Android export below Android Lollipop

I guess that if exporting below Android 5.0 is not available it would be for some reason, but...can we expect it in the near future?

My cellphone, for example, is a mid-tier one running on KitKat, it can play pretty much any game, and to this day I never got any android version incompatibility with anything I ever tried to download from the Play Store (Well, as a matter of fact, I actually had that problem with Super Mario Run but the very next day I tried again and it downloaded and ran just fine).

As cool as directly exporting apks is, this is kind of dissapointing and greatly reduces C3 scope.

KitKat has a big market share. I think it is important to be able to use it.

Can we include Crosswalk 23?

So far we cannot add any thirdparty plugins or custom plugins the way we where able to in Intel XDK.

Would we have to build using Cordova CLI to include Crosswalk and other plugins? What are the steps?

Nepeo,

Ashley,

Android 5.0+ already covers 70% of devices. This time last year it only covered 43% of devices. By this time next year, pre-Lollipop support will probably be more or less irrelevant.

On top of that, Crosswalk is no longer actively developed, probably for the same reason, so there is little we can do if people run in to problems with it. Then there's a lot of people out there who go around the Internet saying "Construct 2 generates bloated APKs, it adds 20mb of overhead", which only happens if you select Android <5.0 support, and isn't true if you select Android 5.0+. It seemed to be a significant point to a number of users and impacted the reputation of C2's mobile export (unfairly IMO, since you could easily remove it). I'd rather make a fresh start with Construct 3 and never generate APKs with any overhead.

Ashley

I understand your reasoning. But, imo, wouldn't it be more acceptable to have your paying customers make that choice?

Why not at least offer 4.4 in the build choices? You can still put 5.0+ as the default in the export's dropdown list. Then, if someone chooses 4.4 they would see a warning that it will add the 20mb of "bloat". But, to ignore over 300 MILLION devices (18.8% of android devices use 4.4) from using any app or game made in C3 is very disappointing. That's not a small number. That's like telling the population of the United States that they can't install a C3 game. Not to mention, you've just eliminated most of my devices from being used for any testing and seriously has me questioning if C3 is the right route for me this year...since mobile is my primary target. Until now, I was very excited for C3......

I truly hope you'll think about this and reconsider.

You could always do a manual cordova build with the exported files, rather than using our build service.

You could always do a manual cordova build with the exported files, rather than using our build service.

Ashley Do we use C3 project build or Cordova export for that? What would you recommend to do the manual cordova build with?

What would you recommend to do the manual cordova build with?

You should go with either PhoneGap or Cocoon.io.

KitKat has a big market share. I think it is important to be able to use it.

Can we include Crosswalk 23?

So far we cannot add any thirdparty plugins or custom plugins the way we where able to in Intel XDK.

I agree with that, it would be cool see this in Construct 3. But apparently we have to use Phonegap

> You could always do a manual cordova build with the exported files, rather than using our build service.

>

Do we use C3 project build or Cordova export for that? What would you recommend to do the manual cordova build with?

Export from C3 as a Cordova project, but click download zip instead of build apps. This will give you a stub Cordova project. You can then do a manual build using... Cordova .

https://cordova.apache.org/

To change the target you need to modify "android-minSdkVersion" to the version you want, note that you have to use the SDK version here ( so not 5.0 ) I think it's 21 for Lollipop.

Then from the Cordova directory:

cordova prepare
cordova build android --release
[/code:11f9ierg]

You will also have to set up the Android build tools to build for android, and the same if you want iOS.

To warn you; the current version of Cordova CLI hasn't been out very long so it's not really stable and the previous version of Cordova doesn't work with the latest Android build tools so you'll need to install an older version to actually build an APK. 

We'll probably publish a guide on manual Cordova builds at some point, but I can't offer a timescale.

We'll probably publish a guide on manual Cordova builds at some point, but I can't offer a timescale.

I think having instructions on how to do manual Cardova build would be useful.

are the files from exported c3 cordova compatible with crosswalk?

how do we set this up? what do we need to change?

we still need to support the lower end devices or our clients will not pick us up.

i looked into some of the files in the www folder and there are difference from the c2 and c3 export.

i posted a suggestion here https://construct3.ideas.aha.io/ideas/C3-I-317

for those who still need backward compatibility please vote!

as mentioned on the link. we would like to have an cordova export files that is minimum android 4.1 compatible and not a full apk export service.

bloating of apk files does not matter. internet are fast this days. and if your game has a lot of content. 20mb of bloat is nothing.

I think you can manually add it by including the cordova-plugin-crosswalk-webview plugin and reducing the minimum SDK version. We won't add this for Construct 3 though - Crosswalk is deprecated, Android 4.1-4.4 only covers ~20% of devices, and too many other users complained about the APK overhead.

Ashley thanks!

suggestion declined! lol well you have good points there. Now im just hoping for a proper tutorial or would need to thinker a bit in the config