Android WITHOUT JAVA

Apparently I forgot to make a youtube video about this, but I have a new process by which I make android apps in C. You can check it out and not have to worry about a line of Java code ever again! No ninja, cmake, etc. No need to use the weird wizards or studio to configure things, just edit your XML, say "make run" and go.
github.com/cnl...

[@misaalanshori]

"This is computer science. There aren't restrictions. I can do anything I want. It's just bits. You don't own me." -CNLohr

[@CNLohr]

I'm glad at least one person found that.

[@zyxwvutsrqponmlkh]

@@CNLohr If I want to 'or' a float with a string who are you to tell me no?

[@Lank891]

@@zyxwvutsrqponmlkh You can, i'm not gonna stop you, i just want to know why

[@terra__]

The whole quote is gold: "A little bit of this also has to do to stick it to all those luddites people on the internet who post "that's impossible" or "you're doing it wrong" to Stack Overflow questions... Requesting permissions in the JNI "oh you **have** to do that in Java" or other dumb stuff like that. I am completely uninterested in your opinions of what is or is not possible. This is computer science. There aren't restrictions. I can do anything I want. It's just bits. You don't own me." -CNLohr People who say something is imposible drive me nuts! I once been told disasembly is impossible (when I was only starting learning programming).

[@EmilFihlman]

Where is this?

[@AlanMedina314]

All the people who hate java are here.

[@promixinc.8434]

Yee

[@vaayush_yt]

Certainly Not

[@dorganzo]

Nah I know everything

[@Cart1416]

I hate java, javascript is the best

[@MrChelovek68]

Js, it's more dsl then jave. And java works without chrome)

[@littlebearandchicken2077]

I wonder if this would finally make android apps fast

[@user-xx6in8vu6c]

To be fair we have rad studio for fast development, which has c++ and Delphi support, is slow to push app to devices tho

[@johnjackson9767]

Unfortunately, due to limitations of ndk and the jvm, the performance will be roughly the same. That being said, it is easier to manage memory and be more cache friendly in C than Java.

[@DerSolinski]

Cue the next emulators written with that. Awesome tool set. I know it is just you messing around for fun. (or the need for one particular thing that just snowballs into a project) Your work sparks so many interesting ideas all around the globe, so please don't stop being you 😁

[@CNLohr]

This was actually spawned out of the need for an emulator for a private project

[@DerSolinski]

@@CNLohr Please rest assured, I'm not stalking you 🤣... Anyway I hope you are alright, beyond the pond. It is disheartening seeing the state of the US while living in a country that miraculously copes the best with the current affairs -_-

[@AdamCheong]

@@DerSolinski I think he gets that alot. I totally fanboyed him in 2012 when he inspired me about ultra low cost computing

[@DerSolinski]

@@AdamCheong don't worry he has my address... Wait... That's not how stalking works. Damn it I always mix things up.

[@fpgamemearray]

can't wait as i truly despise java

[@drew6017]

java's great

[@the_perigoso]

@@drew6017 no it's not lol

[@the_perigoso]

@Mai Mariarti Not even close

[@AdvancedSoul]

you start by hating it, because that's what everyone else does, then you eventually use it and start to hate it more, then you take a break, read some java code, start using it yourself a bit more, then you use it more, and a bit more, and eventually, you kinda start to like it. ngl it's a guilty pleasure :D

[@the_perigoso]

@@AdvancedSoul no, you just get used to it, that would be true for any and every language. You get so used to it that you stop seeing how bad it actually is, working around it's quirks and issues becomes second nature.

[@markingle8980]

Thanks so much for doing this! I have thought about this approach before but I don’t have the deep skills in C or Android to pull it off. This will help me learn more about what goes on under the cover of Android. Great work Charles!!!

[@LamoLemo]

Hey how is it going

[@utkukaratas]

this is borderline BDSM content. Love it!

[@arsnakehert]

This is a godsend. Google should be ashamed that this isn't made and published by them. And you are a god among men for making it.

[@HalfBakeDestruction]

Wait... so I only need to learn one language? Cool. Level editor, here we come.

[@MrEtronic]

please upload more , your videos are the best in the whole of youtube .

[@JoinUsInVR]

This is really cool! Glad to see you are keeping busy and ALWAYS sharing with the community. Any idea when we might see an update to your VR project?

[@chorazytorpeda16]

For some reason needed to downgrade to java8 for this to work. This is fantastic. Big thanks for that project.

[@spaceghost7807]

I just got done with a bootcamp and am playing with C. Thank you for this!

