[Android Software Development] leftytechie:
Missing files? Broken links? Issues with new workflow

Hi there, thanks for this very cool project.

I've spent that last couple days trying to dive in, and it hasn't been too easy. I had no problem with the old workflow since it has the guide, and I was able to start modifying the APK I was working on. But, I ran into some issues that seem like I could work around using some of the new features, so I started trying to use the new version. I followed the instructions and cloned dexpatcher-gradle-samples and ran the patched-app without a problem (it successfully found and use all the gradle plugins in the maven repo) and played around with it and was able to modify the activity provided, load it onto my phone, etc. But, I'm having trouble figuring out how to set up my APK in the same way.

Something that's confusing me is that your instructions say to check out the 3 versions of the build.gradle file, and then go inside the 'patched' subproject and look at the manifest file. But the problem I'm seeing is that there is no 'patched' subproject inside the patched-app project. Also, none of the links in the post seem to work except the link to the 'dexpatcher-gradle-samples' repo and the links to release notes...

Not only is there no 'patched' subproject, but there is also no 'source' subproject, there is only the 'app' subproject. I tried looking through the git history to see if the folders were accidentally deleted or something, but I can't find them in the history either. The only project that seems to have either of these folders in the 'patched-lib' project, and it only has the 'patch' folder (which is actually 'patched', but is seems close enough). In all the screenshots, the 'patched-app ' project looks exactly like I'm describing, so it seems like the problem is just with the START HERE! section.

I tried just moving my patched source code from my project I had from the old workflow in to the 'app/src/main/' folder inside the 'patched-app' example, and replaced the APK as well, but I'm getting a bunch of errors while building with gradle that are making me pretty sure this isn't the way to go.

So, what I'm resigned to doing now is trying to use the old workflow with updated jar files, but I have a feeling this is going to fail too.

In terms of my system, I'm on Ubuntu 18 and I'm using Android Studio (although mostly I've just been using the command line).

In terms of what I'm doing, I have camera(s) that I want to control automatically, but when I try to control them using gphoto2, or even just using raw PTP commands, things aren't working. I know that remote control using PTP (specifically PTP/IP) is possible because the cameras have android applications that are able to control them remotely in all the ways that I need. But, since I want to control them programatically, the applications as they are aren't good enough for me. So, I'm trying to insert some code so that I can either leverage whatever they're doing directly (maybe by injecting a server of some kind that can take commands from another program), or at least insert enough log statements to figure out what they're doing so I can replicate it elsewhere.

As for my experience, I'm not a java expert by any means but I've got some experience, and am a pretty capable programmer in general, so I feel I should be able to make this work without too much handholding, just a little ;)

Anyways, any help would be appreciated, because right now I'm pretty confused by the disparity between what it says should be there and what I'm actually seeing.

Thanks!