Write

This post can be considered as a journal entry. I had to clear my thoughts and vent off through writing after spending time debugging this issue. Maybe it will be helpful for future references or an example of the process to follow in such cases. The other day I was doing the usual dependency update routine of FeedFlow when I discovered a runtime crash that happened in the release version (so with R8 enabled) after updating the Android Gradle Plugin (AGP, in the rest of the article) to version 8....

As Kotlin Multiplatform (KMP) continues to gain traction, more Android libraries are transitioning to support multiple platforms. However, this transition doesn’t always come for free; depending on the project, there could be different challenges. Recently, I migrated an existing Android library (RSS-Parser, a library to parse RSS feeds). In this article, I will share my experience, cover all the challenges I faced during this journey, and describe the solutions I implemented to overcome them, from preserving git history to handling platform-specific dependencies and testing across different platforms....

This article is just a short “rant” and a “therapy session” to remind and warn my future self. I was recently debugging a weird crash affecting some users. The issue was related to navigation, fragments, and backstacks. After weeks spent trying to reproduce it, reading online reports, and cross-referencing previous libraries and SDK updates, I finally had an illuminating moment after reading about a similar behavior in the Google Issue Tracker....

As developers, we’ve all encountered build failures in CI (or on our local machines) due to Maven repository issues preventing dependency downloads. > Could not download foo-lib-1.0.aar (org.acme.foo:foo-lib:1.0) > Could not get resource 'https://mavenrepo.com/org/acme/foo/foo-lib/1.0/foo-lib-1.0.aar'. > Could not GET 'https://mavenrepo.com/org/acme/foo/foo-lib/1.0/foo-lib-1.0.aar'. Received status code 403 from server: There could be many reasons for this: the Maven repository is currently down or is having an incident, the repository has been shut down (hello, JCenter), and the dependency is old and not republished elsewhere....

When I released FeedFlow (an RSS Reader available on Android, iOS, and macOS, built with Jetpack Compose for the Android app, Compose Multiplatform for the desktop app, and SwiftUI for the iOS app), I decided to publish the macOS version outside the App Store. I went this path because publishing on the App Store has different requirements that I wanted to avoid tackling during the first launch. How to publish a Kotlin Multiplatform macOS app on GitHub Releases with GitHub Actions...

It’s been almost a year since I started working on FeedFlow, an RSS Reader available on Android, iOS, and macOS built with Jetpack Compose for the Android app, Compose Multiplatform for the desktop app, and SwiftUI for the iOS app. To be faster and “machine-agnostic” with the deployments, I decided to have a CI (Continuous Integration) on GitHub Actions to quickly deploy my application to all the stores (Play Store, App Store for iOS and macOS, and on GitHub release for the macOS app)....

SERIES: Publishing a Kotlin Multiplatform Android, iOS, and macOS app with GitHub Actions. Part 1: How to publish a Kotlin Multiplatform Android app on Play Store with GitHub Actions Part 2: How to publish a Kotlin Multiplatform iOS app on App Store with GitHub Actions Part 3: How to publish a Kotlin Multiplatform macOS app on GitHub Releases with GitHub Actions Part 4: How to publish a Kotlin Multiplatform macOS app on App Store with GitHub Actions It’s been almost a year since I started working on FeedFlow, an RSS Reader available on Android, iOS, and macOS, built with Jetpack Compose for the Android app, Compose Multiplatform for the desktop app, and SwiftUI for the iOS app....

SERIES: Publishing a Kotlin Multiplatform Android, iOS, and macOS app with GitHub Actions. Part 1: How to publish a Kotlin Multiplatform Android app on Play Store with GitHub Actions Part 2: How to publish a Kotlin Multiplatform iOS app on App Store with GitHub Actions Part 3: How to publish a Kotlin Multiplatform macOS app on GitHub Releases with GitHub Actions Part 4: How to publish a Kotlin Multiplatform macOS app on App Store with GitHub Actions It’s been almost a year since I started working on FeedFlow, an RSS Reader available on Android, iOS, and macOS, built with Jetpack Compose for the Android app, Compose Multiplatform for the desktop app, and SwiftUI for the iOS app....

SERIES: Publishing a Kotlin Multiplatform Android, iOS, and macOS app with GitHub Actions. Part 1: How to publish a Kotlin Multiplatform Android app on Play Store with GitHub Actions Part 2: How to publish a Kotlin Multiplatform iOS app on App Store with GitHub Actions Part 3: How to publish a Kotlin Multiplatform macOS app on GitHub Releases with GitHub Actions Part 4: How to publish a Kotlin Multiplatform macOS app on App Store with GitHub Actions It’s been almost a year since I started working on FeedFlow, an RSS Reader available on Android, iOS, and macOS, built with Jetpack Compose for the Android app, Compose Multiplatform for the desktop app, and SwiftUI for the iOS app....

SERIES: Publishing a Kotlin Multiplatform Android, iOS, and macOS app with GitHub Actions. Part 1: How to publish a Kotlin Multiplatform Android app on Play Store with GitHub Actions Part 2: How to publish a Kotlin Multiplatform iOS app on App Store with GitHub Actions Part 3: How to publish a Kotlin Multiplatform macOS app on GitHub Releases with GitHub Actions How to publish a Kotlin Multiplatform macOS app on App Store with GitHub Actions It’s been almost a year since I started working on FeedFlow, an RSS Reader available on Android, iOS, and macOS, built with Jetpack Compose for the Android app, Compose Multiplatform for the desktop app, and SwiftUI for the iOS app....

Kotlin 1.8 has introduced new annotations to improve the interoperability of Kotlin with Objective-C and Swift: @ObjCName: allows to customize the name that will be used in Swift or Objective-C @HiddenFromObjC: allows hiding a Kotlin declaration from Objective-C (and Swift). @ShouldRefineInSwift: it marks a Kotlin declaration as swift_private in the Objective-C API, allowing to replace it with a wrapper written in Swift. You can see the release announcement for more details about the interoperability improvements introduced with Kotlin 1....

After months of work, I can finally announce the release of FeedFlow, a minimalistic and opinionated RSS Reader that I’ve built for myself and that’s now available on Android, iOS, and macOS. Motivation I’ve started (again) to stay up to date by building my own feed instead of relying on feeds ordered and decided by someone else. But I wasn’t completely satisfied with the readers already out there (“I can build a better one"™️)....