Do I need Oracle Java to develop/run Xamarin Apps? - xamarin

Does the Xamarin development environment need anything from Oracle's Java, either JRE or SDKs? It seems that whatever it needs in terms of Java, it gets it from the Android SDKs which are already part of the Xamarin downloads.
The reason I'm asking is because I want to remove the Oracle Java VM from my machine, since I don't run any Java apps.
TIA.

Yes, you need Java JDK v1.6. This should be installed by the Xamarin Installer automatically.
And as you mentioned, you'll update the Android SDKs and tools using the Android SDK Manager. I would check regularly for updates to these SDKs because Xamarin doesn't install them.

Related

Xamarin SDK was not found for JetBrains Rider

I am hoping to work with Xamarin for a project, primarily to learn a little about cross-platform app development, and would prefer to stick to developing on Linux. This led me to attempt to work with the JetBrains Rider IDE, something that I believed to be fairly well documented, as per these resources:
Xamarin.Android on Linux (in coordination with its Ubuntu 19.04 update post)
Failed to load Xamarin Forms project with .NET Standard 2.0 Lib in Rider
0xFireball's Xamarin.Android on Linux guide with associated Rider/IDE setup
I've been able to install everything just fine, Android Studio and Rider were installed via JetBrains Toolbox (I also tried installing Rider manually, but it made no change), and I am able to create the project and configure the Android settings for the Xamarin project.
This is where my luck ends, since despite trying the various resources I've linked above, including reinstalling mono and dotnet-sdk multiple times, I get this error no matter what I try:
Xamarin SDK was not found: Rider was unable to find Xamarin SDK on
this machine. Xamarin-based projects will not be loaded. Please
install Xamarin SDK or change toolset.
I've tried following the instructions both on a manually installed Rider 2019.1.3 (Build #RD-191.7141.460) and Rider 2019.2 EAP (Build #RD-192.5895.291).
I'm fairly new to the world of Xamarin, so I'm not sure where to begin looking. What exactly is the Xamarin SDK (is it just Xamarin.Android?), and what should I be checking my setup for in order for Rider to detect the Xamarin SDK?
It appears that what Rider installs via its Environment page, is only the Xamarin Android package. Not the actually Android Studio SDK, which is needed to develop any android apps. You have to download that separately.

Android SDK location in OSX - Has it been actually installed by Unity Hub?

We are using Unity 2018.3.8f1.
We have added Android Build Support from Unity Hub - Add Component:
But if we go to Unity Preferences - External Tools, the Android SDK location is empty:
I have not been able to find the location of the Android SDK folder anywhere. I'm wondering if the component installed by Unity Hub is something different to Android SDK. Maybe it must be installed separately from: https://developer.android.com/studio?pkg=tools#downloads?
UPDATE
So far I have installed "Command line tools only" from the previous link. Then, I have installed OpenSDK (Vistual Studio did it for me: it asked me to update and install it as one of the things to update).
But when I opened tools/bin/sdkmanager, it said "Java is not installed". So I also installed Oracle Java SDK. Unfortunately tools/bin/sdkmanager returned errors after it. I applied a few workarounds I found by googling the errors. Still not luck.
So I have moved to the easy way: installing the full version of Android Studio. If we choose custom, we'll see that Android SDK Platform is going to be installed:
So it is working, but I still have not idea of how many things I have duplicated on my system wasting space. I have:
The Android component installed from Unity Hub
Android Studio installed, which comes with the emulator and the IDE (I don't need them)
OpenSDK (installed by Visual Studio)
An embedded version of Java in Unity
Oracle Java
Are they all actually needed? I don't think so!
It seems the only thing you are wondering is if the component installed by Unity hub is something different to Android SDK... the short answer is yes. You have to download it on the Android Developer SDK website you linked in the question. You only need the SDK under "Command line tools only" at the bottom of the page. If you do this you also need to download the jdk separatly here.

Xamarin Android SDK Manager doesn't save locations

Using Visual Studio 2017 and Xamarin, I installed the Xamarin Android SDK Manager to replace the default Android SDK Manager, which is now deprecated.
Then I updated JDK to the current x64 version and, using the Xamarin SDK Manager, I installed the most recent version of Android NDK.
I now want to update the locations of these SDK's in the Xamarin Android SDK Manager, Locations tab like so:
Yet, every time I restart the tool, the locations are reset. It also keeps telling me there's 2 components to install, yet when I do, it doesn't complain about any failure.
I have tried running as Admin and cannot seem to figure out what is wrong. Log files seem to be non existent. Is there anyone who has the same problem and found a solution?
This was a bug and has been fixed in 0.1.76.
See https://bugzilla.xamarin.com/show_bug.cgi?id=58319 for details.
Download the newest version here: https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=Xamarin.XamarinAndroidSDKManager

Android Studio for Project Tango

I have downloaded latest Android Studio 2.2.3 and I want to start with C examples for project Tango phone (Lenovo Phab 2 Pro) using C API. The phone itself says it's run Android 6.0.1, kernel 3.10.84 on device.
Google developer documentation for Tango Project suggest to install Android Studio with Android SDK 24.4.1, Platform tools 23.1 and NDK 11.0.0.
By installing latest Android Studio there is no offering to install those versions of tools. Is it possible to use whatever SDK for development (latest)?
Where do I find aforementioned versions?
What Android SDK & NDK version is required for phone which run Android 6.0.1?
I started using the Dev Kit which runs Android 4.4 KitKat and I just recently got the Phab 2 Pro this week and I didn't need to make any updates to my Android Studio SDK manager.
Since I am working only with the Tango and not with the underlying Android features, I have found no need to require 6.0 for I am not using any of the extra features.
Also go here and clone the repo and run the hello-world and see if you can get it to work on your phone, if so you are good to go!
the SDK Manager which is part of Android Studio offers you choices on levels of android builds like 4.4.2/5.1/6.0/6.1, etc. Platform tools package is a module within the SDK Manager which also has levels which are based on the android build. The NDK is a completely different package and depending on what you want to accomplish you might be able to not worry about it to start of with. install Android Studio and then setup the SDK Manager to cover what devices you want to build for. get the latest Platform tools package setup and you will be ready to code. once you start setting up your environment things will fall in place. for the most part the installer does the work. pay attention to the things needed prior to installing Android Studio. i think you need to install a jdk and set paths and variables.

How to manually install Xamarin.Android without Xamarin account?

As I was already developing Android apps, JDK 8 and Android SDK are already installed in my machine. But it is in a custom location, not the default one. Using the default Visual Studio installer, I could not install Xamarin without installing JDK and Android SDK again in the default location. Then I tried to install Xamarin.Android manually according to instructions in this page-
https://developer.xamarin.com/guides/android/getting_started/installation/windows/manual_installation/
This page instructed to download and install Xamarin.Android from store. But Xamarin store requires an account, which I assume to manage the paid subscriptions. Given Xamarin is free now, how should I proceed to install Xamarin.Android manually and reuse already installed Android components?
You can contact us at contact#xamarin.com and we will send you the latest download links to the Xamarin.VisualStudio installer which includes both Xamarin.Android and Xamarin.iOS (there is no separate installer per platform for Windows).
The Xamarin.VisualStudio installer does not attempt to install the JDK or Android SDK, so this sounds like what you need.

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