Discussion: AndroidHarness shall use SimpleApplication

[MeFisto94]

Currently it is a LegacyApplication but it only exposes Application.
Both cases make it hard to access the "rootNode".
LegacyApplication says jME3 applications *SHOULD NOT EXTEND* this class but extend {@link com.jme3.app.SimpleApplication} instead.

That's why I've opened this discussion issue: Some people dislike SimpleApplication for making assumptions (specifically said getRootNode, which assumes a main viewport with one node attached as scene).

[pspeed42]

Eventually, LegacyApplication goes away and is replaced with something better. At that point, SimpleApplication becomes just a compatibility wrapper. But note that SimpleApplication makes 100 different "desktop" assumptions and so it not really appropriate for android apps.

In the "new way", accessing the root node would be from an app state.

And note: that comment is left over from when LegacyApplication was concrete Application... and left because any user code extending it directly will break when we nuke it from space. At that point, AndroidHarness will extend something new.

[pavly-gerges]

Currently it is a LegacyApplication but it only exposes Application.
Both cases make it hard to access the "rootNode".
LegacyApplication says jME3 applications *SHOULD NOT EXTEND* this class but extend {@link com.jme3.app.SimpleApplication} instead.

That's why I've opened this discussion issue: Some people dislike SimpleApplication for making assumptions (specifically said getRootNode, which assumes a main viewport with one node attached as scene).

You are not forced to use AndroidHarness , because all that it does is really taking that JmeContext & placing it on top of GLESRenderer that would be attached eventually on GlSurfaceView & by definition GlSurfaceView is nothing other than a regular android view that supports 3d rendering procedures on GLES , so you can eventually use this GlSurfaceView in an activity(as AndroidHarness do) or in a fragment(as AndroidHarness Fragment do) or in xml that can be manipulated in anything you can imagine like a button even on a custom Snackbar 😆 (that is what I used in JmeSurfaceView) .

& You havenot to extend anything actually !

This is technically , what we call it by using jme game as a UI component (if you dig deep inside AndroidHarnessActivity & OGLESContext classes of Jme you will find that they use the same approach but they utilize the whole activity for the Renderer "like using the whole activity for rendering just a button or a single layout that you cannot change !".

About how to use , simply :

You will code as if it's a normal jme pc game then you will create an Instance of your SimpleApplication inside your Main activity.java or Fragment.java or whatever your UI class then you will set that instance to the JmeSurfaceView object.

https://github.com/Scrappers-glitch/Superior-Extended-Engine/blob/master/SuperiorPlugin/src/main/java/com/scrappers/superiorExtendedEngine/jmeSurfaceView/JmESurfaceView.java