Android support

[Turbo87]

I'm exploring using maplibre-native-rs for a cross-platform aviation application that would need to run on Android (and desktop platforms for development).

Currently maplibre-native-rs only supports desktop platforms though (Linux, macOS). It would be nice to support Android too, since the wrapped maplibre-native does too.

• Is mobile platform support planned or desired for this project?
• If so, what would be the preferred approach?
• Are there any technical blockers or design considerations I should be aware of?

[nyurik]

every MLN-supported platform is "planned" in the sense that we really need PRs to support them all. we are all volunteers at the moment, so any help would be great. I personal have no experience with rust android support, so won't be the right person the advise on the approach

[CommanderStorm]

Nice. That would defintively desired.
I don't plan to do that work as none of the targets that I use require this, but if contributed upstream I would love to add it to this crate.

The technical blocker would be to produce the maplibre-core library for that target.
I think android is different from linux in terms of target, right?

Here is the release file on maplibre-native
https://github.com/maplibre/maplibre-native/blob/main/.github/workflows/core-release.yml

[Turbo87]

every MLN-supported platform

I assume that abbreviation means maplibre-native-supported platform, correct? 😅

[CommanderStorm]

Yes

[Turbo87]

FWIW I've managed to build maplibre-core for Android: Turbo87/maplibre-native#1 (I used a private PR to trigger the build)

I think I managed to integrate it in maplibre-native-rs too, but so far I've only run maplibre_native::set_log_thread_enabled(true) to verify that it doesn't crash immediately. The build.rs currently downloads the right library from the latest release, but since no release exists yet I had to patch it a bit to use my local files for now.

I personal have no experience with rust android support

unfortunately, I'm also not particularly experienced in this area, so I have very little clue if what I did here actually makes sense 😅

I'm happy to open a PR for the maplibre-core Android build though, if you think that it would be useful.

[CommanderStorm]

That is super cool.
Could you open a PR against MLN with that change?

I don't see anything that is wrong with the approach, but @louwers is a better person to look at this.
Exciting indeed

[louwers]

Please open a PR if you want me to review it.

[Turbo87]

I've opened a PR at maplibre/maplibre-native#3919 :)