Titanium

The Nixpkgs repository contains facilities to deploy a variety of versions of the Titanium SDK versions, a cross-platform mobile app development framework using JavaScript as an implementation language, and includes a function abstraction making it possible to build Titanium applications for Android and iOS devices from source code.

Not all Titanium features supported -- currently, it can only be used to build Android and iOS apps.

Building a Titanium app

We can build a Titanium app from source for Android or iOS and for debugging or release purposes by invoking the titaniumenv.buildApp {} function:

titaniumenv.buildApp {
  name = "myapp";
  src = ./myappsource;

  preBuild = "";
  target = "android"; # or 'iphone'
  tiVersion = "7.1.0.GA";
  release = true;

  androidsdkArgs = {
    platformVersions = [ "25" "26" ];
  };
  androidKeyStore = ./keystore;
  androidKeyAlias = "myfirstapp";
  androidKeyStorePassword = "secret";

  xcodeBaseDir = "/Applications/Xcode.app";
  xcodewrapperArgs = {
    version = "9.3";
  };
  iosMobileProvisioningProfile = ./myprovisioning.profile;
  iosCertificateName = "My Company";
  iosCertificate = ./mycertificate.p12;
  iosCertificatePassword = "secret";
  iosVersion = "11.3";
  iosBuildStore = false;

  enableWirelessDistribution = true;
  installURL = "/installipa.php";
}

The titaniumenv.buildApp {} function takes the following parameters:

  • The name parameter refers to the name in the Nix store.
  • The src parameter refers to the source code location of the app that needs to be built.
  • preRebuild contains optional build instructions that are carried out before the build starts.
  • target indicates for which device the app must be built. Currently only 'android' and 'iphone' (for iOS) are supported.
  • tiVersion can be used to optionally override the requested Titanium version in tiapp.xml. If not specified, it will use the version in tiapp.xml.
  • release should be set to true when building an app for submission to the Google Playstore or Apple Appstore. Otherwise, it should be false.

When the target has been set to android, we can configure the following parameters:

  • The androidSdkArgs parameter refers to an attribute set that propagates all parameters to the androidenv.composeAndroidPackages {} function. This can be used to install all relevant Android plugins that may be needed to perform the Android build. If no parameters are given, it will deploy the platform SDKs for API-levels 25 and 26 by default.

When the release parameter has been set to true, you need to provide parameters to sign the app:

  • androidKeyStore is the path to the keystore file
  • androidKeyAlias is the key alias
  • androidKeyStorePassword refers to the password to open the keystore file.

When the target has been set to iphone, we can configure the following parameters:

  • The xcodeBaseDir parameter refers to the location where Xcode has been installed. When none value is given, the above value is the default.
  • The xcodewrapperArgs parameter passes arbitrary parameters to the xcodeenv.composeXcodeWrapper {} function. This can, for example, be used to adjust the default version of Xcode.

When release has been set to true, you also need to provide the following parameters:

  • iosMobileProvisioningProfile refers to a mobile provisioning profile needed for signing.
  • iosCertificateName refers to the company name in the P12 certificate.
  • iosCertificate refers to the path to the P12 file.
  • iosCertificatePassword contains the password to open the P12 file.
  • iosVersion refers to the iOS SDK version to use. It defaults to the latest version.
  • iosBuildStore should be set to true when building for the Apple Appstore submission. For enterprise or ad-hoc builds it should be set to false.

When enableWirelessDistribution has been enabled, you must also provide the path of the PHP script (installURL) (that is included with the iOS build environment) to enable wireless ad-hoc installations.

Emulating or simulating the app

It is also possible to simulate the correspond iOS simulator build by using xcodeenv.simulateApp {} and emulate an Android APK by using androidenv.emulateApp {}.