Different app names for different build flavors?

Question

I have 2 build flavors, say, flavor1 and flavor2.

I would like my application to be named, say, \"AppFlavor1\" when I build for flavor1 an

Answer 1

Another option that I actually use is change the manifest for each application. Instead of copy the resource folder, you can create a manifest for each flavour.

sourceSets {
  main {
 }

  release {
    manifest.srcFile 'src/release/AndroidManifest.xml'
 }

  debug {
    manifest.srcFile 'src/debug/AndroidManifest.xml'
 }
}

You have to have a principal AndroidManifest in your src main that will be the principal. Then you can define a manifest with only some options for each flavour like (src/release/AndroidManifest.xml):

<manifest package="com.application.yourapp">
  <application android:icon="@drawable/ic_launcher">
  </application>
</manifest>

For debug, AndroidManifest (src/debug/AndroidManifest.xml):

<manifest package="com.application.yourapp">
  <application android:icon="@drawable/ic_launcher2">
  </application>
</manifest>

Compiler will do a merge of the manifest and you can have a icon for each flavour.

Answer 2

In AndroidManifest file, in the application tag you have this line:

android:label

And there you can say how to application label will appear in applications menu on device

Answer 3

How do I make string/app_name different per flavor though?

I wanted to write an update, but realized that it is bigger than the original answer saying that I use a Python script that patches the source.

The Python script has a parameter, a directory name. That directory contains per-flavor assets, resources like launcher icons, and the file properties.txt with a Python dictionary.

{ 'someBoolean' : True
, 'someParam' : 'none'
, 'appTitle' : '@string/x_app_name_xyz'
}

The Python script loads the dictionary from that file and replaces the value between <string name="app_name"> and </string> by the value of properties['appTitle'].

The below code is provided on the as-is/as-was basis etc.

for strings_xml in glob.glob("res/values*/strings.xml"):
    fileReplace(strings_xml,'<string name="app_name">',properties['appTitle'],'</string>',oldtextpattern=r"[a-zA-Z0-9_/@\- ]+")

to read properties from one or more such file:

with open(filename1) as f:
    properties = eval(f.read())
with open(filename2) as f:
    properties.update(eval(f.read()))

and the fileReplace function is:

really = True
#False for debugging

# In the file 'fname',
# find the text matching "before oldtext after" (all occurrences) and
# replace 'oldtext' with 'newtext' (all occurrences).
# If 'mandatory' is true, raise an exception if no replacements were made.
def fileReplace(fname,before,newtext,after,oldtextpattern=r"[\w.]+",mandatory=True):
    with open(fname, 'r+') as f:
        read_data = f.read()
        pattern = r"("+re.escape(before)+r")"+oldtextpattern+"("+re.escape(after)+r")"
        replacement = r"\g<1>"+newtext+r"\g<2>"
        new_data,replacements_made = re.subn(pattern,replacement,read_data,flags=re.MULTILINE)
        if replacements_made and really:
            f.seek(0)
            f.truncate()
            f.write(new_data)
            if verbose:
                print "patching ",fname," (",replacements_made," occurrence" + ("s" if 1!=replacements_made else ""),")",newtext,("-- no changes" if new_data==read_data else "-- ***CHANGED***")
        elif replacements_made:
            print fname,":"
            print new_data
        elif mandatory:
            raise Exception("cannot patch the file: "+fname+" with ["+newtext+"] instead of '"+before+"{"+oldtextpattern+"}"+after+"'")

The first lines of the script are:

#!/usr/bin/python
# coding: utf-8

import sys
import os
import re
import os.path
import shutil
import argparse
import string
import glob
from myutils import copytreeover

Answer 4

Remove app_name from strings.xml (else gradle will complain of duplicate resources). Then modify build file like this:

productFlavors {
    flavor1{
        resValue "string", "app_name", "AppNameFlavor1"
    }

    flavor2{
        resValue "string", "app_name", "AppNameFlavor2"
    }
   } 

Also make sure @string/app_name value is assigned for android:label attribute in the manifest.

<application
        ...
        android:label="@string/app_name"
        ...

This is less disruptive than creating new strings.xml under different built sets or writing custom scripts.

Answer 5

Instead of changing your main strings.xml with a script and risk messing up your source control, why not rely on the standard merging behavior of the Android Gradle build?

My build.gradle contains

sourceSets {
    main {
        manifest.srcFile 'AndroidManifest.xml'
        java.srcDirs = ['src']
        resources.srcDirs = ['src']
        aidl.srcDirs = ['src']
        renderscript.srcDirs = ['src']
        res.srcDirs = ['res']
        assets.srcDirs = ['assets']
    }

    release {
        res.srcDir 'variants/release/res'
    }

    debug {
        res.srcDir 'variants/debug/res'
    }
}

So now I can define my app_name string in the variants/[release|debug]/res/strings.xml. And anything else I want to change, too!

Answer 6

This can easily be accomplished under buildTypes

buildTypes {
    debug {
        buildConfigField("String", "server_type", "\"TEST\"")
        resValue "string", "app_name", "Eventful-Test"
        debuggable true
        signingConfig signingConfigs.debug_key_sign
    }

    stage {
        buildConfigField("String", "server_type", "\"STAGE\"")
        resValue "string", "app_name", "Eventful-Stage"
        debuggable true
        signingConfig signingConfigs.debug_key_sign
    }

    release {
        buildConfigField("String", "server_type", "\"PROD\"")
        resValue "string", "app_name", "Eventful"
        minifyEnabled false
        proguardFiles getDefaultProguardFile('proguard-android.txt'), 'proguard-rules.pro'
        //TODO - add release signing
    }
}

Just make sure to remove app_name from strings.xml