Ok so you already know how to build your android library and publish it to JCenter/MavenCentral. This post is third in parts of a series. P.S. : If you dont know how to , go ahead and have a look Guide to publishing your Android Library via Jcenter/Bintray Guide to publishing your Android Library via MavenCentral Guide to publishing your Android Library via JitPack The very first question that people would have is »
If you come from the java world, you would already be knowing about MavenCentral in a big way. MavenCentral is the central repository which hosts all the maven artifacts and one can reference them from anywhere in the world. Android artifacts can also be hosted on MavenCentral in a similar manner. Here I am going to document the process to publish an android library to MavenCentral, as I followed it. »
Developers are a different kind of people altogether. They tend to be lazy but strive to be super efficient at the same time. A lot of this can be seen in the Android world where a certain library pops up everyday to solve a specific problem or to make the complex processes simpler. I have a certain knack for re-using code blocks just to avoid repeative tasks and to facilitate this I usually end up converting those codeblocks into an android library. »
I am pretty sure you would agree to the fact that the usual javadoc is not a something everyone likes. The colors are what makes it superrrrrrr boring. Yeah , I actually despise those weird colors and the fact that its been around for so long , made me think how to solve this. Also if you try looking it up on the internet there aren’t any solutions that basically solved this in a programmatic way. »
If I were to ask a question to a room filled with android developers “How many of you have been in that place of sheer helplessness and panic when your gradle build fails because of a version conflict in dependencies?” ..I am pretty sure a lot of them would raise their hand or agree to being in that state and the very first action would be to hop onto stackoverflow and search for possible solutions in this type of a situation. »
The world of artifacts and the way they make the life of a developer simpler, fascinates me to a great extent. For the same reason I have gone through a lot of good articles online, which explain how the whole process works. However most of the documentation is either not up to date or lacks proper explanation. Personally all I care about is how does it work and how can I make it simpler. »
Have you ever thought how the central repository works like Maven Central or JCenter? Is it possible to own one for yourself? Do you want to host your artifacts in your own private repository? If your answer is YES, well you are in the right place. I am going to walk you through basic steps involved in setting up your own maven repository where you can publish your artifacts, using all but your terminal, git and a public remote repository hosting service of your choice ( i. »
JACK & JILL are part of the new tool chain for android and in the words of Android Developer Blog they are designed to improve build times and simplify development by reducing dependencies on other tools In case you are curious, JACK stands for Java Android Compiler Kit and JILL stands for Jack Intermediate Library Linker. Woa ..woa..wooaaaa ..thats sounds too technical ..lets slow this down, right. JACK & JILL were released as an experimental tool chain in the Android SDK 21. »