Setting Up SDL 3.3 for Android Development

• Download the Android SDK: https://developer.android.com/studio#command-tools
• Download and install JDK 17
• Download this example (with SDL3 Renderer API that shows squares when we touch the screen) or this example (with OpenGL ES 2.0 that draws a simple triangle) from GitHub. Extract the archive to your preferred directory (e.g., E:\Projects). You can download these zips by one click:
• sdlcross.zip (zip - 108 KB, unzipped - 127 KB)
• simple-triangle-android-opengles20-sdl3-cpp.zip (zip - 110 KB, unzipped - 119 KB)
• Download SDL3-devel-3.3.0-android.zip (zip - 14.8 MB, unzipped - 15.1 MB). Extract the SDL3-3.3.0.aar file and place it to the "app\libs" folder
• Open the app/build.gradle file. Choose what ABI you want to use. For example, "arm64-v8a" for new devices, "armeabi-v7a" is for an old ones, "x86" and "x86_64" - for the Android emulator:

cmake {
    arguments '-DANDROID_STL=c++_shared', '-DWITH_IMAGE=OFF', '-DWITH_MIXER=OFF'
    // abiFilters 'armeabi-v7a', 'arm64-v8a', 'x86', 'x86_64'
    abiFilters 'armeabi-v7a'
}

• Open replace a version of SDL the app/build.gradle file like this:
• Before:

dependencies {
    implementation files('libs/SDL3-3.1.3.aar')
    implementation 'androidx.appcompat:appcompat:1.5.1'
}

• After:

dependencies {
    implementation files('libs/SDL3-3.3.0.aar')
    implementation 'androidx.appcompat:appcompat:1.5.1'
}

• Important! The executable name in CMakeLists.txt:

add_executable(sdlcross src/main.c)

• Must be the same as the project name in the .java file located at app\src\main\java\com\example\sdlcross, inside the getLibraries() method:

package com.example.sdlcross;

import org.libsdl.app.SDLActivity;

public class MyActivity extends SDLActivity {
    protected String[] getLibraries() {
        return new String[] { "sdlcross" };
    }
}

• Open the command line terminal inside of the root folder of the example
• Copy and paste the following command to CMD: gradlew assembleDebug
• You will see this error message:

SDK location not found. Define a valid SDK location with an ANDROID_HOME environment variable

• You should create the ANDROID_HOME environmetn variable. It my case this variable has this value: H:\Android\SDK
• Close the old CMD terminal and open a new one. Run the following command in CMD again: gradlew assembleDebug
• The building was finished in 2 minutes 45 seconds on my laptop. In the next time, when you will change a code in src/main.cpp, it will be build much faster
• You can find the APK file (app-debug.apk) in this folder: app\build\outputs\apk\debug
• You can upload this APK file to the Google Drive from you PC to install in on your Android device