Building the Titanium Mobile SDK from sourceAngus Fox @nuxnix CTO @Multizone CTO @PiotaApps- Over 250 Alloy apps iOS and Android Co organiser - London Twitter Developer Community

Lightning Talk Titanium London 18 May 2017

Open SourceThe project is Open Source. https://github.com/appcelerator/titanium_mobile

The prebuilt GA release is available only as part of the Appcelerator Platform. The Appcelerator Platform GA builds are hidden but the link construct is as it always has been e.g. http://builds.appcelerator.com/mobile-releases/5.5.1/mobilesdk-5.5.1.GA-osx.zip

Nevertheless it would be a step toward freedom from Appcelerator licencing and the platform to be able to build it outselves from the Open Source on Github.

Unfotunately the tools required are arcane and out of date.

PrerequisitesApps SDK

MacOS sierra 10.12.x Python setuptools, and the pyyaml and Pygments libraries

Xcode 8.2.1 Android NDK r9d (obsolete)

Android SDK 23 SCons, Apache Ant, Eclipse, ADT (for Android), Gperf

Node.js 4.2.6 max (obsolete) Apple Java JDK for macOS 1.6 (obsolete)

Android SDKTo install Android Studio on your Mac, proceed as follows:

Launch the Android Studio DMG file.

Drag and drop Android Studio into the Applications folder, then launch Android Studio.

Select whether you want to import previous Android Studio settings, then click OK.

Complete the Android Studio Setup Wizard

Choose Configure --> SDK manager and install API 23 (Marshmallow / 6.0) and r21 versions of the tools

Note SDK location /Users/angusf/Library/Android/sdk

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android_Studio

Android NDKr9d macOS 64 bit

This is no longer easy to find but can be installed Install by unpacking to a suitable place fromthe old ddownload archive 

https://dl.google.com/android/ndk/android-ndk-r9d-darwin-x86_64.tar.bz2

I chose ~/Library/Android/ndk/android-ndk-r9d near to where Android Studio put the SDK.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android_(operating_system)

Brew Package ManagerBrew is s package manager for macOS that makes it easier to install stuff 

https://brew.sh/

Ant - a Java library and command-line tool that helps building software.

SCons used to be used to build the Titanium SDK, it is a build tool like make

$ brew install ant

$ brew install scons

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homebrew_(package_management_software)

Node.JS 4.2.6N - Node Version Manager because Titanium requires a very specific version of Node.JS

$ cd /usr/local

…

$ brew install n

$ n 4.2.6

     install : node-v4.2.6

       mkdir : /usr/local/n/versions/node/4.2.6

       fetch : https://nodejs.org/dist/v4.2.6/node-v4.2.6-darwin-x64.tar.gz

######################################################################## 100.0%

   installed : v4.2.6

• Building Titanium Mobile requires Java 1.6 Developer Tools. Java was provided by Apple under licence from Sun Microsystems back in the 1.6 era.

• You can still find Java 1.6 for OS X https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT202912.

• This isn't a JDK but the note gives a clue. It says “This package installs the same version of Java 6 included in Java for OS X 2013-005.”

• Unbelievably this installs fine on macOS Sierra. Its completely obsolete but required for Android development.

JDK 1.6 for macOS Sierra

tisdk$ npm install -g tisdk

$ tisdk list

6.0.3.GA    295540edadd20c0eecdc2c92ae813ae485d624d9

6.0.2.GA    3c5806f49b0cb252e0ae0f5313b114717dfd3fe9

6.0.1.GA    265db0df5c5ad73390d10209cd9ac81e2703b6b0

6.0.0.GA    1aa3df8102146fa1346ff5d79781655c715818b1

5.5.1.GA    b18727f7ccea7217f505a4639d4a0005ab1d3bfe

...

https://github.com/dbankier/tisdk

Building Titanium Mobile SDK$ tisdk build 5.5.1.GA

...

full.build:

BUILD SUCCESSFUL

Total time: 5 minutes 29 seconds

...

$ls

-rw-r--r--   1 angusf  staff  110714965  5 Apr 23:45 mobilesdk-5.5.1.GA-osx.zip

https://github.com/dbankier/tisdk

Checking what we got

This is the self built SDK.

$ ~/Library/Application Support/Titanium/mobilesdk/osx/5.5.1

$ find . -type f | wc -l

8242

This is the 5.5.1.GA build from Appcelerator.

$ ~/Library/Application Support/Titanium/mobilesdk/osx/5.5.1.GA$ find . -type f | wc -l

8242

The same number of files is a good sign.

Building Titanium CLI, and Alloy$ npm install -g titanium alloy appcelerator

$ ti sdk

ti sdk

Titanium Command-Line Interface, CLI version 5.0.12, Titanium SDK version 5.5.1

Copyright (c) 2012-2015, Appcelerator, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Please report bugs to http://jira.appcelerator.org/

SDK Install Locations:

/Library/Application Support/Titanium

/Users/angusf/Library/Application Support/Titanium [default]

Installed SDKs:

5.5.1 [selected] 5.5.1 /Users/angusf/Library/Application Support/Titanium/mobilesdk/osx/5.5.1

$

TestTest by creating an empty Alloy app using CLI and Atom. Open a new terminal and enter

ti create --id com.test -d . -n APPNAME -p all -t app -u http://youdomain.name

$ cd APPNAME/

$ alloy new

$ ti build -p ios -C ?

Hello World app should open on your simulator

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