Add documentation for Android Studio with Bazel on all OS's [Blocks: #2745]

[BenHenning]

We should expand our Bazel documentation to include:

• Installing the Bazel plugin in Android Studio
• Importing the project as a Bazel project
• Syncing (& partial syncing)
• Building the app
• Building & running tests through AS

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Also, per #3371 Bazel development support is very limited on Windows. Per #3437 we should investigate the viability of setting up a VM and running both Android Studio and Bazel from the same Unix-based environment (to avoid a bifurcation where the repo lives in Windows and the user does development via Windows Android Studio, but uses Bazel within an Ubuntu subsystem). This involves documenting the steps below for Windows:

• Using git to clone & modify Oppia Android
• Running Android Studio
• Building & running tests via Bazel (CLI)
• Deploying the app binary & tests to a real device
• Starting an emulator
• Deploying the app binary & tests to an emulator

[FareesHussain]

• Installing the Bazel plugin in Android Studio

Regarding this, I've followed these steps.

• Downloaded plugin from jetbrains Version: 2021.01.06.0.1 (Latest versions gives errors)
• Open Files -> settings -> plugin -> select the preferences icon on the top right -> install from disk -> select the downloaded plugin -> Restart IDE

But on selecting the bazel on the option disappears.
I guess we need to import the project as a bazel project for that.

• Importing the project as a Bazel project

For this after installing the BAZEL plugin

• Import bazel project (File -> Import Bazel Project ..)
• Select oppia-android (~/opensource/oppia-android if followed the steps from the wiki)
• Generate from BUILD file (~/opensource/oppia-android/BUILD.bazel)
• Uncomment Kotlin and the one SDK platform
• And a new project was opened (~/opensource/oppia-android/.aswb)

But there are a bunch of error in the bazel console (bazel sync fails and I guess we can't proceed after this)
I think it is using the default installed bazel and we need oppia-bazel here

@BenHenning @fsharpasharp Do we have to wait for a new release for this or make changes in the plugin or Am I using a wrong approach here.

Making oppia-bazel default as bazel does work but is this a correct solution

[FareesHussain]

But there are a bunch of error in the bazel console (bazel sync fails and I guess we can't proceed after this)
I think it is using the default installed bazel and we need oppia-bazel here

To fix this I've replaced the installed bazel with oppia-bazel and then when I try to sync the project I get this error
tried with both check and uncheck Expand Sync to Working Set

Created a gist of the targets which gives the error (errors encountered while analyzing target)

ERROR: command succeeded, but not all targets were analyzed
INFO: Elapsed time: 1.092s, Critical Path: 0.01s
INFO: 0 processes.
FAILED: Build did NOT complete successfully
FAILED: Build did NOT complete successfully
INFO: Build Event Protocol files produced successfully.
FAILED: Build did NOT complete successfully
build invocation result: build_error
Sync was successful, but there were Bazel build errors. The project may not be fully updated or resolve until fixed. If the errors are from your working set, please uncheck 'Bazel > Sync > Expand Sync to Working Set' and try again.

[BenHenning]

There's a new issue affecting Android Studio: bazelbuild/rules_proto#78 (see linked protoc issue for details). I might try sending a patch to rules_proto to see if it's an easy fix just to bump the version to 3.14.

[BenHenning]

Confirming this is an issue with version 2021.01.06.0.1 of the Bazel plugin. Updating rules_proto to a later version doesn't seem to fix the issue. I think the issue is actually within the Bazel plugin--it's not being built with compatibility for JDK 8. In the meantime I'm going to see if downgrading to an earlier version of the plugin fixes the issue.

[BenHenning]

bazelbuild/intellij#2265 is tracking the plugin-specific issue.

[BenHenning]

Confirming that the custom plugin suggested in that thread does work for us: https://github.com/hedronvision/bazelbuild-intellij/releases/tag/v2021.02.03.

@fsharpasharp FYI since this is definitely going to cause some friction when trying to get Bazel working in Android Studio.

[FareesHussain]

I've tried using the latest version of bazel plugin (2021.04.27.0.0) for the to build using bazel.

I've created a gist for the errors I've encountered.

[BenHenning]

Ah, that might be a different error @FareesHussain. Could you add your .bazelproject file to a Gist & link that here? Also, which Android SDK do you have installed on your system?

[FareesHussain]

Here is the gist

the plugin showed SDK 29 and 30 as available and I selected 30

[FareesHussain]

Confirming that the custom plugin suggested in that thread does work for us: https://github.com/hedronvision/bazelbuild-intellij/releases/tag/v2021.02.03.

@fsharpasharp FYI since this is definitely going to cause some friction when trying to get Bazel working in Android Studio.

I was trying to install from disk by downloading the build but it gives the above error