# Overview
`android-activity` provides a "glue" layer for building native Rust
applications on Android, supporting multiple [`Activity`] base classes.
It's comparable to [`android_native_app_glue.c`][ndk_concepts]
for C/C++ applications.
`android-activity` supports [`NativeActivity`] or [`GameActivity`] from the
Android Game Development Kit and can be extended to support additional base
classes.
`android-activity` provides a way to load a `cdylib` via the `onCreate` method of
your `Activity` class; run an `android_main()` function in a separate thread from the Java
main thread and marshal events (such as lifecycle events and input events) between
Java and your native thread.
[`Activity`]: https://developer.android.com/reference/android/app/Activity
[`NativeActivity`]: https://developer.android.com/reference/android/app/NativeActivity
[ndk_concepts]: https://developer.android.com/ndk/guides/concepts#naa
[`GameActivity`]: https://developer.android.com/games/agdk/integrate-game-activity
### Example
```
cargo init --lib --name=example
```
Cargo.toml
```
[dependencies]
log = "0.4"
android_logger = "0.11"
android-activity = { git = "https://github.com/rib/android-activity/", features = [ "native-activity" ] }
[lib]
crate_type = ["cdylib"]
```
lib.rs
```rust
use log::info;
use android_activity::{PollEvent, MainEvent};
#[no_mangle]
fn android_main(app: AndroidApp) {
android_logger::init_once(
android_logger::Config::default().with_min_level(log::Level::Info)
);
loop {
app.poll_events(Some(std::time::Duration::from_millis(500)) /* timeout */, |event| {
match event {
PollEvent::Wake => { info!("Early wake up"); },
PollEvent::Timeout => { info!("Hello, World!"); },
PollEvent::Main(main_event) => {
info!("Main event: {:?}", main_event);
match main_event {
MainEvent::Destroy => { return; }
_ => {}
}
},
_ => {}
}
app.input_events(|event| {
info!("Input Event: {event:?}");
});
});
}
}
```
```
rustup target add aarch64-linux-android
cargo install cargo-apk
cargo apk run
adb logcat example:V *:S
```
# Game Activity
Originally the aim was to enable support for building Rust applications based on the
[GameActivity] class provided by [Google's Android Game Development Kit][agdk]
which can also facilitate integration with additional AGDK libraries including:
1. [Game Text Input](https://developer.android.com/games/agdk/add-support-for-text-input): a library
to help fullscreen native applications utilize the Android soft keyboard.
2. [Game Controller Library, aka 'Paddleboat'](https://developer.android.com/games/sdk/game-controller):
a native library designed to help support access to game controller inputs.
3.[Frame Pacing Library, aka ' Swappy'](https://developer.android.com/games/sdk/frame-pacing): a library
that helps OpenGL and Vulkan games achieve smooth rendering and correct frame pacing on Android.
3. [Memory Advice API](https://developer.android.com/games/sdk/memory-advice/overview): an API to
help applications monitor their own memory usage to stay within safe limits for the system.
4. [Oboe audio library](https://developer.android.com/games/sdk/oboe): a low-latency audio API for native
applications.
Since `GameActivity` is based on the widely used [AppCompatActivity] base class, it also
provides a variety of back ported Activity APIs which can make it more practical to
support a wider range of devices and Android versions.
[GameActivity]: https://developer.android.com/games/agdk/integrate-game-activity
[agdk]: https://developer.android.com/games/agdk
[AppCompatActivity]: https://developer.android.com/reference/androidx/appcompat/app/AppCompatActivity
# Native Activity
This project also supports [`NativeActivity`][NativeActivity] based applications. Although
NativeActivity is more limited than `GameActivity` and does not derive from `AppCompatActivity` it
can sometimes still be convenient to build on `NativeActivity` in situations where you are using a
limited/minimal build system that is not able to compile Java or Kotlin code or fetch from Maven
repositories - this is because `NativeActivity` is included as part of the Android platform.
