:74: warning: 'statusBarOrientation' is deprecated: first deprecated in iOS 13.0 - Use the interfaceOrientation property of the window scene instead. [-Wdeprecated-declarations]
/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Platforms/iPhoneOS.platform/Developer/SDKs/iPhoneOS15.5.sdk/System/Library/Frameworks/UIKit.framework/Headers/UIApplication.h:146:55: note: property 'statusBarOrientation' is declared deprecated here
/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Platforms/iPhoneOS.platform/Developer/SDKs/iPhoneOS15.5.sdk/System/Library/Frameworks/UIKit.framework/Headers/UIApplication.h:146:55: note: 'statusBarOrientation' has been explicitly marked deprecated here
darwin_ios.m:97:75: warning: 'statusBarOrientation' is deprecated: first deprecated in iOS 13.0 - Use the interfaceOrientation property of the window scene instead. [-Wdeprecated-declarations]
/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Platforms/iPhoneOS.platform/Developer/SDKs/iPhoneOS15.5.sdk/System/Library/Frameworks/UIKit.framework/Headers/UIApplication.h:146:55: note: property 'statusBarOrientation' is declared deprecated here
/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Platforms/iPhoneOS.platform/Developer/SDKs/iPhoneOS15.5.sdk/System/Library/Frameworks/UIKit.framework/Headers/UIApplication.h:146:55: note: 'statusBarOrientation' has been explicitly marked deprecated here
# gobind/gobind
mobileebitenviewcontroller_ios.m:10:9: fatal error: 'GLKit/GLkit.h' file not found
mobileebitenviewcontroller_ios.m:10:9: note: did not find header 'GLkit.h' in framework 'GLKit' (loaded from '/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Platforms/iPhoneOS.platform/Developer/SDKs/iPhoneOS15.5.sdk/System/Library/Frameworks')

exit status 1 

GLKit.framework is present at mentioned path..... when looking into the "GLKit.framework" folder ... the header file is there.. with using the parameter "-iosversion 12.0" the notes about 'statusBarOrientation' can be suppressed....

I am not skilled with building IOS Applications nor Xcode etc... have no clue what to do now.... Any Tips are welcome

thx Michael

[staatzstreich]

Thx a lot for helping.... "ebitenmobile bind" is now finishing without any errors .... 👍

[hajimehoshi]

Thank you for confirming the fix!

[staatzstreich]

Hi, me again...

After successfully create a "binding" I have tried to create an IOS App. First Problem for me was that the Simulator would not start because of missing a Info.plist file...
I could fix this with copying the file from ".xcframework" Folder into the both subfolders fx. "iOS-arm64" and "ios-arm64_x86_64-simulator"....

I am am not sure doing this right.... The documentation is different from the mentioned "go-inovation" project....
I have tried several things and most resulted in a white screen or an error message that the Interface Builder can't find the ViewController.

My last attempt as following:

Using Mac Monterey 12.4 and Xcode Version 13.4.1 (13F100):
1.) start a new Project => iOS => App => Storyboard + Objective-C
2.) Added Framework at the "General" Tab of Target Settings chooses the generated ".xcframework" folder and selected "Do Not Embed"
3.) Modified the ViewController.h to:

#import <UIKit/UIKit.h>
#import "Patience/MobileEbitenViewController.h"

@interface ViewController : MobileEbitenViewController


@end 

4.) and the ViewController.m is unedited:

#import "ViewController.h"

@interface ViewController ()

@end

@implementation ViewController

- (void)viewDidLoad {
    [super viewDidLoad];
    // Do any additional setup after loading the view.
}


@end

At Storyboard the ViewController has "Is Initial View Controller" checked at the Attributes Inspector

building the project resulted in following error messages:

