Android plugin for Gradle, revision 1.5.0 (November 2015)

Dependencies:
Minimum version Default version Notes
Gradle 2.2.1 2.2.1 To learn more, see updating Gradle.
SDK Build Tools 21.1.1 21.1.1 Install or configure SDK Build Tools.
General Notes:
  • Integrated the Data Binding plugin into the Android plugin for Gradle. To enable it, add the following code to each per-project build.gradle file that uses the plugin:
    • android {
    dataBinding {
        enabled = true
    }
}
        
    android {
    dataBinding {
        enabled = true
    }
}
  • Added a new Transform API to allow third-party plugins to manipulate compiled .class files before they’re converted to .dex files. The Transform API simplifies injecting custom class manipulations while offering more flexibility regarding what you can manipulate. To insert a transform into a build, create a new class implementing one of the Transform interfaces, and register it with android.registerTransform(theTransform) or android.registerTransform(theTransform, dependencies). There’s no need to wire tasks together. Note the following about the Transform API:
    • A transform can apply to one or more of the following: the current project, subprojects, and external libraries.
    • A transform must be registered globally, which applies them to all variants.
    • Internal code processing, through the Java Code Coverage Library (JaCoCo), ProGuard, and MultiDex, now uses the Transform API. However, the Java Android Compiler Kit (Jack) doesn’t use this API: only the javac/dx code path does.
    • Gradle executes the transforms in this order: JaCoCo, third-party plugins, ProGuard. The execution order for third-party plugins matches the order in which the transforms are added by the third party plugins; third-party plugin developers can't control the execution order of the transforms through an API.
  • Deprecated the dex getter from the ApplicationVariant class. You can't access the Dex task through the variant API anymore because it’s now accomplished through a transform. There's currently no replacement for controlling the dex process.
  • Fixed incremental support for assets.
  • Improved MultiDex support by making it available for test projects, and tests now automatically have the com.android.support:multidex-instrumentation dependency.
  • Added the ability to properly fail a Gradle build and report the underlying error cause when the Gradle build invokes asynchronous tasks and there’s a failure in the worker process.
  • Added support for configuring a specific Application Binary Interface (ABI) in variants that contain multiple ABIs.
  • Added support for a comma-separated list of device serial numbers for the ANDROID_SERIAL environment variable when installing or running tests.
  • Fixed an installation failure on devices running Android 5.0 (API level 20) and higher when the APK name contains a space.
  • Fixed various issues related to the Android Asset Packaging Tool (AAPT) error output.
  • Added JaCoCo incremental instrumentation support for faster incremental builds. The Android plugin for Gradle now invokes the JaCoCo instrumenter directly. To force a newer version of the JaCoCo instrumenter, you need to add it as a build script dependency.
  • Fixed JaCoCo support so it ignores files that aren’t classes.
  • Added vector drawable support for generating PNGs at build time for backward-compatibility. Android plugin for Gradle generates PNGs for every vector drawable found in a resource directory that doesn’t specify an API version or specifies an android:minSdkVersion attribute of 20 or lower in the <uses-sdk> element in the app manifest. You can set PNG densities by using the generatedDensities property in the defaultConfig or productFlavor sections of a build.gradle file.
  • Added sharing of the mockable android.jar, which the plugin generates only once and uses for unit testing. Multiple modules, such as app and lib, now share it. Delete $rootDir/build to regenerate it.
  • Changed the processing of Java resources to occur before the obfuscation tasks instead of during the packaging of the APK. This change allows the obfuscation tasks to have a chance to adapt the Java resources following packages obfuscation.
  • Fixed an issue with using Java Native Interface (JNI) code in the experimental library plugin.
  • Added the ability to set the platform version separately from the android:compileSdkVersion attribute in the experimental library plugin.