First released last summer as a Beta, Xojo’s Android support continues to grow and evolve.
Although still in Beta, there have been many improvements to Android in the last few releases and in this post I’ll highlight a few things that have been added or improved starting with Xojo 2023r4 and through the recently released 2024r2.
Xojo 2023r4
The final release of 2023 had a lot of Android improvements.
You should always read the entire release notes, which have a wealth of details, but here are some highlights of useful new features that were added to Android in 2023r4:
- Added System.DismissKeyboard method that can be used to hide the virtual keyboard.
- The Ptr type can be used with Declares that call Kotlin Library projects. Other usage of Ptr will result in a compile error.
- There is a new constructor on Font that allows you to load a font file from a FolderItem. Easy custom fonts!
- The Barcode class can be used to scan a variety of barcodes.
- The NewAndroidProject command can be used with IDE scripting to create an Android project.
- MobileApplication.UnhandledException event now better captures the user runtime call stack for Stack() and StackFrame().
- There were many internal changes to the Android framework to get it to have better compatibility with other platforms.
- Improvements to URLConnection data encoding.
- Several JSONItem improvements.
- The Android compiler toolchain was updated to newer versions.
- Added Dependencies property to the Android advanced build settings. This can be used with Declares and Libraries to load any external dependencies they need. Put one dependency per line, an example would be: io.github.bitstorm:tinyzip-core:1.0.0
- Improved compatibility with Android 14.
- Many framework and compiler fixes.
Xojo 2024r1
The first release of 2024 continued the trend of rapid Android improvements.
- MobileApplication.Activated and Deactivating events now work on Android.
- Fixes and improves to several parts of the framework, including:
- Introspection
- SQLiteDatabase
- JSONItem
- URLConnection
- Many other framework and compiler fixes.
Don’t forgot to review the full release notes!
Xojo 2024r2
The latest Xojo release has plenty of improvements for Android. Some highlights include:
- MobileHTMLViewer field focus is now more reliable.
- TCPSocket is now available.
- Many Graphics properties are now available, including: ShadowBrush, LineCap, LineDash, LineDashOffset, LineJoin, Outline.
- Improved some compiler error messages.
- Many more framework and compiler fixes.
The full release notes are a fun summertime read.
What’s Next for Android?
As you all know by now, we don’t preannounce when things will appear in Xojo releases. We are continually working on adding features and improving Xojo for Android and when new things are ready, they appear in the next scheduled release. The best way to stay on top of what is going to be released soon is to help us with pre-release testing. Remember, if you have an active Xojo Pro license, you have access to a special pre-release section of the forum. If you have a Xojo Mobile license and woudl like to participate in testing please make a request.
With that said, some of the Android features in development include:
- ByRef support
- RegEx classes
- DatabaseConnection
- In-app purchasing support
Related Topics You Might Like
Android Design Extensions 2.5 for Xojo 2024r1
Android Improvements in Xojo 2023r3
Creating an Android Library with Kotlin for Use with Xojo
All Android related blog posts on the Xojo Blog
Paul learned to program in BASIC at age 13 and has programmed in more languages than he remembers, with Xojo being an obvious favorite. When not working on Xojo, you can find him talking about retrocomputing at Goto 10 and on Mastodon @lefebvre@hachyderm.io.