These instructions will help you to set up your development environment, get the source code of the Nextcloud for Android app and build it by yourself. If you want to help developing the app take a look to the [contribution guidelines][0].
Sections 1) and 2) are common for any environment. The rest of the sections describe how to set up a project in different tool environments. Nowadays we recommend to use Android Studio (section 2), but you can also build the app from the command line (section 3).
If you have any problem, remove the 'android' folder, start again from 1) and work your way down. If something still does not work as described here, please open a new issue describing exactly what you did, what happened, and what should have happened.
[git][1] is used to access to the different versions of the Nextcloud's source code. Download and install the version appropriate for your operating system from [here][2]. Add the full path to the 'bin/' directory from your git installation into the PATH variable of your environment so that it can be used from any location.
The [Android SDK][3] is necessary to build the app. There are different options to install it in your system, depending of the IDE you decide to use. Check Google documentation about [installation][4] for more details on these options. After installing it, add the full path to the directories 'tools/' and 'platform-tools/' from your Android SDK installation into the PATH variable of your environment.
Open a terminal and type 'android' to start the Android SDK Manager. To build the Nextcloud for Android app you will need to install at least the next SDK packages:
You will need [git][1] to access to the different versions of the Nextcloud's source code. The source code is hosted on GitHub and may be read by anybody, without a GitHub account. You will need one if you want to contribute to the development of the app with your own code.
[Android Studio][5] is currently the official Android IDE. Due to this, we recommend it as the IDE to use in your development environment. Follow the installation instructions [here][6].
We recommend to use the last version available in the stable channel of Android Studio updates. See what update channel is your Android Studio checking for updates in the menu path 'Help'/'Check for Update…'/link 'Updates' in the dialog.
* Open Android Studio and select 'Import Project (Eclipse ADT, Gradle, etc)'. Browse through your file system to the folder 'android' where the project is located. Android Studio will then create the '.iml' files it needs. If you ever close the project but the files are still there, you just select 'Open Project…'. The file chooser will show an Android face as the folder icon, which you can select to reopen the project.
* Android Studio will try to build the project directly after importing it. To build it manually, follow the menu path 'Build'/'Make Project', or just click the 'Play' button in the toolbar to build and run it in a mobile device or an emulator. The resulting APK file will be saved in the 'build/outputs/apk/' subdirectory in the project folder.
[Gradle][7] is the build system used by Android Studio to manage the building operations on Android apps. You do not need to install Gradle in your system, and Google recommends not to do it, but instead trusting on the [Gradle wrapper][8] included in the project.