Genero Mobile for Android (GMA) 5.00 changes

Modifications to consider when using the Genero Mobile for Android™.

Note:

This topic describes feature changes in the GMA 5.00 product. See also the Mobile section in Genero BDL 5.00 New Features page.

GMA 5.00 with FGLGWS 5.00

Important:

The GMA version 5.00 is built on FGLGWS 5.00 and therefore, strongly tied to this Genero BDL version.

ANDROID_HOME replaces ANDROID_SDK_ROOT

When building apps with gmabuildtool, the ANDROID_SDK_ROOT environment variable is deprecated.

To define the Android SDK installation directory, use the ANDROID_HOME environment variable instead.

To learn more about the ANDROID_HOME environment variable, go to the Environment variables page on the Android Studio Developer site. To learn more about the gmabuildtool, go to gmabuildtool.

Android 32bit desupport

Starting with GMA 5.00, the Android 32bit devices are no longer supported.

The GMA 5.00 front end, or an embedded app built with GMA 5.00 can only be deployed on 64bit devices.

Run `gmabuildtool updatesdk` on new ANDROID_HOME directory

When updating the Android SDK installation to the GMA 5.00.01 version, it is recommended to create a new ANDROID_HOME directory to avoid the warning about the "latest-2" directory that may be raised:

Warning: Package "Android SDK Command-line Tools (latest)" (cmdline-tools;latest) should be installed in
"C:\Android\android-sdk\cmdline-tools\latest" but it already exists.
Installing in "C:\Android\android-sdk\cmdline-tools\latest-2" instead.

While you can ignore the warning, as the installation now takes place in the "latest" directory, the recommendation is to either delete the latest-2 directory or install in a new directory.

Important: Applies to version 5.00.01 only

In future versions of GMA, you can install updates in your current ANDROID_HOME as usual.

To learn more about updating Android SDK, go to Install Genero Mobile for Android.

Android 14 SDK (API 34) support

Starting with GMA 5.00.01, GMA is based on API 34 / Android 14 SDK.

Specifying the Android foreground service type

Since Android 14 (API 34), a foreground Android service needs to specify a service type with the foregroundServiceType manifest parameter.

Starting with GMA 5.00.02, the foreground service type can be controlled with the gmabuildtool options --custom-foreground-service-type and --background-explanation.

For more details, see Defining the Android service type.

Changes in earlier versions

Make sure to check the upgrade notes of earlier versions, to not miss changes introduced in maintenance releases. For more details, see Changes in GMA 4.01 / BDL 4.01.

Notable changes introduced in maintenance releases:

No particular change to consider.