- Creating Android Plugins For Unity When creating a game / app with Unity which targets a specific platform like Android or iOS it would really handy if you could access some platform specific features such as native pop-up windows ( modal dialogs ), battery status, vibration access, location access, file system access etc.
- Terms and Conditions This is the Android Software Development Kit License Agreement 1. Introduction 1.1 The Android Software Development Kit (referred to in the License Agreement as the 'SDK' and specifically including the Android system files, packaged APIs, and Google APIs add-ons) is licensed to you subject to the terms of the License Agreement.
Fig 1: Android Plugin For Unity using Android Studio - New Android Studio Project Create a New Android Studio Project and specify the details as in Fig 1. Press Next and it should ask you to select the Form Factors the app will run on.
Introduction
Android Studio plugins extend or add functionality to the Android Studio IDE.Plugins can be written in Kotlin or Java, or a mix of both, and are created using IntelliJ IDEA and the IntelliJ Platform.It’s also helpful to be familiar with Java Swing.Once completed, plugins can be packaged and distributed at JetBrains Plugin Repository.
Android Studio plugins are not Android modules or apps to run in the Android operating system, such as smartphones or tablets.
Configuring IntelliJ Platform Projects for Android Studio Plugin Development
To create a new Android Studio plugin project, follow the tutorial on the Getting Started with Gradle page.The tutorial produces a skeleton project suitable to use as a starting point for an Android Studio plugin.On the New Project Configuration Screen of the New Project Wizard tutorial, choose Gradle from the product category pane as described in the tutorial, notAndroid.
Some minor modifications to the skeleton project are needed, as discussed below.
Matching Versions of the IntelliJ Platform with the Android Studio Version
![Best android studio plugins Best android studio plugins](/uploads/1/3/4/2/134255744/723126095.jpg)
For API compatibility, it is essential to match the version of the IntelliJ Platform APIs used for plugin development with the target version of Android Studio.The version number of Android Studio contains the version of the underlying IntelliJ Platform APIs that were used to build it.
To find the version of the IntelliJ Platform used to build Android Studio, use the Android Studio About dialog screen.An example is shown below.In this case, the (BRANCH.BUILD.FIX) version of the IntelliJ Platform is
191.8026.42
, which corresponds to the IntelliJ IDEA version 2019.1.4.The build.gradle
configuration steps section below explains how to set the IntelliJ Platform version to match the target version of Android Studio.Android Studio Unity3d Plugin Installer
Configuring the Plugin build.gradle File
The use-case of developing for a non-IntelliJ IDEA IDE is reviewed in the Plugins Targeting Alternate IntelliJ Platform-Based IDEs section of the Configuring Gradle for IntelliJ Platform Plugins page.The particular example in that section discusses configuring a plugin project for PhpStorm, so the details for an Android Studio plugin project are reviewed here.
Here are the steps to configure the
build.gradle
file for developing a plugin to target Android Studio:Android Studio Plugin Manager
- The Gradle plugin attributes describing the configuration of the IntelliJ Platform used to build the plugin project must be explicitly set.Continuing with the example above, set the
intellij.version
value to191.8026.42
.Alternatively, specifyintellij.localPath
to refer to a local installation of Android Studio. - Android Studio plugin projects that use APIs from the
android
plugin must declare a dependency on that plugin. Declare the dependency inbuild.gradle
using the Gradle pluginintellij.plugins
attribute, which in this case lists the directory name of the plugin. - The best practice is to use the target version of Android Studio as the IDE Development Instance.Set the Development Instance to the (user-specific) absolute path to the target Android Studio application.
The snippet below is an example of configuring the Setup and Running DSLs in a
build.gradle
specific to developing a plugin targeted at Android Studio.intellij{// Define IntelliJ Platform against which to build the plugin project.version'191.8026.42'// Same IntelliJ IDEA version (2019.1.4) as target 3.5 Android Studiotype'IC'// Use IntelliJ IDEA CE because it's the basis of the IntelliJ Platform// Require the Android plugin, Gradle will match the plugin version to intellij.versionplugins'android'}runIde{// Absolute path to installed target 3.5 Android Studio to use as IDE Development Instance// The 'Contents' directory is macOS specific.ideDirectory'/Applications/Android Studio.app/Contents'}
Configuring the Plugin plugin.xml File
When using APIs from the
android
plugin, declare a dependency:As discussed in the Plugin Dependencies section of this guide, a plugin’s dependency on Modules Specific to Functionality must be declared in
plugin.xml
.When using Android Studio-specific features (APIs), a dependency on com.intellij.modules.androidstudio
must be declared as shown in the code snippet below.Otherwise, if only general IntelliJ Platform features (APIs) are used, then a dependency on com.intellij.modules.platform
must be declared as discussed in Plugin Compatibility with IntelliJ Platform Products.<depends>com.intellij.modules.androidstudio</depends>
Additional Articles and Resources
- Discussion of extending Android Lint - How to Register AndroidLintInspectionBase in IntelliJIdea Plugin
- Grzegorz Matyszczak’s article How I Automated Creating Files for a New Screen with My Own Android Studio Plugin
- Marcos Holgado’s article series Write an Android Studio Plugin (Part 1)
Open Source Plugins for Android Studio
When learning new development configurations, it is helpful to have some representative projects for reference:
- ADB Idea plugin for Android Studio and Intellij IDEA that speeds up Android development.
- Android postfix plugin for Android Studio.
- Flutter Plugin.
- Bal Sikandar’s list of Android Studio plugins.
FAQ
How To Sync Gradle Project
Use
com.android.tools.idea.gradle.project.sync.GradleSyncInvoker.requestProjectSync()
for programmatic synchronization.