HackMD
Makepad is a cross-platform UI framework written in Rust.
It is in active development, but is already usable to build quick prototypes and simple (or even complicated UI) applications.
One of the key features of the Makepad is its ability to simply, and quickly, build and run applications on multiple platforms, including MacOS, Windows, Linux, Android, iOS, and WebAssembly.
Here are the current/latest instructions on how to build and run Makepad applications on the different platforms.
Assumptions
We will assume the following:
Name of application: Sample_App
It should be changed to any one of the existing example apps in the project-robius repository.
Build & Run Instructions
Follow step 1 commands below for initial setup of the Makepad build and run environment.
After step 2, you may choose any one or more of the platforms you're interested in building for.
1. Setup Makepad
Replace projects with your own directory name.
Clone the Makepad repository
or
Change to latest 'rik' branch (Optional)
Install makepad subcommand for cargo
Install platform toolchains
2. Get Project
Clone the Sample_App repo
or
3. Android Build
Install Android toolchain (First time)
Install app on Android device or Android emulator
Open either the Android emulator or connect to a real Android device
use adb command to make sure there's a single device connected properly, then install and run as below:
The application will be installed and launch on either the emulator or device.
4. iOS Setup & Install
Install IOS toolchain (First time)
Install app on Apple devivce or iOS simulator
iOS Setup
For iOS, the process is slightly more complicated. The steps involved are:
- Enable your iPhone's Developer Mode, please see instructions here: Enable Developer Mode
- Setup an Apple Developer account
- Setup an empty skeleton project in XCode
- File -> New -> Project to create a new "App"
- Set the Product Name as
SampleApp(used in –org later) - Set the Organization Identifier to a value of your choice, for this example we will use
rs.robius. (used in –app later) - Setup the Project Signing & Capabilities to select the proper team account
- In XCode, Build/Run this project to install and run the app on the simulator and device
- Once the simulator and device has the "skeleton" app installed and running properly, then it is ready for Makepad to install its application.
Makepad Install
We will run the cargo makepad apple ios command, similar to Android build above, but there are some 2 to 4 additional parameters that need to be filled in:
--org
First few parts of the organization identifier (which makes up the Bundle Identifier). Usually in the form of com.somecompany or org.someorg
This is the same value used to setup the initial skeleton app above. For this example:
rs.robius
--app
The name of the application or the project. This is the same as the Product Name used to setup the initial skeleton app above. In this case:
SampleApp
--org-id (real-device only)
This is the <string> value of the ApplicationIdentifierPrefix <key> in the **.mobileprovision file located in the ~/Library/MobileDevice/Provisioning Profiles directory.
It should be a 10 digit alpha-numeric value.
--ios-version (OPTIONAL)
defaults to 17. Set it to 16 or other values if the device is not running iOS 17.
Example
For this example, we have the Bundle Identifier of rs.robius.SampleApp
Install app on IOS simulator
Install app on IOS device
The application will be installed and launch on either the emulator or device.
5. WASM Build
Coming Soon
6. MacOS / PC
Although it is a mobile app, Makepad cross-platform means you may run it on desktops if you wish.
