Bluebonnet BNA

This is an implementation of a subset of the XNA 4.0 libraries for use with Bluebonnet to build games for Android.

Bluebonnet is an Android-compatible, light-weight, partial implementation of the .NET platform on top of the Java Virtual Machine. With Bluebonnet BNA, you can develop on Windows in C# or F# with the XNA libraries, and export to Android Java without any dependencies on native code libraries. But please note that Bluebonnet BNA does not aim for 100% compatibility with either .NET or XNA.

Building

• Download and build the Bluebonnet compiler and its runtime library, Baselib.jar. For instructions, see Bluebonnet README.

• Download the FNA source code. Build by typing the following command in the repository directory:

  • MSBuild FNA.csproj -p:Configuration=Release

  • If the build is successful, the file FNA.DLL will be generated in the bin/Release sub-directory of the repository directory.

• Download this BNA project and build it by typing the following command in the repository directory:

  • MSBuild BNA -p:Configuration=Release -p:ANDROID_JAR=/path/to/Android.jar -p:BLUEBONNET_EXE=/path/to/Bluebonnet/executable -p:FNA_DLL=/path/to/FNA.DLL

  • The ANDROID_JAR property specifies the full path to an Android.jar file from the Android SDK distribution. BNA requires Android SDK version 18 or later.

  • The BLUEBONNET_EXE property specifies the full path to the Bluebonnet compiler that you built in an earlier step.

  • The FNA_DLL property specifies the full path to the FNA.DLL that you built in an earlier step. As noted earlier, this path should be (FNA_DIR)/bin/Release/FNA.dll.

  • If the build is successful, the file BNA.jar will be generated in the .obj sub-directory of the repository root directory.

Building the Demo

An example application Demo1 is provided, which demonstrates some XNA functionality in C# and F#. It can be built using Visual Studio (solution file Demo1.sln), or from the command line:

• Type nuget restore Demo1 to restore packages using nuget.

• Type msbuild Demo1 -p:Configuration=Release -p:Platform="x86"

• Test the program: .obj\Demo1\Release\Demo1.exe. (Note that this will create the directory SavedGames\Demo1 in the Documents directory.)

• To convert the built application to an Android APK, type the following command: (Note that this is a single-line command; line breaks were added for clarity.)

  • MSBuild MakeAPK.project
-p:INPUT_DLL=.obj\Demo1\Release\Demo1.exe
-p:INPUT_DLL_2=.obj\Demo1\Release\Demo1FSharp.dll
-p:INPUT_DLL_3=.obj\Demo1\Release\FSharp.Core.dll
-p:CONTENT_DIR=.obj\Demo1\Release\Content
-p:ICON_PNG=Demo1\Demo1\GameThumbnail.png
-p:ANDROID_MANIFEST=Demo1\AndroidManifest.xml
-p:KEYSTORE_FILE=.\my.keystore
-p:KEYSTORE_PWD=123456
-p:APK_OUTPUT=.obj\Demo1.apk
-p:APK_TEMP_DIR=.obj\Demo1\Release\TempApk
-p:EXTRA_JAR_1=.obj\BNA.jar
-p:EXTRA_JAR_2=\path\to\Bluebonnet\Baselib.jar
-p:BLUEBONNET_EXE=\path\to\Bluebonnet.exe
-p:ANDROID_JAR=\path\to\Android\platforms\android-XX\android.jar
-p:ANDROID_BUILD=\path\to\Android\build-tools\30.0.2

  • Make sure to specify the right paths for the Bluebonnet compiler (via the BLUEBONNET_EXE property), the Baselib support library (via the EXTRA_JAR_2 property), the Android.jar file (via the ANDROID_JAR property) and the Android build-tools directory (via the ANDROID_BUILD property).

  • The parameters are detailed at the top of the MakeAPK.project file. See also the comments in the AndroidManifest.xml file, and comments throughout the Demo1 source files.

  • If the build is successful, the file Demo1.apk will be generated in the .obj sub-directory of the repository root directory.

• The batch file build_demo.bat runs the steps discussed in this "Building the Demo" section.

• Install the built APK to an Android device:

  • \path\to\Android\platform-tools\adb install -r .obj\Demo1.apk