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Cordova Android 7.0.0 Released!
By: Joe Bowser
04 Dec 2017

We are happy to announce that Cordova Android 7.0.0 has been released!

With this release, we have changed the default project structure for Android projects. People who currently use the CLI and treat everything in the platforms directory as a build artifact should not notice a difference.

However this a major breaking change for people creating standalone Cordova Android projects. This also means that the locations of files have changed and have been brought in line to the structure used by Android Studio.
This may affect plugin.xml files and config.xml files that use edit-config, and make it so plugins that use edit-config will not be able to be compatible with both Android 6.x and Android 7.x. To fix this issue, please do the following in your XML files:

<!-- An existing config.xml -->
<edit-config file="AndroidManifest.xml" target="/manifest/application" mode="merge">

<!-- needs to change to -->
<edit-config file="app/src/main/AndroidManifest.xml" target="/manifest/application" mode="merge">

Major Changes include:

  • Support for Java 1.8 language features in Cordova Plugins
  • CordovaInterface now has a Context getter so that contexts can be retrieved without an Activity
  • Cordova can now build for x86_64, arm64 and armeabi architecture when building plugins that use the NDK
  • The minimum Android API version supported is now API Level 19
  • Due to the directory structure change, we no longer support in-line upgrading, bringing us in line with iOS
  • ANT builds are no longer supported and the functionality has been removed.

To upgrade:

npm install -g cordova
cd my_project
cordova platform remove android
cordova platform add android@7.0.0

To add it explicitly:

cordova platform add android@7.0.0

Curated Changelog

  • CB-13612 Fix the remapper so that XML files copy over and the Camera works again.
  • CB-13741 Bump package.json so we can install plugins
  • CB-13610 Compress the default app assets
  • CB-12835 add a Context getter in CordovaInterface
  • CB-8976 Added the cdvVersionCodeForceAbiDigit flag to the template build.gradle that appends 0 to the versionCode when cdvBuildMultipleApks is not set
  • CB-12291 (android) Add x86_64, arm64 and armeabi architecture flavors
  • CB-13602 We were setting the path wrong, this is hacky but it works
  • CB-13601 Fixing the standalone run scripts to make sure this works without using the CLI
  • CB-13580 fix build for multiple apks (different product flavors)
  • CB-13558 Upgrading the gradle so we can upload the AAR
  • CB-13297 This just works once you bump the project structure. Java 1.8 compatibility baked-in
  • CB-11244 Android Studio 3 work, things have changed with how the platform is built
  • CB-11244 Found bug where the gradle subproject changes weren't actually getting written to the correct gradle file
  • CB-13470 Fix Clean so that it cleans the Android Studio structure
  • CB-11244 Adding specs for resource files inside an Android Studio Project
  • CB-11244 Added remapping for drawables
  • CB-11244 Found bug in Api.js where xml/strings.xml is used instead of values/strings.xml
  • CB-11244 Setup Api.js to support multiple builders based on project structure
  • CB-11244 Changing directory creation, will most likely hide this behind a flag for the next release of cordova-android, and then make it default in the next major pending feedback
  • Adding the Studio Builder to build a project based on Android Studio, and deleting Ant, since Google does not support Ant Builds anymore. Sorry!