Ld /Users/michaelstaatz/Library/Developer/Xcode/DerivedData/Patience-aipwjfbqxltvpuedwjchmqviovus/Build/Products/Debug-iphonesimulator/Patience.app/Patience normal (in target 'Patience' from project 'Patience')
    cd /Users/michaelstaatz/CodeProjects/patience-max/mobile/ios/Patience
    /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Toolchains/XcodeDefault.xctoolchain/usr/bin/clang -target x86_64-apple-ios15.5-simulator -isysroot /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Platforms/iPhoneSimulator.platform/Developer/SDKs/iPhoneSimulator15.5.sdk -L/Users/michaelstaatz/Library/Developer/Xcode/DerivedData/Patience-aipwjfbqxltvpuedwjchmqviovus/Build/Products/Debug-iphonesimulator -F/Users/michaelstaatz/Library/Developer/Xcode/DerivedData/Patience-aipwjfbqxltvpuedwjchmqviovus/Build/Products/Debug-iphonesimulator -filelist /Users/michaelstaatz/Library/Developer/Xcode/DerivedData/Patience-aipwjfbqxltvpuedwjchmqviovus/Build/Intermediates.noindex/Patience.build/Debug-iphonesimulator/Patience.build/Objects-normal/x86_64/Patience.LinkFileList -Xlinker -rpath -Xlinker @executable_path/Frameworks -dead_strip -Xlinker -object_path_lto -Xlinker /Users/michaelstaatz/Library/Developer/Xcode/DerivedData/Patience-aipwjfbqxltvpuedwjchmqviovus/Build/Intermediates.noindex/Patience.build/Debug-iphonesimulator/Patience.build/Objects-normal/x86_64/Patience_lto.o -Xlinker -export_dynamic -Xlinker -no_deduplicate -Xlinker -objc_abi_version -Xlinker 2 -fobjc-arc -fobjc-link-runtime -Xlinker -sectcreate -Xlinker __TEXT -Xlinker __entitlements -Xlinker /Users/michaelstaatz/Library/Developer/Xcode/DerivedData/Patience-aipwjfbqxltvpuedwjchmqviovus/Build/Intermediates.noindex/Patience.build/Debug-iphonesimulator/Patience.build/Patience.app-Simulated.xcent -framework Patience -Xlinker -no_adhoc_codesign -Xlinker -dependency_info -Xlinker /Users/michaelstaatz/Library/Developer/Xcode/DerivedData/Patience-aipwjfbqxltvpuedwjchmqviovus/Build/Intermediates.noindex/Patience.build/Debug-iphonesimulator/Patience.build/Objects-normal/x86_64/Patience_dependency_info.dat -o /Users/michaelstaatz/Library/Developer/Xcode/DerivedData/Patience-aipwjfbqxltvpuedwjchmqviovus/Build/Products/Debug-iphonesimulator/Patience.app/Patience

Undefined symbols for architecture x86_64:
  "_GCControllerDidConnectNotification", referenced from:
      _initializeGamepads in Patience(000039.o)
  "_GCControllerDidDisconnectNotification", referenced from:
      _initializeGamepads in Patience(000039.o)
  "_GCInputDualShockTouchpadButton", referenced from:
      _getControllerState in Patience(000039.o)
      _getControllerPropertyFromController in Patience(000039.o)
  "_GCInputXboxPaddleOne", referenced from:
      _getControllerState in Patience(000039.o)
      _getControllerPropertyFromController in Patience(000039.o)
  "_GCInputXboxPaddleTwo", referenced from:
      _getControllerState in Patience(000039.o)
      _getControllerPropertyFromController in Patience(000039.o)
  "_GCInputXboxPaddleThree", referenced from:
      _getControllerState in Patience(000039.o)
      _getControllerPropertyFromController in Patience(000039.o)
  "_OBJC_CLASS_$_GCController", referenced from:
      objc-class-ref in Patience(000039.o)
  "_GCInputXboxPaddleFour", referenced from:
      _getControllerState in Patience(000039.o)
      _getControllerPropertyFromController in Patience(000039.o)
ld: symbol(s) not found for architecture x86_64
clang: error: linker command failed with exit code 1 (use -v to see invocation)

Is this because I try to use the Simulator? Are there things I am doing wrong?

so far .... as I said... I have no experience with Xcode and Objective-C ... I have only a little experience with Swift and Swift-UI since I have coded some examples from "Hacking with Swift" ....

best,
Michael

[hajimehoshi]

Could you file a new issue for that? As I'm not familiar with iOS simulators, I'm not sure I can fix this.

[staatzstreich]

Okay... i will do so... Maybe i will also create an discord account and ask there too.