[Libreoffice] LibreOffice Android Port

[Tor Lillqvist]

> I dont think we have to cross compile. We should try and integrate the 
> android NDK, which allows native c/c++ compilation, into what we have 
> already in LO.

Cross-compilation is what one normally does when one uses the NDK. Do you know what cross-compilation means?

The problem is that the LibreOffice (or OOo) build mechanism does not currently enable cross-compilation.

So one needs to either 1) Build the NDK tool-chain to run natively on Android, and run builds on Android itself either on real hardware, or, eek, on an emulator.  (The people who have built OOo/LO for ARM on QEMU can tell how fun that is.) 

Or 2) Adapt the LibreOffice build mechanism to work with cross-compilation. Considering that for Android (or other table/mobile/touch platforms like iOS) one wants to revamp what gets built fairly heavily anyway, this is likely the right way to go. I think some attempts at it has already been done earlier, and the gbuild work hopefully should make it easier. Interestingly, enabling cross-compilation will benefit LO builds for Windows hugely...

What is interesting in this discussion here and earlier on the "discuss" list is that nobody seems to ponder how the user interface of (a subset of) LibreOffice running on a tablet/touch device should look and work. Surely designing that is equally hard as overcoming technical build hurdles or restructuring what gets built. Or do you really expect people to want to use the normal LibreOffice GUI with hierarchical menus and other stuff from a desktop style GUI on a touch device? 

--tml