Build the app yourself

Build your own Birday apk

As you may imagine, i have a work and a private life, and since i'm developing most of my apps for pure passion, sometimes i have little to no time to work on updates, features and so on (maybe i have too much side projects, who knows). By the way, if you're impatient to test a translation or a feature i didn't release on the stores yet, you can compile your own copy of Birday, or even work on it and test by yourself if a feature you want to submit works as intended.

0 - Please note...

Yep, you're compiling Birday, but this doesn't mean that your copy is now your app and you can treat it as your work. I already faced a couple of copycats who compiled a clone of the app changing a couple of icons and published it on the stores without mentioning Birday. I don't want to sound rude, you can customize Birday and redistribute it as long as you credit the author (i.e., me 😄), but take a look at the license to avoid doing it incorrectly, that's all. Furthermore, Birday could be "broken" resulting in a failed compile process. I always try to avoid leaving the source code "broken", but it can happen. To proceed you (obviously) need an internet connection!

1 - Clone or download the source code

The easiest step for sure. If you use git, just open a git bash in your workspace folder and type git clone https://github.com/m-i-n-a-r/birday, git will download the project in a folder. Otherwise, just click on Code > Download zip in the main page of the project. Move the zip wherever you want and extract it.

2 - Use Android Studio to open the project

Well, literaly what you read in the title. Launch (or download and install) Android Studio, then click on File > Open (or "Open" if you are in the launch screen) and find the project folder, then select it. Android Studio will scan the project and build the indexes, so be patient. When the project is completely loaded, you're ready to prepare the compile process. Please note that Android Studio could be very slow or even crash on certain devices. Sadly, it's a quite heavy program.

3 - Prepare to compile

Before compiling the app, you need to download the dependencies and the SDK Tools, if you haven't already: make sure to have the latest SDK Tools installed by clicking on the SDK manager icon in the upper right corner, and check under SDK platforms if you have Android R and Android S installed. In the "SDK Tools" tab, the "Android SDK Build-Tools" should be installed too. Wait until the sync is complete and proceed!

4 - Compile!

You can compile Birday as a normal APK by just selecting Build > Build Bundle(s) / APK(s) > Build APK(s). If this option isn't available, most probably something went wrong during step 3. Just wait to the process to complete, and click on "locate" on the notification in the bottom right corner to open the folder containing the APK. You could also sign the it, but this build mode is used to release and it shouldn't be needed. Before installing, remove any installed version of Birday you may have (remember to backup your events!), otherwise the app won't install, no matter if it's signed or not. For any additional request or problem, contact me directly!