Modern Android libraries usually come from Maven repositories. Put the package name and version in implementation and Gradle fetches it—very convenient.
dependencies {
implementation 'com.example:library-name:1.0.0'
}
Some vendors still ship an AAR as a zip and say "add this to your project." Android Studio used to have a UI for adding AAR files via File → New → Import Module, but that UI changed and target modules are harder to pick, so here is the manual approach.
I first considered bundling the AAR inside the plugin repo so users would not configure anything. Many zip-distributed AARs require agreeing to terms and downloading yourself, so this article covers users adding the AAR after installing the plugin.
Assume the AAR file is named ExampleLibrary.aar.
- Add the AAR to the Capacitor project
- android/ExampleLibrary/ExampleLibrary.aar
- android/ExampleLibrary/build.gradle
ExampleLibrary can be any name. Create a folder, put the AAR and a build.gradle file there.
- Add the following to build.gradle
configurations.maybeCreate("default")
artifacts.add("default", file('ExampleLibrary.aar'))
That creates the ExampleLibrary module. Next, wire it into the project. Open android/settings.gradle and add:
+ include ':ExampleLibrary'
+ project(':ExampleLibrary').projectDir = new File('./ExampleLibrary/')
Now the project and plugins can reference the ExampleLibrary module from ExampleLibrary.aar. Simple.
See you next time.