B4A Library Google Play Game Services

First off, my apologies on my Wrapping Skill, this is no where near as polished as from the big boys of wrapping here. Also, many thanks to Erel for helping me get through this.

The story: I need this library, and it is working for me. If you know what it is, and have been waiting for it, hopefully my tutorial will help you get going with it. If you don't know what this library does, or if you need it, check out here

Right now, this library can handle Leaderboards, Achievements, Room Creation/Communication (have not done RealTimeSocket yet), One-Click signIn, and Anti-Piracy Checks. Did not implement Cloud Save.

Still interested? Read on.

First, please review Google's branding guidelines, as there is no way I can keep that up to date on this thread. Here

Next, I recommend just studying the flow of events here particularly the Developer's Guide section.

Still awake? Good.

Before any of this works, you need to register your app within your Developer Account, to get the OAuth necessary. The Google/Java speak instructions are in that developer's guide.

For B4A speak. Must do the following:

1. Follow these directions for adding your app to the console here.

** EDIT - See Erel's post below on how to grab SHA1 fingerprint straight from B4A... **

When you get to the part about adding your SHA1 fingerprint, it's time to break out your command prompt. (If you already know how to get your SHA1 fingerprint, then continue on) First, find out where (or make a new) password file for B4A is kept by looking at your B4A->Tools->Private Sign Key.

Then in your command prompt, change to the directory with keytool in it (for me that is "c:\Program Files\Java\jre6\bin") and type
B4X:
keytool -exportcert -keystore <path-to-debug-or-production-keystore> -list -v
which for me would be
B4X:
keytool -exportcert -keystore C:\Programming\b4a.keystore -list -v
A prompt asking for your password should then pop up. Type your password in that you used to create it(shown on your B4A->Private Sign Key window)

Then, enter that SHA1 fingerprint (type it, copy paste it... I copy the whole command prompt to notepad, and then copy/paste it from there) into the final OAUTH Step and you should get back that your app is linked.
Note the code back will look something like this -> 211205627476-74off6bsgue1qbcka2878p3lurctabft.apps.googleusercontent.com ONLY THE FIRST PART BEFORE THE HASH IS YOUR APP_ID FOR USE IN THE XML FILE

2. Create your new B4A project and include this in your manifest:
AddApplicationText(
<meta-data android:name="com.google.android.gms.games.APP_ID"
android:value="@string/app_id" />
)

3. Create an XML file in your B4A (using your favorite text editor) project called ids.xml in your projectdirectory-> Objects -> res -> values folder, and put something like this in it
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<!--
Copyright (C) 2013 Google Inc.

Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
You may obtain a copy of the License at

http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0

Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
limitations under the License.
-->
<resources>
<!-- TODO: Replace this by your app's app ID! -->
<string name="app_id">ReplaceME</string>
</resources>

Put your AppID obtained from before in the ReplaceMe section and then make sure to set the file to read only (just edit the file included in the sample app)

4. Now it is time for the achievements/leaderboard ID's Need to do that here and here

In the sample app created I use two leaderboards (easy and hard) and four achievements (put in five if you need to continue in your Developer account, but not required to use them all) the four achievements are:
B4X:
Dim easyLeaderboard As String = "ReplaceMe"
Dim hardLeaderboard As String = "ReplaceMe"
Dim EasyAchievement As String = "ReplaceMe" 'for playing a game of easy level
Dim HardAchievement As String = "ReplaceMe" 'for playing a game of hard leve
Dim IncrementAchievement As String = "ReplaceMe" 'for playing 10 games (either hard or easy)
Dim HiddenAchievement As String = "ReplaceMe" 'not visibile until hard and easy games played

Follow these directions, but use these sample Achievements and Leaderboards for the sample application and fill in with your own pithy comments, and Replace the ReplaceMe's for each one in the sample app **Note the IncrementAchivement is of type increment and I used 10 as the amount. The HiddenAchivement is of type Hidden, and you can see in the code how I went about unlocking it**

5. Now time for a choice, either download the attached xml/jar files that go in your library, or (advanced mode) download and compile the attached project source files. Either way, must have gameplayservices.jar, gameplayservices.xml (which are the library wrappers) installed in your Libraries folder and then have gameplayservices selected in B4A. Also, I am a big fan of having a bit of something in my demos, so you will also need Informatix' most excellent AnimationPlus library installed (do search for latest link) and Agraham's superbly efficient ByteConverter library (again, do search).

6. Not sure why, but in order to get the required dependency file "googleplayservices.jar" You must follow the directions here to download the SDK. Then, grab that file and put it in your library. (the file itself is a bit above the limit for me to include here, and I'm not sure about the legal ramifications of including it by itself after reading here) If anybody can tell me otherwise, I'll post it someplace else for easier access to download.

7. Three modules are included in the sample app. The main module is just the basics of logging in (once you get past that, then it's time for the other two) and displaying the SignIn button. The other two modules are my own take on the Type A Number and Button Clicker sample apps (no typing of numbers in my version, but I do add displaying player icons, more robust message passing)

8. Logic/documentation. As I said, trying to figure out how to wrap all of this was a very good challenge/learning process for me. As some of these wrappers included nested classes, and I didn't know exactly how to approach, I made the nested classes separate classes for exposing to B4A. What does that mean? Well, some of the things that happen "behind the scenes" in the original library, I had to make a choice on where they happen in my wrapper. I finally decided that almost anything to do with Room Stuff, happens in the gRoomConfig wrapper (As opposed to RoomConfig, Room and GamesClient in original flow). My samples show a lot of what was wrapped, but if you have a question about a function, and you go to look for more detail on Google's developer site, Where that function is exposed may be different in this library, and sometimes not at all. (If not exposed, it is generally something I didn't see how to write a wrapper for that functionality, at least not yet, but again... it's working for me with a lot of what I wanted to accomplish) I am also including all of the source files, which may help out for those looking to try and learn how to wrap things in the future. Please forgive my poor coding logic in advance. Also, some things are exposed that don't do anything (at least not for me) and are there to show where I think they should be exposed moving forward (most notably the RealTimeSocket stuff), but they are annotated with the hint system as not being ready for prime time!

