Mobile

We use cordova to package the app as an android app. This gives us access to push notifications (doesn't yet have decent mobile browser support), and offers the installable app experience that some people expect.

Android SDK Setup

Firstly, make sure you have a working Android SDK setup, and a working emulator configuration. See Android Setup for more details.

Get some credentials to make push messaging work

We use google firebase messaging for push notifications. We have two firebase projects, karrot (for karrot.world), and karrot-dev (for dev.karrot.world). If you want access to either of them then ask us, otherwise you can create your own project to use locally.

frontend

  • go to https://console.firebase.google.com
  • select (or create) the project
  • project settings
  • general tab
  • select (or create) the app
  • there is a button to download google-services.json
  • put that in the root of the cordova directory (karrot-frontend/cordova)

backend

  • go to https://console.firebase.google.com
  • project settings
  • cloud messaging tab
  • in the "Project credentials" section there should be a "server key" available
  • put it in your backend local settings under FCM_SERVER_KEY (karrot-backend/config/local_settings.py)

Install

Install cordova globally:

yarn global add cordova

Build the main project:

yarn build:cordova:<config>

where <config> is dev or prod, depending on whether you want to build the dev or the production version.

(You can customize the backend by setting the BACKEND env variable, e.g. in .env)

Enter the cordova directory from the project root:

cd cordova

Add android platform:

cordova platform add android

Run!

./run android dev release <password>

... where <password> is a common yunity password. Ask in chat.foodsaving.world/channel/karrot-dev if you'd like to know it.

If you have an android device connected in USB debugging mode it will install it on that, otherwise it will try and start an emulator, but you might have to run one yourself if the default does not work.

Then open the chrome developer tools, which can connect to the remote webview:

chrome://inspect

Building

We try and make as easy as possible to build an installable app during development. There are a few pieces:

  • karrot.jks keystore with a common yunity password
  • google-services.json for development (which seems to be safe into include)
  • config.xml containing app details

We maintain a dev config inside the repo. When we are ready for production we will probably keep the files more secret.

The aim is that the dev version would connect to dev.karrot.world and the production one to karrot.world.

Debug build

Use our wrapper script

./build android dev release <password>

... where <password> is a common yunity password. Ask in chat.foodsaving.world/channel/karrot-dev if you'd like to know it.

If you connect your phone to your computer, you can use the chrome debugging tools with this.

Release build

./build android prod release <release-password>