Android

The Android target makes use of a chain of frameworks to compile your native Android game from Haxe code. OpenFL uses the Hxcpp and the Android NDK specifically so no virtual machine is involved.

To set up android, run lime setup android after installing HaxeFlixel. You can choose to download necessary components (eg. Android SDK and NDK) or use existing installations.

The Haxe compiler uses its cpp target to compile your Haxe code for the LibSDL OpenGL library so that the Android NDK can then use this "native-code" for your Android game. You can read more about the Android NDK from Google here, however this process is completely automated by OpenFL. Android is part of the cpp group of targets and when developers mention cpp the topic may be relevant to HaxeFlixel Android.

With OpenFL using native-code and OpenGL with LibSDL, the rendering methods are different to where Flixel started with Flash. Android uses GPU accelerated Texture Batching for the best possible performance on mobile devices.

Conditionals

#if cpp
//your android code
#end

#if android
//your android code
#end

#if mobile
//your android code
#end

Project XML settings

Mobile platforms can use a window width and height of 0, which is a special value that uses the full resolution of the current display.

<window width="0" height="0" background="#FFFFFF" fps="60" />

OpenFL also exposes the following specific settings for the Android target:

<android target-sdk-version="17" />
<window hardware="true" allow-shaders="true" require-shaders="true" if="cpp"/>
<window vsync="true" antialiasing="4" if="cpp" />
<window orientation="portrait" /> || <window orientation="landscape" if="cpp"/>

Custom PNG icons: (Check Iconography / Android Developers for more info)

<icon path="36.png" size="36" if="android" />
<icon path="48.png" size="48" if="android" />
<icon path="72.png" size="72" if="android" />
<icon path="96.png" size="96" if="android" />

Compile Commands

Visual Studio Code, FlashDevelop and IntelliJ IDEA support Android compilation through their GUI.

Command line

The basic command to compile and test Android:

lime test android

Run this command from the root folder of your project; the default project.xml will be used automatically. For the test command to run on your device you should have it connected with ADB working correctly.

If you want to use the Android simulator, add -simulator when running/testing. Be sure your virtual device is API >=15 and has GPU enabled.

lime test android -simulator