ProjectBuilder for AIDE

It is an old dream of computer enthusiasts to always have a system with a full programming developing environment at hand (editor/compiler/builder/runtime). With mobile devices running Android the dream comes true: The Eclipse IDE and part of the Android SDK have been ported to Android devices. Just download and install a single app on your smartphone or tablet and programming Java is possible wherever you are! At the moment the Android IDE, AIDE, is the product of choice, but other apps with similar features will emerge or can already be found on the Android market.

As we all know, the development of non-trivial (more than "Hello Android") apps require some pain and effort, even for skilled Java programmers. The challenge is not simpler when developing on a small mobile phone because of the limited editing and file manipulation features. But if you have these fancy Android tablets available, you can seamlessly switch to mobile development by using the JDroidLib framework.

We now offer a management tool, called ProjectBuilder for AIDE, to configure Android projects on mobile devices to be used with the JDroidLib and JTurtleLib frameworks. By installing the ProjectBuilder app, you are able to create projects that can be edited, built and run effortlessly even on cheap Android smartphones. Moreover ProjectBuilder can unpack Java sources with additional sprite images and media resources from a ZIP archive and integrate the files automatically in your Android project. ProjectBuilder is looking automatically for those archives and dispatches the files to the Android project folder. Because AndroidManifest.xml and layout files are created accordingly, the distributed app is built locally on the smartphone in a snap. The JDroidLib library is compiled only once when the project is used the first time which may take a while on narrow-chested smartphones. The following build processes use the precompiled library and last only a few seconds, not much longer than on a full-grown desktop computer.

The JDroidLib framework is ported from JGameGrid, a widely used game developing library for Java SE. Consult www.jgamegrid.com to inform you about the design principles and examples.