[NativeActivity]: https://developer.android.com/reference/android/app/NativeActivity
# Design
## Compatibility
All `Activity` classes are supported via a common API that enables you to write
`Activity` subclass agnostic code wherever you don't depend on features that are
specific to a particular subclass.
For example, it makes it possible to have a [Winit backend](https://github.com/rib/winit/tree/agdk-game-activity)
that supports Android applications running with different `Activity` classes.
## API Summary
### `android_main` entrypoint
The glue crates define a standard entrypoint ABI for your `cdylib` that looks like:
```rust
use android_activity::AndroidApp;
#[no_mangle]
fn android_main(app: AndroidApp) {
...
}
```
There's currently no high-level macro provided for things like initializing
logging or allowing the main function to return a `Result<>` since it's expected
that different downstream frameworks may each have differing opinions on the
details and may want to provide their own macros.
### `AndroidApp`
Your `android_main()` function is passed an `AndroidApp` struct to access state
about your running application and handle synchronized interaction between your
native Rust application and the `Activity` running on the Java main thread.
For example, the `AndroidApp` API enables:
1. Access to Android lifecycle events
2. Notifications of SurfaceView lifecycle events
3. Access to input events
4. Ability to save and restore state each time your process stops and starts
5. Access application [`Configuration`] state
6. internal/external/obb filesystem paths
_Note: that some of the `AndroidApp` APIs (such as for polling events) are only
deemed safe to use from the application's main thread_
[`Configuration`]: https://developer.android.com/reference/android/content/res/Configuration
### Synchronized event callbacks
The `AndroidApp::poll_events()` API is similar to the Winit `EventLoop::run` API in that it
takes a `FnMut` closure that is called for each outstanding event (such as for lifecycle events).
This design ensures the glue layer can transparently handle any required synchronization with
Java before and after each callback.
For example, when the Java main thread notifies the glue layer that its `SurfaceView` is being
destroyed the Java thread will then block until it gets an explicit acknowledgement that the
native application has had an opportunity to react to this notification. The glue layer will
automatically release the blocked Java thread once it has delivered the corresponding event.
For example:
```rust
use native_activity::{PollEvent, MainEvent};
use log::info;
#[no_mangle]
extern "C" fn android_main() {
android_logger::init_once(
android_logger::Config::default().with_min_level(log::Level::Info)
);
let mut quit = false;
let mut redraw_pending = true;
let mut render_state: Option<()> = Default::default();
let app = native_activity::android_app();
while !quit {
app.poll_events(Some(std::time::Duration::from_millis(500)) /* timeout */, |event| {
match event {
PollEvent::Wake => { info!("Early wake up"); },
PollEvent::Timeout => {
info!("Timed out");
// Real app would probably rely on vblank sync via graphics API...
redraw_pending = true;
},
PollEvent::Main(main_event) => {
info!("Main event: {:?}", main_event);
match main_event {
MainEvent::SaveState { saver, .. } => {
saver.store("foo://bar".as_bytes());
},
MainEvent::Pause => {},
MainEvent::Resume { loader, .. } => {
if let Some(state) = loader.load() {
if let Ok(uri) = String::from_utf8(state) {
info!("Resumed with saved state = {uri:#?}");
}
}
},
MainEvent::InitWindow { .. } => {
render_state = Some(());
redraw_pending = true;
},
MainEvent::TerminateWindow { .. } => {
render_state = None;
}
MainEvent::WindowResized { .. } => { redraw_pending = true; },
MainEvent::RedrawNeeded { ..} => { redraw_pending = true; },
MainEvent::LowMemory => {},
MainEvent::Destroy => { quit = true },
_ => { /* ... */}
}
},
_ => {}
}
if redraw_pending {
if let Some(_rs) = render_state {
redraw_pending = false;
// Handle input
app.input_events(|event| {
info!("Input Event: {event:?}");
});
info!("Render...");
}
}
});
}
}
```