Zulip for Android

This is the Android client for Zulip. It is available in the Google Play store. If you have a taste for adventure, you can also join our beta channel after which the Play store should auto-update you. (Caution: beta releases will have more bugs than final releases, including (potentially) security or data loss bugs.)

This is a Gradle project, and can be built via the provided gradlew or by using Android Studio.

Index

• Getting Started
• Build instructions (Android Studio))
• Build instructions (without Android Studio))
• Running server on device
• Coding Style
• Mailing List
• Export
• License

Getting Started

• First, setup a development environment of the Zulip Server: http://zulip.readthedocs.io/en/latest/dev-overview.html
• Then, follow the build instructions (below) to compile the project
• And then follow Running server on device to get the device to connect to the Zulip development server.

Build instructions (Android Studio)

1. Open the project in the IDE.

   1. From the "Welcome to Android Studio" menu, select "Open an existing Android Studio project" option, or
   2. If you already have an opened project, select "File > Open..."

2. If you want to test Google sign in, add the required metadata:

   1. Go to https://developers.google.com/mobile/add?platform=android

   2. Type in "Zulip" as "App name" and "com.zulip.android" as "Android package name".)

   3. Put the generated file in the "app/" directory of the project.

   4. Google app id. You will also get it from the above given link. This id should be written as the following string resource in app/src/main/res/values/strings.xml:

      <string name="google_app_id">GOOGLE_APP_ID</string>
      

If you have a device running Android go to the settings and enable USB debugging in developer options. Then plug your device in the computer and select "Run > Run...". You will be shown "Device chooser" window. Select your device in the given list and press "OK".

If you do not have an Android device you will have to run it on an emulator. Here are instructions for creating an Android virtual device (AVD):

http://developer.android.com/tools/devices/managing-avds.html#createavd

Build instructions (without Android Studio)

1. Install the Android SDK including at least the API 23 (Android 6.0), Build Tools, API Platform, Google APIs, Google Play Services, Android Support Library, the Local Maven Repository for Support and the Google Repository.

   All of these can be installed, together with their dependencies, using the Android SDK manager.

2. Comment out or remove references to Crashlytics. The following are known references as at 5de0b0e. For future versions, grep -ir crashlytics . is your friend.

   If you do not remove Crashlytics then the app will crash on startup unless Crashlytics has been set up correctly as a member of the zulip team.

• In app/src/main/java/com/zulip/android/ZLog.java:
  • Line 5: import com.crashlytics.android.Crashlytics;
  • Line 13: Crashlytics.logException(e);
• In app/src/main/java/com/zulip/android/ZulipActivity.java:
  • Line 50: import com.crashlytics.android.Crashlytics;
  • Line 162: Crashlytics.start(this);

3. Run ./gradlew (or gradlew.bat on Windows). This should automatically build the application, downloading anything it needs to do so.

   If you get a failed build with A problem occurred configuring project ':app'. then you might not have all the required SDK libraries. Make sure that you have all the dependencies of the libraries listed above, and that all versions match precisely.

   If the appropriate tools cannot be found by gradle, make sure that ANDROID_HOME is properly set (this should point to the root directory for the Android SDK i.e. the one which contains the add-ons, build-tools, docs and other directories).

4. To build the APK, run ./gradlew assemble. Your APKs will be placed in app/build/outputs/apk.

   The app-debug.apk can be installed directly on the device, or loaded over USB using ./gradlew installDebug or adb install /path/to/app/build/outputs/apk/app-debug.apk.

   Note that app-release-unsigned.apk will not install by default because it is unsigned. You will be told the APK cannot be parsed.

Browsing server on device

For a Vagrant server

If you are using a Genymotion Emulator you can access the server by browsing to http://10.0.3.2:9991 or http://10.0.3.1:9991 (one of these two URL’s)

To access the vagrant server on a physical device connect computer and mobile to the same network (router) modify VagrantFile here in the server change the host_ip ‘127.0.0.1’ to ‘0.0.0.0’ Like this-

config.vm.network “forwarded_port”, guest: 9991, host: host_port, host_ip: “0.0.0.0”

Now find the IP address of the computer use this IP address and port number and browse the Zulip Server on the mobile device. For example -

192.168.0.1:9991

You can also route the IP address to a domain name like www.local.test.com (this routing is useful when tesing Google OAuth Backend)

No need to modify the VagrantFile to achieve this

• Remap the hosts by fiddler by adding this line in TOOLS> HOSTS

  localhost:9991 www.local.test.com

If unclear you can follow tutorial here Host Remapping

• Now configure your android device following this detailed tutorial

Coding Style

Please read the Zulip coding style conventions documented at https://zulip.readthedocs.org/en/latest/code-style.html#version-control carefully.

Mailing List

There's a mailing list for questions and development discussions related to the Zulip Android app: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/zulip-android.

Export

This distribution includes cryptographic software. The country in which you currently reside may have restrictions on the import, possession, use, and/or re-export to another country, of encryption software. BEFORE using any encryption software, please check your country's laws, regulations and policies concerning the import, possession, or use, and re-export of encryption software, to see if this is permitted. See http://www.wassenaar.org/ for more information.

The U.S. Government Department of Commerce, Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS), has classified this software as Export Commodity Control Number (ECCN) 5D002.C.1, which includes information security software using or performing cryptographic functions with asymmetric algorithms. The form and manner of this distribution makes it eligible for export under the License Exception ENC Technology Software Unrestricted (TSU) exception (see the BIS Export Administration Regulations, Section 740.13) for both object code and source code.

License

Copyright 2012-2016 Dropbox, Inc.

Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with the License. You may obtain a copy of the License at

http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0

Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. See the License for the specific language governing permissions and limitations under the License.