Hello out there,
I am (very) old school and although I own a mobile phone I use it
almost exclusively as a phone and checking SMS (for online banking).
Nevertheless I want to port an app to an android phone - it's for my
(still older) mother.
I found androwish and several old build instructions, which (for me)
look complicated - to say the least.
Q: What is the current way to get a Tcl program via androwish onto an
android phone?
Any link or tip will be highly appreciated
Best regards
Helmut

Helmut Giese <hgiese@ratiosoft.com> wrote:
> Hello out there,
> I am (very) old school and although I own a mobile phone I use it
> almost exclusively as a phone and checking SMS (for online banking).
> Nevertheless I want to port an app to an android phone - it's for my
> (still older) mother.
> I found androwish and several old build instructions, which (for me)
> look complicated - to say the least.

> Q: What is the current way to get a Tcl program via androwish onto an
> android phone?

For literally 'on the phone' it is "build it into a 'bundle' using the
method described in the androwish docs, then side load it. And to side
load you may have to go enable the 'deveoper mode' on the settings menu
(exactly how sometimes varies by phone model so asking duck duck go how
is likely best here) and then inside the developer section toggling on
the ability to side load apps.

> Any link or tip will be highly appreciated
> Best regards
> Helmut

As for building the tcl app into an androwish bundle, it is similar to
building a TclKit (everything packed into a singe file bundle) but the
steps may have changed since I last built one a few years back, so do
look at the current docs. Yes, it is (or was) somewhat complicated,
but IIRC the docs were complete and one could reach the end without
falling off a cliff somewhere.

Am 19.11.2023 um 17:14 schrieb Helmut Giese:
> Hello out there,
> I am (very) old school and although I own a mobile phone I use it
> almost exclusively as a phone and checking SMS (for online banking).
> Nevertheless I want to port an app to an android phone - it's for my
> (still older) mother.
> I found androwish and several old build instructions, which (for me)
> look complicated - to say the least.
> Q: What is the current way to get a Tcl program via androwish onto an
> android phone?
> Any link or tip will be highly appreciated
> Best regards
> Helmut

Two ways:
a) Install the standard Androwsih and script separately
b) Use the Androwish SDK with the script included

https://www.androwish.org/home/wiki?name=AndroWish+SDK

I personally run that on Windows. The Android SDK Version is crucial. I
remember, the last supported one is version 9. Current is 22.

It is fun and totally reliable, if once set-up.

Take care,
Harald

Hi Rich, hi Harald,
many thanks to both of you. I think I'll have a shot at it.
Best regards
Helmut

Helmut Giese <hgiese@ratiosoft.com> wrote:
> Hello out there,
> I am (very) old school and although I own a mobile phone I use it
> almost exclusively as a phone and checking SMS (for online banking).
> Nevertheless I want to port an app to an android phone - it's for my
> (still older) mother.
> I found androwish and several old build instructions, which (for me)
> look complicated - to say the least.
> Q: What is the current way to get a Tcl program via androwish onto an
> android phone?
> Any link or tip will be highly appreciated
> Best regards
> Helmut

Also, I just remembered that there is also an Androwish API call that
will add an icon to the phone launcher that launches a plain Tcl script
sitting somewhere in the phone filesystem.

https://www.androwish.org/home/wiki?name=Android+facilities

borg shortcut add name-of-shortcut script-to-run ?png-icon-as-base-64-string?

I use this for one very small simple script I have on my phone,
Depending upon what you want this app to do, this might work. There
are limitations, one being that the script runs as the main androwish
app install id, and so you don't get private storage for the script,
just access to the androwish interpreters storage. This may, or may
not, be an issue for what you want to do.

It also means you'll have an "androwish" app in the full list of
installed apps (instead of an app with the name of your custom app) and
so you might have to instruct curious lookers to "not delete" that app.

On 11/19/2023 8:14 AM, Helmut Giese wrote:
> Hello out there,
> I am (very) old school and although I own a mobile phone I use it
> almost exclusively as a phone and checking SMS (for online banking).
> Nevertheless I want to port an app to an android phone - it's for my
> (still older) mother.
> I found androwish and several old build instructions, which (for me)
> look complicated - to say the least.
> Q: What is the current way to get a Tcl program via androwish onto an
> android phone?
> Any link or tip will be highly appreciated
> Best regards
> Helmut

I use an androwish debug signed file from here:

https://www.androwish.org/download/index.html

I download a file (e.g. AndroWish-c48f047f5b-debug.apk) from there and get it onto my phone/tablet sd card where I then use a file manager, (mine is MiXplorer) to locate the .apk file and tap on it; the option of installing it is given. I might have had to setup something to allow that, but I forget.

Then, I find androwish in my apps drawer and run it. It starts up in a console window. You have the console menu with a source command and this is where I follow the instructions by JM "Sample set of rc files" to setup a .wishrc file that androwish will thereafter use automatically on startup.

see here: "Sample set of rc files" by JM on

https://wiki.tcl-lang.org/page/AndroWish%3A+Tips+and+Tricks

The above is old, so I don't know if it's still correct. But it doesn't require me to know how to build an android app.

In my case, I have a .wishrc file with code that looks in a subfolder of my home directory for *.tcl and creates a matrix of buttons to launch them. So, it's a 2 step process for me. But I can then just add new programs by copying them to that folder.

The key concept here is that you need to copy a file .wishrc to a protected directory and that can only be done using androwish itself, hence his init step.