[@CNLohr]

:) So much to learn so much it can do.

[@Maxjoker98]

I've always wanted to do this! Awesome!

[@setkeh]

​Another Top notch Experiment @CNLohr keep up the great work mate a lot of the little tricks you have found have saved me oodles of time in a bunch of projects :D

[@cbrpnk]

I was searching for exactly that yesterday!

[@alexnik8334]

I was searching much longer. I was trying to make "One app SBC". Came to solution: custom Linux Kernel + OpenGL. Code creates opengl surface for GUI. All hardware setup can be done over userspace kernel options. Some functionality was absent like BT/BLE (needs stack e.g Bluedroid ) NFC (needs support for different protocols). Result was almost same C + OpenGL. I'll try to compile my code this way, since now I can create very fast and small Application, but it will be APK, so it can be installed as Android Application. Cool!

[@shankar4510]

@@alexnik8334 hi i want to reverse engineer rawdraw and know how it works. what do you suggest me? i dont want to use gradle and understand everithing that android build process need. can you suggest me something? I am lost

[@alexnik8334]

@@shankar4510 CNLohr can correct me if I'm wrong, but basically rawdraw is kind of script language which makes your GUI based code unified and compatible with different operating systems. Rawdraw uses low level access to Graphics/driver, creates window(surface) and allows You to execute rawdraw code(script), so you may not care about where it running. As example for browser rawdraw creates WEBGL surface, for linux OPENGL surface, for Android GLES Surface and so on. Also rawdraw can run using CPU rendering (without HW acceleration), so it can run even on microcontroller hardware.

[@shankar4510]

@@alexnik8334 oh so it is basically like game engine for every system. i wanted to program android apps without using gradle or stuff. can you advice me how to learn program low level in android ? what should i learn to get this skillset? there are no books about this . everything targets android studio and gradle stuff

[@shankar4510]

what does rawdraw use for android to build apk? apache ant ?

[@bennguyen1313]

The lightweight nature of compiling and running alone is better than using ADS! BTW, I assume this could only be done in linux, not Windows?

[@CNLohr]

Check the readme. Windows, too!

[@install_gentoo]

Finally I can make apps without using the clusterfuck of deprecation that is the Android API, thanks. :)

[@ruynobrega6918]

That's some awesome code right there.

[@CNLohr]

Thanks :)

[@andreslb151]

Interesting. Does this differ significantly from that Qt makes to deploys C++ apps in Android?

[@johnnyblack4261]

Could you please do tutorials in regards to how to make C Android applications?

[@CNLohr]

Just posted one to my channel!

[@johnnyblack4261]

@@CNLohr Thanks mate :)

[@brendonduncan4938]

This is awesome, I'll definitely be trying it out some time.

[@radekbiskupski5380]

bomba! really clear and detailed manual, got some small issues on lenovop2 but now works like charm, time for me to go back to C and do something for FPV on Hive :)

[@shankar4510]

hi radek can you exaplain me a little ? what is he doing ? should i learn java to understand all this ?

[@radekbiskupski5380]

@@shankar4510 Hmm, don't you really understand? he's using C only to write an app on Android. no Java needed at all.

[@shankar4510]

@@radekbiskupski5380 ye i really dont understand. i am in windows. can you help me just a little bit? i want to know how this works and teach my fellow students here in nepal. just a small hint would do as well. how can a apk file be written in plain c?

[@shankar4510]

what is skillset reuired to know all this? i dont want to use gradle at all

[@homomorphic]

First thought is: performant drone controller for cheap

[@CNLohr]

Interesting though - you could use a USB high reliability radio.

[@AdvancedSoul]

Very nice work, this might be useful to me in the very near future

[@heapsclean3181]

Thanks for sharing, have you tried combining this technique with a C based GUI library (like Nuklear etc) to create User Interfaces?

[@CNLohr]

Apparently someone is already making a rawdraw UI.

[@CNLohr]

They're on my discord server.

[@climatebabes]

Hi, to help you with your ESP triangulation attempt, this approach may work: First program 3 ESPs to send their update at exact time intervals, say 200ms 250 ms and 300ms (not sure what makes sense) Then you keep track of the timing of incoming signals from each ESP. So ESP1 expects a packet from ESP2 every 200 ms, so the difference noticed is the distance ESP2 moved. This has to be very precise though, 0.00000003 = 9 meter. Now if you also make them share their readings of other ESPs in between the intervals you can triangulate easily. Must send the last delta from ESPx of course the ESPs can broadcast their intervals so you just keep track of that. We would like to code this so it is accesible in arduino IDE, but we have to little knowledge of the code, you seem to be able to do it ;-)

[@CNLohr]

I recommend if you'd like to talk to folks about this, do so on my Discord server. Invite for it is on the cnovr project github.

