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Tina4Pascal — Android shell

The Tina4 native renderer running on Android. Every pixel is drawn by the Free Pascal core (src/) through android.graphics.Canvas over JNI — the same architecture as the macOS Cocoa shell, just a different TTina4Canvas.

 Java Tina4View.onDraw(Canvas)
        │  JNI
        ▼
 libtina4.so  ── nativePaint(canvas,w,h) ──▶ TAndroidCanvas (JNI → Canvas/Paint/Path)
        │                                        ▲
        └─ parse HTML → layout → PaintBox ────────┘   (the portable core)
  • jni/tina4jni.pas — JNI exports; hosts the app (parse → layout → paint).
  • src/Tina4ShellAndroid.pas — TAndroidCanvas/TAndroidShell (in the repo src/).
  • app/ — a minimal Gradle app: one Tina4View, one MainActivity, assets/index.html as the document.

Size

The whole engine is ~1.08 MB (libtina4.so, arm64, stripped) — compresses to ~285 KB in the APK. No AndroidX/Compose, so the APK is ~0.3–0.4 MB.

Build & run

Prerequisites: the FPC Android cross-compiler at ~/fpc (see docs/TOOLCHAIN.md), the Android SDK (Android Studio), and a device with USB debugging on (adb devices shows it).

# 1. build the native renderer (arm64) → app/src/main/jniLibs/arm64-v8a/
cd android
./build.sh

# 2. build + install the APK (needs the Android SDK / Android Studio)
./gradlew installDebug
adb shell am start -n com.tina4.pascal/.MainActivity

Build on Windows (no Gradle, no Mac, no WSL)

A scaffolded project builds a signed APK entirely on a Windows host:

tools\tina4pascal.ps1 setup android      # one-time: fetch NDK r21e + build the FPC cross
cd myproject
tools\tina4pascal.ps1 build android       # → build\android\myproject.apk (arm64-v8a + armeabi-v7a)

Default ABIs are the real-device pair; override with tina4.json "androidAbis" or $env:TINA4_ANDROID_ABIS — add x86_64 to run on the standard x86_64 emulator:

$env:TINA4_ANDROID_ABIS = 'arm64-v8a armeabi-v7a x86_64'
tools\tina4pascal.ps1 build android
adb install -r build\android\myproject.apk
adb shell am start -n <bundleId>/com.tina4.pascal.MainActivity

Verified live on an android-36 x86_64 emulator: libtina4.so loads and the FPC engine renders the UI through JNI → android.graphics.Canvas.

How it works — the CLI resolves every tool by explicit path (never PATH):

  • FPC → libtina4.so: stock FPC has no Android cross-compiler, so setup android builds one from FPC source against NDK r21e (the last NDK that still ships the GNU as/ld FPC 3.2.2 drives) and installs a version-locked pack — ppcrossa64.exe/ppcrossarm.exe + aarch64/arm-android RTL + jni/fpkg units — into the FPC tree. See toolchain\build-android-cross.ps1; that same script is the "rebuild on every FPC release" CI step (the .ppu are FPC-version-stamped, never committed).
  • Packaging: the project's UI is rendered to showcase.html (--dump-html), then javac → d8 → aapt2 → zipalign → apksigner from the Windows Android SDK build-tools produce a debug-signed APK with the project's own applicationId.

tools\tina4pascal.ps1 doctor reports the whole chain (FPC crosses, SDK, build-tools, platform, NDK, JDK).

Or open the android/ folder in Android Studio and press Run. Gradle bundles the prebuilt libtina4.so; it does not rebuild it — re-run ./build.sh after changing any Pascal source.

To render a different page, replace app/src/main/assets/index.html.

Status

MVP: static documents render (text, type, lists, SVG vector, cards, buttons, colours) with Android's own text shaping + anti-aliasing. Touches are hit-tested natively (nativeTouch → HitTest → nearest onclick/link). Not yet wired: scrolling, text input/IME, image decode (<img>), and routing onclick to app handlers — these are the next steps, mirroring the desktop viewer. arm64 only for now; add ABIs in app/build.gradle + build.sh.