PocketCosmos

A gravity simulation sandbox running on multiple platforms:

Windows, Linux, Android

Intended to run on mobile devices with touch screen.

Table of content

• Installation
  • Windows
  • Android
• Packaging / Building
  • Buildozer (APK)
  • PyInstaller (EXE)
• Links
  • Tech
  • Artists

Installation

See Releases for prebuilt versions.

Windows

Unzip the windows release to a place you trust. Then Navigate into the main folder and start main.exe.

Expect missing missing *.dll errors on startup, these are caused by the sound module and must be investigated in future releases.

Android

Download the android release (apk) to your device. Then make sure you allow the installation of untrusted software (and disallow it after installation!).

Use a file explorer app of your choice, navigate to your downloads folders and install the app by executing the apk file.

Packaging / Building

Buildings has been tested using Ubuntu 16.04 LTS and Ubuntu 18.04 LTS.

Requirements:

• Python 2.7* / 3.X
• Kivy 1.10.0
• buildozer (to build for android)
• pyinstaller (to build for windows)

Currently using versions (Python2):

• Cython version 0.25.1
• Kivy version 1.10.0
• Buildozer version 0.34
• python-for-android version > 0.6.0 (a036f4442b6a232d0c3a96c0b9d223e1b8cfe1d4)
• wine version 1.6.2

Currently using versions (Python3):

• Cython version 0.29.6
• Kivy version 1.10.0
• Buildozer version 0.39
• python-for-android version > 0.7.0 (25e5acce19cf53119f0be94f2a8c0cebcfe78353)
• wine version 1.6.2

PocketCosmos can be built into an android app using buildozer (apk) and into a windows EXE-file using pyinstaller.

Each engine found in the engine_src directory represents a python-for-android recipe which must be accessible for p4a during the build process invoked by buildozer.

To build EXE files these engines must be installed into the python environment calling PyInstaller.

Check Kivy Installation Docs for details on kivy installation and dependencies.

build_helper.py NEEDS REWORK:

Some of the tasks neccessary to build PocketCosmos have been automated in the build_helper.py script. Alter its global variables depending on your build environment. The docstring may be helpful to reproduce these steps or alter the script depending on your setup and needs.

python build_helper.py -h
usage: build_helper.py [-h] [-b] [-p] [-c] [-w]

optional arguments:
  -h, --help       show this help message and exit
  -b, --build      Build engines copy to current directory
  -p, --p4a        Copy new engines to p4a recipes dir
  -c, --clear      Clear build to force rebuilding app
  -w, --winebuild  Build windows release using wine.

Buildozer (APK)

buildozer.spec is part of this repository and must be slightly altered to work on your system. See comments for more detail.

Following guide shows how to build an environment to create APK files using python3, buildozer and python-for-android toolchain.

I recommend working inside a virtualenv to set up the build environment:

virtualenv -p python3 venv3
. venv3/bin/activate.fish

All commands from now are assumed to run inside the venv3 environment. Install modules from requirements.txt:

cd path/to/your/PlanetAppV2
pip install -r requirements.txt

[Optional] For testing purposes install both engines:

cd path/to/your/PlanetAppV2/engine_src/cplanet/src
python setup.py install
cd path/to/your/PlanetAppV2/engine_src/crk4engine/src
python setup.py install

[Optional] Now main.py can be called, e.g. like:

cd path/to/your/PlanetAppV2
python main.py -m screen:s3,landscape

[Optional] Check on screen options here

Now we need to prepare the buildozer.spec file. I prefer to use a pinned python-for-android checkout, where i copy both engines from PlanetAppV2/engine_src directory to the python-for-android pythonforandroid/recipes folder:

cd place/u/trust
git clone https://github.com/kivy/python-for-android
cp -r path/to/your/PlanetAppV2/engine_src/* place/u/trust/python-for-android/pythonforandroid/recipes

Now set p4a.source_dir = place/u/trust/python-for-android in your buildozer.spec file.

Another even simpler approach would be to use the p4a.local_recipes = path/to/your/PlanetAppV2/engine_src/ setting if you want buildozer to clone python-for-android for you.

Buildozer should now be able to install all requirements from requirements = python3,kivy,cplanet,crk4engine into the APKs Python environment.

Start buildozer run, verbose mode is strongly recommended. Expect first run to take some time due to lots of downloads and builds for ARM environment being made:

cd path/to/your/PlanetAppV2/
buildozer -v android debug

If everything works fine you will find the APK file in the bin directory. This toolchain has proven to be quite fuzzy over the past years. Version pinning, especially cython, is therefore strongly recommended to avoid strange errors during APK build process.

PyInstaller (EXE)

Windows build has been tested using pyinstaller installed into a virtualwine environment. main.spec can be altered and used with pyinstaller to build EXE-files.

Make sure your wine environment has following components installed:

• Python 3.4.4
• Kivy + Dependencies
• MinGW

First set up your new wine environment and activate it:

cd path/where/ur/wines/live
vwine-setup python3wine
. python3wine/bin/activate.fish

All commands mentioned from here must run inside the (python3wine) environment. Now install Python3.4:

cd path/where/u/keep/python34
wine msiexec -i python-3.4.4.msi

Install MinGW C / C++ compiler which is needed to build engines:

cd path/where/u/keep/MinGW
wine mingw-get-setup.exe

If you experience any trouble with MinGW usage, try steps mentioned here

Editing PATH variable in wine is explained here

It may be useful to add C:\Python34\ and C:\Python34\scripts\ to PATH as well for easier python.exe and pip.exe invocation.

Now start installing python packages:

cd path/where/ur/wines/live/python3wine/drive_c/Python34/ # ..or your add "C:\Python34\" to PATH
wine python.exe -m pip install cython
wine python.exe -m pip install kivy==1.10.0
wine python.exe -m pip install pyInstaller
wine python.exe -m pip install docutils pygments kivy.deps.sdl2 kivy.deps.glew

Now go to a place familiar (i recommend the drive_c folder) and get a fresh PocketCosmos checkout:

cd path/where/ur/wines/live/python3wine/drive_c/
git clone https://github.com/gandie/PlanetAppV2

Install engines, start with cplanet:

cd place/to/your/PlanetAppV2/engine_src/cplanet/src/
wine C:/Python34/python.exe setup.py build --compiler=mingw32
wine C:/Python34/python.exe setup.py install

... and same procedure to install crk4engine:

cd place/to/your/PlanetAppV2/engine_src/crk4engine/src/
wine C:/Python34/python.exe setup.py build --compiler=mingw32
wine C:/Python34/python.exe setup.py install

Now we have everything we need, we can build the EXE file:

cd place/to/your/PlanetAppV2/
wine C:/Python34/python.exe -m PyInstaller main.spec

You can find the main.exe file in the dist/main/ directory bundled with all file assets needed. Test call:

cd place/to/your/PlanetAppV2/dist/main
wine main.exe

Links

Tech

• Kivy Docs
• Buildozer Docs
• python-for-android
• MinGW
• virtualwine

Artists

• rafikibeats music
• IKONE graphics