[@GuerreroMisterioso95]

Can you pack it for a Playstore Distribution?

[@cornjulio4033]

Insane stuff man ! And how did you get your "IDE" to scroll so smoothly ?

[@_VeljkoMiletic_]

Absolute chad!

[@CNLohr]

🇨 is for Chad

[@busterdafydd3096]

I can get behind you guys, I ended up starting to learn programming in python, I wanted to go lower level but everyone was like "Compatibility" and that non-sense but with my study into computers the more I've learnt C/C++ is Master in computing everything uses it even other programming languages just people don't want to except it. Don't get me wrong scripting languages that use virtual machines have there place but they are not for programmers

[@ShadowStarchild]

CPP N IDE Is an app for helping people learn C++ and or C in the simplest way. it can be used to make a psuedo-app as in not an app you can use directly from your phones app menu but in the CPP N IDE app you can run native activities via JNI im still figuring out how to make a cube render and make a camera and controlls for said camera..

[@a1batross_]

No, that's not hard. You can do mostly anything with NativeActivity. But the problem is, you still need to handle several Java things even if they are not in Java. I mean JNI of course. There always will be a VM in your memory space, especially if you do it in portable manner.

[@Marisueksu]

God among mobile developers. This is super cool and FINALLY proven to be possible!!!!! 0% Java!!!!

[@L1Q]

oh yeah, I was waiting for this

[@vagnerlandskron4176]

Great job! Thanks for sharing!

[@CNLohr]

I hope you find it useful.

[@schwartz478]

Somebody write a tutorial on this please D:

[@CNLohr]

Follow the link in the description.

[@openroomxyz]

I don't know much C, but this looks great from creative apps, it would be cool to run develop C apps for android. I am sure they can be really fast xD

[@CNLohr]

Fast they are.

[@filipenicoli_]

Have you been formally introduced to postmarketOS? Looks like a cool initiative, I'm certain you could do some interesting projects using it on an old phone.

[@jayachandra677]

I forked this repos yesterday and today it's recommended

[@avibank]

Wow! subscribed!

[@seesoftware]

Do you know how to automatically uninstall the app after rebuilding it because when i run it the second time it gives me INSTALL_FAILED_ALREADY_EXISTS

[@nurlanbekezhan5003]

adb uninstall

[@ianbryant3258]

Bro I was looking for this exact thing holy crap!

[@CNLohr]

As should everyone.

[@Dyas777]

did you use GLSL in this project? Are there some libraries on C to compile and use shaders on phone hardware?

[@felipegutierrez3477]

I guess he's using OpenGL ES which is a subset of OpenGL

[@ShadowStarchild]

Its i OpenGL ES which is the Android version of OpenGL

[@meggrobi]

Hasn't something similar been done by Embarcadero for years now for C++ and pascal? I used their community edition and compiled the code and ran the same code on windows, ios, and android. Admittedly whatever you're trying to do must be available on all systems. Not one line of java, I'm sure the framework needs to do something but I didn't.

[@CNLohr]

I believe people always used Java glue code but that isn't actually needed. I also optimize for size and development cycle speed.

[@openroomxyz]

1:10 funny image xD in that frame xD

[@TheRainHarvester]

Does it support OGL? I have some PPS simulations on my channel that people have wanted to play with. Would something like that (on my channel) be feasible? (I have no experience with Android.)

[@avejst]

Nice intro Thanks for sharing👍😀

[@dbtx]

I don't like Android very much but I do like C very much and this is very cool.

[@alexsmith2632]

thanks, this is exactly what i need, but i want to know if its possible to run on those really old android like 4.4?

[@CNLohr]

Yes! You will need to change the android and SDK versions to a much lower number but absolutely! I believe they've been tested all the way back to SDK 12 or so which I think is Android 3.

[@skylerlilacsky6545]

Can you please make a video for how to set this up on windows ?

[@CNLohr]

Eeehhhhhhhhhh I don't have any more videos scheduled with this, but if I do make one, I will also do a how-to. (Also someone might need to remind me)

[@shankar4510]

@@CNLohr hi

[@Orion2223dz]

So it's possible thanks to the Google NDK ?

