Maintaining a Custom AndroidManifest.xml

Contents

Overview

For the most part, if you have to add properties to the AndroidManifest.xml file, you can simply add them to the application's tiapp.xml file. If you encounter a setting that you can't override in tiapp.xml, you can create a custom AndroidManifest.xml file.

How it works

When you create a new mobile application, you will now see an "android" section inside tiapp.xml. When empty, it just looks like this:

Note we've included the official Android namespace qualifier, and the reason for that is because we wanted the ability to take things out of this section and plop them right into the AndroidManifest.xml for you. To that end, things that you put inside of a "manifest" sub-element will be put into your android manifest for you at build time. See tiapp.xml and timodule.xml Reference for details on elements that you can put in the tiapp.xml file.

Custom Manifest Entries in tiapp.xml

For the most part, if you add a manifest entry to the tiapp.xml file, it replaces the entry in the generated file. Consider the following section of a tiapp.xml file:

Most elements inside the <manifest> will be added as children to the <manifest> element inside of AndroidManifest.xml at build time, with some intelligence built in. The <supports-screen> tag in your tiapp.xml replaces the  default <supports-screen> tag.

The manifest's all-important <application> element is handled differently. Your elements are applied additively, rather than replacing the whole <application> element.

For example, let's say you want the debuggable attribute of <application> to be set to true (it's false in the default manifest template), you can do this:

The official Android Developers website describes all the other elements that are supported, such as <service>, <uses-permission> and <activity> for instance, and these will be added using the same logic.

Using a Custom Manifest

In rare circumstances, you may still need to create a custom AndroidManifest.xml. If this is the case, be aware of the following advice:

• Name the custom manifest  file AndroidManifest.xml, and put it in the directory platform/android beneath your application's root project directory. 
  
  Create the platform directory if you need to, ensuring that the directory is a sibling of the "Resources" directory, (right below your project root).
  
  
  
  
• If you do have a custom manifest, generates a file named AndroidManifest.xml.gen in the build/android directory during each build. You can use this to see the AndroidManifest.xml that would be generated by default.

Ensuring Android Shuts Down Apps Cleanly

The are times when an application needs to be shut down by the platform outside of the application context, such as when the user changes fundamental system settings or lets the app sleep for long periods. Unfortunately, Android's primitive kill process sometimes leads to a known problem where the app is only partially shut down. The solution for Titanium apps is to set the alwaysRetainTaskState parameter in the AndroidManifest.xml file, as follows (this one is taken from the KitchenSink):