Of note, many, many listeners in this, and I did include code in the Java to explain many of them, but I don't see how to bring up those hints when using the "Sub "space-Tab" auto-fill" feature.

9. Going forward - I am sure I will be updating some things as I go along, but I don't know at what pace, and who knows, maybe RTS's are really, really important to someone, or the ability to do cloud saving. So, I also am including the source files that I used to wrap. While a learning tool in and of themselves, I do ask, that if you add any functionality, that you pass those additions back to the community. I think we all benefit from using these libraries that others create, and let's face it, sometimes having that 1 library wrapped makes all the difference.. and until Erel figures out how to auto-wrap any library out there... some of us come to a halt going down certain paths unless someone out there can help boot strap our project. (which is why I started this in the first place :) ) Also, please note you'll probably see some ("why is THAT there") in the source code, and it's because I learned a LOT doing this, and changed how some implementations worked as I kept building wrapper classes. I would do it all from scratch to make it cleaner... but I need to get going on the projects that I built this for!
 

Attachments

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  • GamePlayServicesLibraryFiles.zip
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  • EclipseSourceFiles.zip
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Last edited:

walterf25

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walterf25

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Hello all, i was wondering if anyone has been able to get the google-play-services to work, i'm using Frederic's library in my Whack A Bieber game, and everything was working fine up until google decided to change their api, now i can't get to LeaderBoards or Achievements. Is there a solution to or work-around to this problem, i've been talking to a few other developers here in B4A and so far 80% of those developers want to use this library, but given the fact that the development of this library was not continued we are all stuck now.
Please if anyone has any positive feedback on this issue, i'd like to hear about it, i really hope that someone has figured out a way to make this work again.

Cheers,
Walter
 

Nerdworld

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For all guys looking for the old Google play services jar-file, it's attached on the Google Maps tutorial by Erel:
http://www.b4x.com/android/forum/threads/google-maps-android-v2-tutorial.24415/

Erel said:
If you are using a version prior to B4A v3.20 then you should follow these instructions:

1. Download an older version of google-play-services: www.b4x.com/android/files/google-play-services.jar

2. Add the following code to the manifest editor, instead of the code above:


I finally have the service working for me with this version of the jar-file.
But i'm currently getting "GGS_onSignInFailed" triggered, when i try to login.
Is there any way to get an error message?
 

Nerdworld

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When i use the gameplayservices.jar everything works - except the "onSignInFailed" after the login-animation, but when i try to recompile your eclipse code i'm getting a ClassDefNotFound-error @ GameService.

Any hint? Or can you recompile your library with BA.Log instead of Log.d - otherwise i can't see any log-output.
 

Nerdworld

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The file in this thread seems a bit old (may 2013). I doubt that it works with my version of the library (only API 14 is supported).

I tried many different versions of the game-play-services.jar, but no one seems to work.
Any chance that anyone is having the API v14 / "Ice Cream Sandwich"-edition of this file?
 

base64

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Hello guys,
I keep getting this error:
java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: b4a.game.helper.GameHelper


Doesn't matter which library I used (Informatix's or NFOBoy's) I get the same error.

Even with a pretty basic code:
B4X:
Sub Globals
   Dim ggs As gGoogleGameService 
End Sub

Sub Activity_Create(FirstTime As Boolean)
  ggs.initialize("ggs")
End Sub

Is this because I'm missing a component (game helper) or because I'm not using v14 of googleplayservices.jar?



Never mind
 
Last edited:

holdemadvantage

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Gre
Great news: I'm updating my library to work with the API 19. But wait for a few days before I post anything.

Great, we will have also leaderboards and achievements? I am ready to donate !
 

Computersmith64

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...and it won't include the new "levels and quests" feature, but it will support (in fact, it already supports, as my work is nearly finished) the brand new "Saved Games" and "Gifts & Wishes" features.
Good to hear that you're updating it to the latest! I started trying to do that last week (again), but with my rudimentary Java skills haven't gotten very far yet (again)...

Btw - did you notice the new format of the leaderboards (seemingly released yesterday)? I personally don't like them, partly because they no longer tell you how many players have lodged scores. On the old format, you could see approximately how many daily, weekly & all-time players there were on the leaderboards. I also don't really like the overall look, but oh well, I guess I'll get used to them.

- Colin.
 

Informatix

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Good to hear that you're updating it to the latest! I started trying to do that last week (again), but with my rudimentary Java skills haven't gotten very far yet (again)...

Btw - did you notice the new format of the leaderboards (seemingly released yesterday)? I personally don't like them, partly because they no longer tell you how many players have lodged scores. On the old format, you could see approximately how many daily, weekly & all-time players there were on the leaderboards. I also don't really like the overall look, but oh well, I guess I'll get used to them.

- Colin.
No, I didn't notice it. Thanks for the info. I know that a new SDK should be released soon, so I'm waiting for it before releasing anything.
 
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