[@dadusgamegalaxy9380]

how did you created the window or the window surface on which all of those is rendering

[@globalhell5046]

Thank you! This is great.

[@Daninshit]

Man, that build time.

[@CNLohr]

I knowwwwwww some day it'll be better. I keep working on it. I really wish I could get it to under 100ms.

[@ytubeleo]

Awesome project. Is there any reason you used OpenGL ES instead of Vulkan? And also, have you progressed this at all, or heard of other people bringing it forward?

[@CNLohr]

Yes. Vulkan is not for getting things done. It's for if you want to already build your own engine and middleware. OpenGL is for having a complete end-user API for actually rendering things and getting stuff done. Vulkan is not the future. It's an alternative that makes more sense for some users.

[@ytubeleo]

@@CNLohr Intersting, thanks. Has this project progressed at all or have you heard of others taking the idea forward?

[@directrix1]

NDK cross compiling is fun times. Now can you get it working for iOS devices too? :P

[@jonshouse1]

Looks useful. How much of Linux can I see on the phone? Would I have access to the native filesystem, device drivers, sockets ?

[@CNLohr]

You have only minimal filesystem access. I don't know about everything else

[@sdsdfdu4437]

Is this capable of doing 3d stuff? Like games?

[@Airaleais]

can it be used under Windows without a Linux virtual machine?

[@mrsam-zh8vn]

hi can anyone say what application is used for compiling and run ,please

[@CNLohr]

GNU Make (usually just comes with Linux)

[@EduardoMCosta]

I made something like that with C++ and CMake, but it is way less advanced (and much slower, because I still use their Java stuff). I wonder if the output can be deployed to Google Play Store

[@CNLohr]

Check out my video on making android apps inC

[@EduardoMCosta]

@@CNLohr I'm confused. Isn't this the video about making android apps in C?

[@CNLohr]

@@EduardoMCosta sorry. I got that confused. I was replying to comments at the channel level

[@martingergov6562]

My hero

[@sh_a_nkar4135]

Can we add ad's to our app as well ? sorry for novice questions . I am planning to learn game dev this way and hopefully start a startup focusing on performance

[@CNLohr]

I really don't understand the question

[@CNLohr]

You can't add normal Google ads if that's what you're asking. Well at least not easily.

[@sh_a_nkar4135]

@@CNLohr thank you . If we could, it would be wonderful to make commercial high performance game close to the hardware .

[@rasakibalogun9316]

I have built an app on android studio but want to display what I have built on an LCD screen The screen is a 4D 4D Systems, gen4 7in Arduino Compatible Display with Resistive Touch Screen. Can this be done to program the screen I need to use the 4D software provided can this be done ??

[@CNLohr]

You never need someone else's software. It just might be tricky to do yourself.

[@beni5154]

Wow, This is great!

[@shankar4510]

this video still hunts me . Maybe it's because I don't know enough linux . but its time to do it. I want to write c game in android .

[@CNLohr]

I just noticed this 3 months later. How far did you get? If you get stuck feel free to ping the folks in rawdrawnadroid in my Discord, you can get an invite by messaging me (my Discord name is the same as my youtube name)

[@perkarlo]

best regards sir

[@nicoloasjosse9507]

Call me the day you can use native android gui controls in c or cpp without having to glue it with java.

[@CNLohr]

Youuuu can do itttt

[@PioNunes]

Interesting article, but what's with the flashed images at 1:10 and 1:15?

[@CNLohr]

Memes!

[@stupid-handle]

Hey, while I know C, programming MCU's such like ATmega, microcontrolers such as stm32 and so on, I never got into android because I hate java. Now I'm trying to find out how by using a simple C program/daemon/service (that would only need of a simple automaton and the ability to read a file), I could block incoming spam calls, but I notice this API is not accessible from C. Do you happen to know if I could make these available? Say recompiling the kernel or something? I wouldn't mind if this was specific to my device only, or if is it possible to expose these functions at all? Or any idea on how to get started? Thanks,

[@CNLohr]

You can see a lot of examples of accessing Java functions from C in rawdraw's Andorid module.

[@christopherknee5756]

"... I never got into android because I hate java." Exactly. Me too. Why spend hours writing tons of nonsensical boilerplate code ONLY for the program (okay, "app"), to run slowly.

[@luijo633]

Hello, what is this channel about, i really love C

[@CNLohr]

Not sure how to describe me.

[@AGUNGKAYA]

Wow. This is cool!! Have you uploaded an app in playstore? I want to try

[@CNLohr]

yep. Look up ColorChord

[@KanjiCoder_RTFM]

I teally want to port a C program with UI in raylib to android... so I find myself here .

