Running zmNinja from Source

• Install Dependencies - needed for all platforms
  • Install NodeJS
  • Install cordova, ionic, and bower
• Download zmNinja
• Configure build configure zmNinja and get all required plugins
• Making an iOS build
• Making an Android build
• Making a desktop build
  • Set up desktop dependencies
  • First time setup
  • Make the desktop build
  • Running desktop builds
  • Subsequent builds
• Troubleshooting

NOTE If you want to run it on your desktop, you can directly download desktop binaries here and if you want it for Android/iOS you can get from the play/appstore. This is only for those who want to run from source.

Note: If you are building from source, you are mostly on your own. I have very limited time to debug environment differences/package differences between what I have and what you may have. I'm not a nodejs/grunt etc expert and stuff seems to change all the time.

Version note: The code is compiled using the following versions of tools. If you are using newer versions of ionic the code may not compile - I don't have the time to upgrade yet. Finally, if you choose to go the source route, I expect you to spend a lot of time yourself debugging first before you create an issue. Even if you do create an issue, I have very limited bandwidth to debug source compilation issues for you. Thanks.

cli packages: (/usr/local/lib/node_modules)

    @ionic/cli-utils  : 1.19.1
    ionic (Ionic CLI) : 3.19.1

global packages:

    cordova (Cordova CLI) : 7.1.0 
    Gulp CLI              : CLI version 3.9.1 Local version 3.9.1

local packages:

    Cordova Platforms : android 6.3.0 ios 4.5.4
    Ionic Framework   : ionic1 1.3.5

System:

    Android SDK Tools : 26.1.1
    ios-deploy        : 1.9.2 
    Node              : v8.6.0
    npm               : 5.6.0 
    OS                : macOS High Sierra
    Xcode             : Xcode 9.3 Build version 9E145 

Environment Variables:

    ANDROID_HOME : /Users/pp/Library/Android/sdk/

Misc:

    backend : legacy

Install Dependencies - needed for all platforms

Install NodeJS

Install NodeJS from here. As of Dec 2017, I'm using Node v8.6.0

Install cordova, ionic, and bower

npm install -g cordova ionic bower 

And some more:

npm install -g gulp
npm install node-sass
npm install async
npm install jshint

(Note you may need to do sudo depending on how your system is set up. It's better you don't, but if you must, well, you must)

If you get a newer version, you should adjust your cordova version to the mentioned version above in order to be able to successfully compile zmNinja. To change the version you can follow these instructions: change cordova version

Download zmNinja

git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/pliablepixels/zmNinja.git

Configure build configure zmNinja and get all required plugins

cd zmNinja
npm install
bower install
cordova prepare

You may see an error related to org.devgeeks.Canvas2ImagePlugin. To fix that:

cordova plugin add https://github.com/flache/Canvas2ImagePlugin --nofetch

Making an iOS build

Note: You need to be doing this on a mac, with Xcode and the SDK installed

To compile a debug build for iOS:

 ionic cordova platform add ios # if not added already
 ionic cordova build ios

If this results in a missing provisioning profile error, load up platforms/ios/zmNinja.xcworkspace and assign it a code signing profile. I'm going light on details, because I assume you are a developer.

This does not produce an iOS ready ipa. What you need to do then is to open platforms/ios/zmNinja.xcworkspace in Xcode, and run (after making sure your options are ok - orientation/push notifications in capabilities)

Making an Android build

Note that you need the Android SDK installed and configured properly for this to work.

 ionic cordova platform add android # if not added already
 ionic cordova build android

If this complains of missing SDKs, you need to install the SDK version it requests This should produce an APK file. To install it on your phone over adb, you'd do something like

adb install -r platforms/android/build/outputs/apk/android-armv7-debug.apk

Making a desktop build

I use electron to build the desktop app.

Set up desktop dependencies

 npm install -g electron
 npm install -g asar

Make sure electron is installed. You should be able to do a which electron

Also make sure unzip and wget tools are installed in your system.

First time setup

If this is the first time you are building a desktop version, you need to download electron images for various platforms. There is a helper script called prepare_desktop.sh that you can run. This creates a directory called desktop inside your zmNinja directory. It currently downloads all supported platforms.

./prepare_desktop.sh

This will download a bunch of files. If completed successfully, you can proceed to the next step.

Make the desktop build

Once you are done with prepare_desktop.sh, you can do a ./make_desktop.sh. This will actually build images for all platforms.

Running desktop builds

cd into the desktop directory and run whichever port you want

Subsequent builds

You need to ./make_desktop.sh each time you make changes.

Troubleshooting

Lots of things can go wrong.

• Please make sure you don't post issues about why your own build is not working - please figure it out
• Look carefully at error messages