I must confess, I like building my java apps with maven because I really hate managing all the dependencies, and on the other side I can use great tools like sonar and jenkins/hudson out of the box.

So the goal was to build my android project with maven.  First stop was of course the official android-maven url: http://code.google.com/p/maven-android-plugin/

In the getting started it was pretty clear to install jdk, android sdk, maven and that’s about it. I’ve created my pom file like they said:

<dependency>
   <groupId>com.google.android</groupId>
   <artifactId>android</artifactId>
   <version>1.6_r2</version>
   <scope>provided</scope>
</dependency>

In the project I’m talking about, I’m using android 1.6. After mvn clean install I had my first problem.

1. Maps not found

package com.google.android.maps does not exist

So that was pretty clear that I only have “clean” android installed (or at least in my mvn repo). After a quick google search, I’ve found out about mvn android sdk deployer (https://github.com/mosabua/maven-android-sdk-deployer). That seemed to be the answer to my problems. Yup, just clone the repo, mvn clean install it and you’re ready to go. But after running mvn clean install (for maven android sdk deployer) I’ve got the following error:

2. addon-google_apis-google-3/source.properties not found

Failed to execute goal org.codehaus.mojo:properties-maven-plugin:1.0-alpha-2:read-project-properties (default) on project google-apis-3: Properties file not found: /Users/vuknikolic/dev/android-sdk-mac_x86/add-ons/addon-google_apis-google-3/source.properties -> 

This one confused me, I knew that I had google add-on installed for v3, I’ve checked the path, but it wasn’t there. Then I saw on maven-android-sdk-deployer’s github page:

Platforms and Add on folder names changes in SDK

When updating an existing android sdk install the add-ons subfolder can sometimes be reused and their contents be updates so you could end up with e.g. the google maps-4r2 in a folder named google_apis-4_r01. To work around this just uninstall the affected add-on and reinstall it with the android sdk tool.

After that android mvn deployer worked like a charm, great works guys. So I’ve returned to my project, started mvn clean install… and…

3. JSON not found?

package org.json does not exist

This one seemed weird, cause why on earth would I miss something inside of android sdk? If it is installed already… My good friend Google saved me again (http://code.google.com/p/maven-android-plugin/issues/detail?id=77), there seems to be a problem with 1.6_r2 package as well, so I had to upgrade it to 2.1.2 as advised in that issue.

After that I was finally building my android project with maven. So here are the five easy steps to start building your android project (that uses google maps) with maven:

1. Create pom.xml and set version to 2.1.2 or above in maven dependency
2. Clone maven-android-sdk-deployer
3. Uninstall old installed versions with Android SDK manager and install them again (just to make your life easier)
4. Start mvn clean install in maven-android-sdk-deployer
5. Start mvn clean install in your project