[@CNLohr]

Sounds like a fun project! I hope you find everything you need to make it all connect together!

[@oraz.]

That is awesome!

[@AlbySilly]

Aren't the oculus quest android based..?

[@CNLohr]

Yes, but I'm curious where you are going with this thought

[@AlbySilly]

@@CNLohr Couldn't this be used to develop/port vr games on the quest?

[@DanielSMatthews]

Thanks for sharing.

[@asandax6]

"By the way you still have to install Android Studio". Pssh Noob. Run on the command line and link the app using the SDK and NDK manually. It's easy, only took me 4 months to figure out the basics.

[@Bravefsj]

you are alway so cool and creative

[@edgeeffect]

I don't know if this will work for me, but if I could get something running on Android without all that Java, Kotlin, Gradle (makes mock vomiting noise) then that would be truly wonderful!

[@not_herobrine3752]

its possible, and its wonderful. now time to figure out how to use this unironically

[@CNLohr]

A lot of people do. It totally still works.

[@ze3312]

how can I acces the console, where the printf would apper?

[@CNLohr]

Adb logcat

[@kewtomrao]

I am a noob.Can you please make a tutorial on this?

[@CNLohr]

There are a lot of people who have been asking. I very well may.

[@raguaviva]

how easy is to get Dear ImGUI working?

[@CNLohr]

I don't know what that is.

[@jamesgrimwood1285]

CNLohr it’s a gui library

[@raguaviva]

@@CNLohr Check it out, it is the lib everyone is using for creating UI's github.com/ocornut/imgui

[@AaronAngert]

Very cool!

[@danieleccleston7928]

I'd like to make a game with this

[@CNLohr]

do it

[@not_herobrine3752]

@@CNLohr do you have any pointers on where to start for someone new to this framework

[@CNLohr]

@@not_herobrine3752 you can join the discord. Lots of people there can help

[@mirabilis]

Port Super Mario 64 ;)

[@preetamdas4048]

Cool

[@rcelyte]

What about iOS apps?

[@167mm167]

awesome ...

[@drygordspellweaver8761]

Can one access the native java libraries too?

[@CNLohr]

Sort of. You can marshall to them. It's not super easy and takes 2-3 hours to get the hang of it. I have several examples of how to do that in rawdrawandroid's rawdraw driver.

[@drygordspellweaver8761]

@@CNLohr cool will check it out. Might be simpler than learning Kotlin or Java hehe

[@swifterik]

Are there any downsides? Like compatibility issues?

[@CNLohr]

Not really? To call api code sometimes it can be tricky. And you have to compile for all four targets. I'm not sure if these apps can go on the store

[@TheRainHarvester]

@@CNLohr store app support would be HUGE!

[@CNLohr]

@@TheRainHarvester I am currently working on investigating this. I will make a new video _if_ it gets approved.

[@TheRainHarvester]

@@CNLohr Does approval include them judging your app as useful, or cosmetic? Just curious. And will they let you know why it was disapproved?

[@CNLohr]

@@TheRainHarvester I don't know. I will be finding out for the first time :)

[@openroomxyz]

Can you publish them on the android store?

[@CNLohr]

Yes! I put "Colorchord" on the android store, it was approved!

[@openroomxyz]

@@CNLohr That's cool to hear!

[@Airaleais]

Please tell me how to work with sockets? =)

[@CNLohr]

What kind?

[@user-unknownback]

I don't think java is a bad language, I just don't think it is good for me.

[@CNLohr]

That's become where I am now.

[@timmturner]

Easy to draw from the GPU, not so easy to draw a real UI.

[@Lboy0]

please full video 🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏

[@CNLohr]

It's kinda just become a stable thing. And is used by a number of people. I don't think there's much "need" for a full video anymore.

[@seesoftware]

:/ i keep woundering if i should use C instead of C++

[@ShadowStarchild]

Imho C++ > C

[@TheRainHarvester]

Actually C++ == C. But ++C > C

[@robot3883]

can you explain that in video, please

[@CNLohr]

Explain what in video?

[@aidenellis2425]

does it work with c++?

[@CNLohr]

Yep. And you can even use the C++ JNI system which is a little less wordy than the C one.

[@jordancoult185]

What about C++, instead of C?

[@CNLohr]

You can, sure, but why? It'll just slow you down and add more complication.

[@christoffer4862]

Actually big and complex projects will benefit a lot from object oriented C++.