0 votesclick to vote up

Victor Tuson Palau: Ubuntu Touch: Building and testing a QML extension Published Dec 16 2013 via RSS

planetUbuntu

Hi,

I found myself trying to build a QML Ubuntu Touch app project that includes a qml c++ extension and I found that I some how stumble a bit along the way. So, here are some of my notes on how I got it done. Hope that helps.

Creating the project.

Using QtCreator, create a new project and select – QML Extension Library + Tabbed Touch.  I found that it was easier to change the QML side of things than start with an extension and then add the whole project structure.

Build and Run your project locally

In QtCreator click on projects.  In Build, I set up the build path as my project root path. In run,  the executable is “/usr/bin/qmlscene” (make sure there is no spaces trailing) and then Arguments is set to “-I  ./backend/modules”

Now if you try to run your project it should build it locally and then bring up a file picker to choose what qml file to run. After that you are on a roll.

Build on target device

Click Ctrl+f11 should install the platform developer tools in your device. However, I how found that this lately does not work.

Instead from the terminal:

first we will need to make the image in your device writeable:
adb shell touch /userdata/.writable_image  --> and reboot the phone.
then:
cd /usr/share/qtcreator/ubuntu/scripts
adb devices
./device_developertools_install <device_id>

Now you are ready to build, so back to QtCreator:

Build>Ubuntu>Build Application on Device

This should build the application with only some test problems, but the main binaries would be created. To package your app you will need to get

/home/phablet/dev_tmp/<yourapp>/backend/modules/lib<yourlib>.so

Creating a click package

create a manifest standard manifest file. Manifest.json

{
"description": "your text",
"framework": "ubuntu-sdk-13.10",
"hooks": {
"yourappname": {
"apparmor": "yourappname.json",
"desktop": "yourappname.desktop"
}
},
"maintainer": "your name<yourname@yourmail.com>",
"name": "com.ubuntu.developer.yourname.yourappname",
"title": "yourappname",
"version": "0.1",
"architecture": "armhf"
}


You will also need a yourapp.desktop file:

[Desktop Entry]
Name=yourappname
Comment=description
Exec=qmlscene -I plugin $@ yourapp.qml
Icon=icon.png
Terminal=false
Type=Application
X-Ubuntu-Touch=true

Note that Exec= has a -I plugin part to it. This is very important, will see later.

Now yourapp.json file that contains your confinement profile:

{
"policy_groups": [
"networking"
],
"policy_version": 1
}

Now time to setup a folder with all this stuff, not that the plugin folder is going to contain your lib which your are importing with -I option on the desktop file:
myproject>
-./click/
--icon.png
--manifest.json
--yourapp.json
--yourapp.desktop
--./plugin/
---./yourlib/
----lib(yourlibname).so
----qmldir

Now you are ready to build from your project root folder:
click build ./click

This should create a .click file in your project folder.

Installing in your device

adb pull your.click /home/phablet/
adb shell
su phablet
cd ~
pkcon -p install-local your.click

This should be enough, but sometimes I find that you need to restart unity:
pkill unity8 (you might need sudo)