[BRLTTY] building brlapi for Android (ARM processor)

[Shiri Azenkot]

Hi Dave,

>
> Has the Android NDK been designed so that you just need to invoke the right
> C
> cross compiler and linker?
>

Not quite, In a nutshell, the NDK is designed for this work-flow:

1. Write/copy native source
2. Write a build file (Android.mk) to build the native libraries using the
NDK's make files. The NDK comes with make files that define rules for
building shared and static libraries, so Android.mk needs only to specify
the source files, include paths (if needed), and so on, and then call on the
build_shared_library or build_static_library rule.
3. Write an Android app in java that calls on the native library
4. build a package for your app that will include the native libraries (this
will be a .apk file).

As you suggest, I think it is possible to use a cross compiler and linker to
build libbrlapi (ie generate a .so file) and skip to step 3. This seems like
the simplest and most robust way to continue.
How can we modify the current brltty make files to use a different compiler
and linker?



>
> What's the N in NDK stand for?
>
> "Native"


> Are you allowed to give us a copy of the NDK so that we can directly work
> on
> being able to support building with it or is it something that only
> official
> Android developers are allwoed to have?
>
> The NDK, along with all other Android development tools, is free and
available to the public. http://developer.android.com/sdk/ndk/index.html
It would be great if we can get brltty working on Android!

If you're only concerned with building libbrlapi at this point then you
> needn't
> worry about the drivers and tables.
>
> Hmmm. I want my Android app to output to the Braille notetaker. Don't I
need the driver for the particular notetaker to do this? Doesn't the api use
the driver to interact with a Braille notetaker?


> Is KUOW still around?
>

KUOW the public radio station? Google tells me it is still around, although
I haven't listened to it :)

Anyway, looking forward to working with you and getting this to work! I
think there's a lot we can do on the Android platform.

Thanks!
Shiri
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mielke.cc/pipermail/brltty/attachments/20100406/1a2b6ef4/attachment.html>