androidx?Artifacts within the androidx package comprise the libraries of Android Jetpack.
Libraries in the androidx package provide functionality that extends the capabilities of the Android platform. These libraries, which ship separately from the Android OS, focus on improving the experience of developing apps through broad OS- and device-level compatibility, high-level abstractions to simplify and unify platform features, and other new features that target developer pain points.
androidx?Please read our blog post about our migration.
As part of the Jetpack effort to improve developer experience on Android, the Support Library team undertook a massive refactoring project. Over the course of 2017 and 2018, we streamlined and enforced consistency in our packaging, developed new policies around vesioning and releasing, and developed tools to make it easy for developers to migrate.
No, revision 28.0.0 of the Support Library, which launched as stable in September 2018, was the last feature release in the android.support package. There will be no further releases under Support Library packaging and they should be considered deprecated.
androidx and AndroidX related to Jetpack?They are effectively the same thing! In a sentence, androidx is the packaging and AndroidX is the development workflow for most components in Jetpack. Jetpack is the external branding for libraries within the androidx package.
In more detail, Jetpack is the external branding for the set of components, tools, and guidance that improve the developer experience on Android. AndroidX is the open-source development project that defines the workflow, versioning, and release policies for ALL libraries included in Jetpack. All libraries within the androidx Java package follow a consistent set of API design guidelines, conform to SemVer and alpha/beta revision cycles, and use the Android issue tracker for bugs and feature requests.
You can see all publicly released versions on the interactive Google Maven page.
The Standalone Jetifier documentation and download link can be found here, under the Android Studio DAC.
See the steps specified on the version page here.
For public releases, an alpha ships when the library lead believes it is ready. Generally, these occur during the batched bi-weekly (every 2 weeks) release because all tip-of-tree dependencies will need to be released too.
Nope.
No. This is by design. Focus should be spent on improving the Beta version and adding documentation/samples/blog posts for usage!
Yes. If any new APIs are added in this window, the beta release will be blocked until API review is complete and addressed.
As often as needed, however, releases outside of the bi-weekly (every 2 weeks) release will need to get approval from the TPM (nickanthony@).