Injecting Gradle plugins (classpath) in Android builds (AIR 51.2+)

[IvakhnenkoDmytro]

Hi everyone,

I'm trying to integrate the AppLovin Quality Service (Ad Review) plugin.

As per AppLovin's requirements, the plugin needs to be added via the buildscript block using classpath:

buildscript {
    dependencies {
        classpath "com.applovin.quality:AppLovinQualityServiceGradlePlugin:5.11.2"
    }
}

I've tried adding this via the <dependencies> section in the ANE's platform.xml, but it fails because classpath() is not recognized inside the standard dependencies block (it results in: Could not find method classpath()).

My question is: Is there any way to inject a buildscript dependency or apply a custom Gradle plugin into build process?

Thanks in advance for any insights!

[marchbold]

We currently only have gradle options for repositories and application level dependencies (not project level).

<gradle>
  <repositories>
  </repositories>
  <dependencies>
  </dependencies>
</gradle>

@ajwfrost This would be a good addition if possible, however may be difficult as these build script dependencies often require different additions to the app level build.grade eg for this one it needs:

apply plugin: 'applovin-quality-service'
applovin {
  apiKey "«ad-review-key»"
}

So might require a

<gradle>
  <buildscript>
    <dependencies>
      <dependency>classpath "com.applovin.quality:AppLovinQualityServiceGradlePlugin:5.11.2"</dependency>
    </dependencies>
  </buildscript>
  <customAdditions><![CDATA[
apply plugin: 'applovin-quality-service'
applovin {
  apiKey "«ad-review-key»"
}
]]></customAdditions>
</gradle>

Would be a good addition though as could simplify configuration of several services.

[ajwfrost]

Just to check here .. I don't think that we currently support the necessary functionality under the <dependency> block for this scenario, because this would result in dependencies listed at the top level within the application module's build.gradle file. Which is intended for the Java-type dependencies of an ANE library..

So for this, I just noticed the extra <buildscript> entry in your proposed structure which would then mean we could have something like:

<gradle>
  <!-- existing bits: -->
  <repositories>
  </repositories>
  <dependencies>
  </dependencies>
  <!-- new proposal: -->
  <buildscript>
    <dependencies>
      <dependency>classpath "com.applovin.quality:AppLovinQualityServiceGradlePlugin:5.11.2"</dependency>
    </dependencies>
  </buildscript>
  <customAdditions><![CDATA[
    apply plugin: 'applovin-quality-service'
    applovin {
      apiKey "«ad-review-key»"
    }
    ]]>
  </customAdditions>
</gradle>

Where would those new entries need to be placed in the generated Gradle project? Looking at the instructions on that Axon website, there are repositories to add to the app-level file (but our repositories would add to the root level?) as well as an "implementation" to add to the app-level dependencies (fine in existing functionality). Then there's a maven repository to add to the root (fine) and a "classpath" dependency to add to the root (which would be new). Finally there's those custom additions to make to the app-level file.

It seems a shame that we appear to already have two elements here - repositories and dependencies - which are then resulting in different files being updated. It would have been better to have <gradle> as a root element then maybe <rootBuildGradle> and <appBuildGradle> as sub-elements, with each of those having the ability to add repositories/dependencies/etc.

Or else we make it a little more generic perhaps and do some Groovy parsing to try to merge things via that 'customAdditions' element - or at least, with one of those for each of the files? maybe:

<gradle>
  <!-- existing bits but could be phased out.. -->
  <repositories>
  </repositories>
  <dependencies>
  </dependencies>
  <!-- new proposal: -->
  <rootAdditions><![CDATA[
      buildscript {
        repositories {
          maven { url 'https://artifacts.applovin.com/android' }
        }
        dependencies {
          classpath "com.applovin.quality:AppLovinQualityServiceGradlePlugin:+"
        }
      }
    ]]>
  </rootAdditions>
  <appAdditions><![CDATA[
      repositories {
        google()
        mavenCentral()
      }
      dependencies {
        implementation 'com.applovin:applovin-sdk:+'
      }
      apply plugin: 'applovin-quality-service'
      applovin {
        apiKey "«ad-review-key»"
      }
    ]]>
  </appAdditions>

</gradle>

Not sure if there are particular orders that things need to appear in though..!
Let me know if that makes sense and what sort of thing might work in as flexible/future-proof a way as possible!

thanks