Android

Overview

Building and testing the Android app is by far the most difficult part of Looksyk development and is recommended only for those who already have experience with Android.

The code consists of the following components:

1. /backend/, or more precisely, /backend/core for the business logic and /backend/tauri-src for the tauri app

2. /frontend/looksyk for the Angular frontend

Running the app in Debug-Mode

Overview

To develop the app effectively, I recommend running the frontend and backend in debug mode. This ensures the source code is not optimized, but rather executed exactly as written. This makes debugging easier, as stack traces are more comprehensible and breakpoints can be set easily.

Please note that running in debug mode causes a significant performance drop in both the frontend and the backend. The performance observed in this mode does not reflect actual Looksyk performance. If you want to test performance, be sure to also test against production mode.

When testing the app, it is recommended to start both the backend and frontend components in debug mode.

The following are required as build dependencies:

• git to checkout the code from codeberg

• cargo to build the backend

• npm to build the frontend

• java (jdk 24 or jdk 21)

• Recommended: gradle with version 9

• Installed and configured android sdk

• Installed and configured android ndk

• A test device. Either a real mobile phone with developer tools enabled (and the computer authorized), or a virtual machine.

Installation

First, the code must be checked out:

git clone https://codeberg.org/SebastianRzk/Looksyk

Then, it is recommended to install the frontend dependencies:

cd frontend/looksyk
npm i
npm install -g @angular/cli
cd ../..
cargo install tauri-cli --version "^2.0.0"

Starting Looksyk

Looksyk can now be started.

• The frontend is started as follows:

cd frontend/looksyk
ng serve --configuration tauri-android-development --host 0.0.0.0

A test device. Either a real mobile phone with developer tools enabled (and the computer authorized), or a virtual machine.

• The backend is started as follows:

cd backend/src-tauri
cargo tauri android dev

Example builds

If you want to base your work on a working build, feel free to start with the “build-android-release-on-debian.sh” script; when executed inside a Debian Docker container, it installs all dependencies and builds an APK.