For example, BeanShell, which is a very high level language that compiles to Java, has the ability to side-step the Scripting Layer API and access the Android Java API directly. This series focuses on Python, and Python is the most popular and well supported language on SL4A, but the other languages have features which can be really useful. With the Scripting Layer, you can start hacking away like you would on any other system, just editing and executing files. Having to keep building the app is just tedious. You'll normally just want to write a bit of code, save it, then run it, and keep iterating. They're meant to be used as regular Python programs. One advantage to having packaging as an option, rather than as a purpose, is that most Python scripts, in practice, are not actually published through app stores anyway. With SL4A, you can still package your apps, and you can publish them to app stores like Play if you like, but it's just an option. SL4A was designed around the Android OS: It requires Android to be useful, but allows much closer integration with the operating system. However because it's multi-platform, you don't have any way of directly accessing the Android API, so you can't use many of the features that make smartphones so interesting. For example, with Kivy, you can create an app in Python that'll run across many popular operating systems, desktop and smartphone, including Android. The alternatives really focus on enabling you to create and package a native app using some otherwise unsupported language, and some do that really well. There are a couple of other options for running Python on Android, and some are very good, but none offer the flexibility and features of the Scripting Layer.

You can find out more about the SL4A project from their website. It also provides access to the Android system shell, which is actually just a minimal Linux shell. It's is really easy to install and it works on any stock Android device, so you don't need to be root or anything like that.Ĭurrently, the Scripting Layer supports Python, Perl, Ruby, Lua, BeanShell, JavaScript and Tcl. It also provides a high level API that allows these programs to interact with the Android device, making it easy to do stuff like accessing sensor data, sending an SMS, rendering user interfaces and so on. The Scripting Layer for Android, SL4A, is an open source application that allows programs written in a range of interpreted languages to run on Android. Last Updated: Wednesday 29 th December 2021

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