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// Copyright (C) 2020 The Qt Company Ltd.
// SPDX-License-Identifier: LicenseRef-Qt-Commercial OR GFDL-1.3-no-invariants-only
/*!
\page android-publishing-to-googleplay.html
\title Publishing to Google Play
\brief Provides instructions to prepare your application for publishing.
\ingroup androidplatform
\previouspage android-3rdparty-libs.html
\nextpage Supporting Google Emoji Font Policy
\l{Qt for Android} provides a complete solution to develop, build, and package
your applications for Android. Most of these tasks, especially packaging and
deployment are handled by Qt Creator providing rich developer experience.
Every time you run the application using Qt Creator, an Android Application
Package (APK) is created and deployed onto the target of your choice
(device or emulator). With few minor changes to packaging settings, you can
publish your application on Google Play.
\section1 Building the App
The following instructions guide you to create an \c{.apk} or \c{.aab}
that can go live on Google Play
\list 1
\li Open your project with Qt Creator 4.11 or later choosing a \c{Release Build}.
\li Select \uicontrol Projects > \uicontrol Build > \uicontrol {Build Android APK}
> \uicontrol {Create Templates} to create the Android package template files
such as \c{AndroidManifest.xml} which is the main file of concern here.
\li Check for the following settings in \c{AndroidManifest.xml}:
\list
\li Set \uicontrol{Minimum required SDK} to API 23 or later.
\li Set \uicontrol{Application name} and \uicontrol{Application icon}.
\li Check the \uicontrol{Permissions} list has all the required permissions.
\li Check the \uicontrol{Features} list has the software or hardware
features that your application depends on, such as GPS or NFC.
\endlist
For more information, see
\l{Qt Creator: Editing Manifest Files}{editing the Manifest Files in Qt Creator}.
\note By default, Qt adds the permissions and the features based on the module
dependencies of your application. If you do not want these default permissions
and features, either deselect the checkboxes
\uicontrol{Include default permissions for Qt modules} and
\uicontrol{Include default features for Qt modules}, or remove the following
part from the \c{AndroidManifest.xml} file:
\badcode
<!-- The following comment will be replaced upon deployment with default permissions based on the dependencies of the application.
Remove the comment if you do not require these default permissions. -->
<!-- %%INSERT_PERMISSIONS -->
<!-- The following comment will be replaced upon deployment with default features based on the dependencies of the application.
Remove the comment if you do not require these default features. -->
<!-- %%INSERT_FEATURES -->
\endcode
For information on the manifest XML format, see \l{Android: App Manifest}.
\li Set up a \l{Android: Android keystore system}{keystore} to sign your
\c{.apk} file. You can create a new keystore if you do not have one. For more
information, see \l{Qt Creator: Specifying Settings for Packages}
{Specifying Settings for Packages in Qt Creator}.
\li Locate the generated package:
\list
\li For APK packages, locate the \c{.apk} package at:
\badcode
<$BUILD_DIR>/android-build/build/outputs/apk/release/android-build-release.apk
\endcode
\note In Qt Creator, select \uicontrol{Projects} > \uicontrol{Build}
> \uicontrol{Build Steps} > \uicontrol{Build Android APK} >
\uicontrol{Open package location after build} to build the
application's \c{.apk} and open the directory containing the
package.
\li For AAB packages, select \uicontrol{Projects} > \uicontrol{Build}
> \uicontrol{Build Steps} > \uicontrol{Build Android APK} >
\uicontrol{Build .aab (Android App Bundle)} for Qt Creator to generate
the \c{.aab} file, then locate the package at:
\badcode
<$BUILD_DIR>/android-build/build/outputs/bundle/release/android-build-release.aab
\endcode
\endlist
\endlist
\section1 Uploading the App to Google Play Store
Log into the \l{Google Play Developer Console} and upload the \c{.aab} files,
along with a description and screen captures resembling the usage of your application.
For Qt versions that supports building a multi-abi bundle (i.e. Qt 5.14 and 5.15),
uploading one \c {.aab} with all the supported architectures is enough.
However, for Qt versions that don't have the multi-abi build support,
publishing your app requires additional steps.
\section2 Publishing Single-ABI bundles
To publish your app that is built using a single ABI kit, you need
to make sure that each ABI uses a different internal version code.
The version code is an intenal non-public identifier for your app's
release. Build each one of the architectures you want to support
and set a different version code for each ABI. This can be done
as follows, for CMake:
\badcode
set_property(TARGET scroll_example APPEND PROPERTY QT_ANDROID_VERSION_CODE <unique_version>)
\endcode
Or as follows for qmake:
\badcode
ANDROID_VERSION_CODE = <unique_version>
\endcode
The app developer can use a specific scheme for the version code, for exampe,
the code could have a chunks for the platform, the ABI, and the actual
version. Then, a sample scheme would be \c {<Platform><ABI><AppVersion>}:
\list
\li Platform:
\list
\li 0 for Arm
\li 1 for Intel
\endlist
\li Architecture:
\list
\li 32 for 32 bit
\li 64 for 64 bit
\endlist
\endlist
The resulting version code for a release 1.0 for arm64-v8a ABI,
would be \c {06410}.
The following screenshot shows an example for an app targeting 4 ABIs,
while each package uses a unique version code, which is different from
the version name that is the public version string.
\image android-single-abis.png
For more information on packaging, see \l{Deploying an Application on Android}.
*/
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