Salesforce.com Mobile SDK for Android

You have arrived at the source repository for the Salesforce Mobile SDK for Android. Welcome! Starting with our 2.0 release, there are now two ways you can choose to work with the Mobile SDK:

• If you'd like to work with the source code of the SDK itself, you've come to the right place! You can browse sample app source code and debug down through the layers to get a feel for how everything works under the covers. Read on for instructions on how to get started with the SDK in your development environment.
• If you're just eager to start developing your own application, the quickest way is to use our npm binary distribution package, called forcedroid, which is hosted on npmjs.org. Getting started is as simple as installing the npm package and launching your template app. You'll find more details on the forcedroid package page.

Installation (do this first - really)

After cloning the SalesforceMobileSDK-Android project from github, run the install script from the command line:

./install.sh

This pulls submodule dependencies from github.

(Windows users: run cscript install.vbs from the command line instead.)

Introduction

What's New in 4.0

Library Upgrades

• Raised the target Android OS version to v6.0 (API 23 - Marshmallow). Android Marshmallow is now fully supported.
• Raised the minimum Android OS version required by Mobile SDK to v4.4 (API 19 - KitKat).
• Upgraded the Cordova library to v5.0.2.

Library Enhancements

• Mobile SDK libraries have been refactored to support better consumption. Native apps no longer require Cordova. Our library projects are listed below.
  • SalesforceSDK
  • SmartStore
  • SmartSync
  • SalesforceHybrid
  • SalesforceReact
• The new SalesforceReact library provides the ability to use React Native. Refer to the React Native chapter in the Mobile SDK Development Guide for details on how to use this feature.

Other Technical Improvements

• TLS 1.1 and 1.2 are now the default protocols used for networking on Mobile SDK. See this blog post for important information.
• Android Studio and gradle are fully supported. Eclipse and ant are no longer supported.
• Improvements to sample apps.
• Various bug fixes.

Check http://developer.force.com/mobilesdk for additional articles and tutorials.

Native Applications

The Salesforce Mobile SDK provides essential libraries for quickly building native mobile apps that seamlessly integrate with the Salesforce cloud architecture. Out of the box, we provide an implementation of OAuth2, abstracting away the complexity of securely storing refresh tokens or fetching a new session ID when a session expires. The SDK also provides Java wrappers for the Salesforce REST API, making it easy to retrieve, store, and manipulate data.

Hybrid Applications

HTML5 is quickly emerging as dominant technology for developing cross-platform mobile applications. While developers can create sophisticated apps with HTML5 and JavaScript, some limitations remain, specifically: session management, access to the camera and address book, and the inability to distribute apps inside public App Stores. The Salesforce Mobile Container makes possible to combine the ease of web app development with power of the Android platform by wrapping a web app inside a thin native container, producing a hybrid application.

WARNING: OAuth2 token storage on devices without encryption

The Salesforce Mobile SDK provides PIN-based OAuth token encryption for Android devices that don't provide full storage encryption functionality. The SDK implementation is NOT designed to provide complete security. It's simply offered as an option for temporarily protecting your app from eavesdroppers. Please use caution in your production deployment with sensitive data. We strongly recommend deploying production apps on the latest generation of Android devices with build-in device encryption.

Setting up your Development Environment

The following steps will help you get started with your development environment, whether you choose to develop native apps or hybrid apps. See the README files in the native/ and hybrid/ folders for additional notes pertaining to development in those environments.

1. Install the Android SDK (r23 or above) and Android Studio: http://developer.android.com/sdk/index.html
2. Get setup on github: http://help.github.com/

Downloading the Salesforce SDK

To pull down the SDK from github, create a new directory and git clone the salesforce SDK repo.

git clone https://github.com/forcedotcom/SalesforceMobileSDK-Android.git

Documentation

• SalesforceSDK

Discussion

If you would like to make suggestions, have questions, or encounter any issues, we'd love to hear from you. Post any feedback you have on our Google+ Community.