LiveCode for FM Guide Ben Lui

Fine Tuning - Android Platform Settings

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On the advanced Android settings screen you can choose a variety of options, add icons, choose the minimum OS version you want to support, select architectures and sign your app.

On the Platform Settings tab, you have the following options:

  1. Change the Orientation options. Set the initial orientation your app loads in, and choose which orientations your app supports.
  2. Automatic Scaling. This menu allows you to set how you would like your app to behave on different sizes of Android devices. You can choose from:
    1. No automatic scaling - your app will remain fixed in size according to the exact size of your layout. This could result in edges being cut off in smaller devices, or lots of white space around the layout in larger devices. Best used when you know the size and shape of device your app will be used on and can design to fit.
    2. Stretch layouts to fill screen - a catch all option. Your app will always fill the screen and never lose anything over the edge. However, it may become distorted on devices that are a lot different to the shape your app was designed for.
    3. Scale layouts down to fit screen. Again, you'll never lose any bits of your interface off the edge of the screen, but you could end up with very tiny text or buttons if you are scaling down a large layout to fit a small screen. If the shape of the screen differs from the shape designed, you will get a "letterbox" effect, with black edges showing top and bottom.
    4. Scale layouts up to fit screen. If you designed for the smallest possible device, and your app is run on a much bigger one, the objects will be scaled up to fit. Potentially could result in fuzziness depending on the difference in displays. Again, you will have a letterbox effect if the shapes differ.
    5. Center layout on screen. Always show the most important parts of your app, assuming you designed these to be in the middle of your layout. This can be a good option, if you design a mobile layout that has wide margins, with important buttons and fields in the middle.
  3. Select an app icon and a status bar icon for your app. The standard size for a Google Play store app icon is 512x512px. For more information about icon guidelines go here. If your app uses local notifications you also need a status bar icon.
  4. Check this box to hide the status bar
  5. Set the minimum version of Android OS your app will support. Generally speaking, if you leave this at the lowest supported OS for LCFM Native, then all higher OS's should be supported and you will get the broadest range of devices for your users. If you know that your users will be using later OS's you can enter a higher OS here. LCFM Native officially supports Android versions which are still receiving software updates - at this time this is Android 7 or above.
  6. Install Location. If your app is entirely offline, then you can leave this on Internal storage only. If you are syncing with a server, you will need either allow or prefer external storage.
  7. Architectures. Here you choose what type of architectures you want to support in your app. If you check all these boxes, then your app will be built to support all possible architectures. However, it will also be 4x as big as if you only check one box. For a discussion on what you need to support, when and why, this is a good article.
  8. Hardware accelerated. Leave this ticked.
  9. If you are just testing, leave this blank and LCFM Native will sign your app for you. If you're ready for full deployment, then you need a signing keystore of your own and you can enter the details for it here.
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