Adding strings.xml in App_Resources/Android/src/main/res/values is crashing the build

By the design with CLI 4.1.0 the structure of Android resource folder is as follows:

Android/src/main/res/values

By default in values folder there is colors.xml and styles.xml files. When, I add a strings/xml file it will cause the app build to crash. The reaons: the strings.xml is created during build and if a custom file is introduced it will replace the content of the default one causing two string to be missing (whic are used in AndoridManifes)

Error log

D:\git\NS-Issues-2018-II\NativeScript\issue-5897\platforms\android\app\build\intermediates\manifests\full\debug\AndroidManifest.xml:33: AAPT: error: resource string/app_name (aka org.nativescript.issue5897:string/app_name) not found.

D:\git\NS-Issues-2018-II\NativeScript\issue-5897\platforms\android\app\build\intermediates\manifests\full\debug\AndroidManifest.xml:44: AAPT: error: resource string/title_activity_kimera (aka org.nativescript.issue5897:string/title_activity_kimera) not found.

Reproducible with hello world template and CLI 4.1.0 on Win.

Steps to reporduce:

• Create new project
• Add strings.xml in Android/src/main/res/values

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<resources>
    <string name="nativescript_google_maps_api_key">Some-Api-Key</string>
</resources>

• Build the project - it fails due to missing title_activity_kimera and app_name

[rosen-vladimirov]

@NickIliev when you place anything in the <project dir>/app/App_Resources/Android/src/main/res it automatically replaces the default resource that would have been used for the build. This is by design and allows the user to fully override the resource. I agree that the current case leads to unexpected errors during build, but it can be easily fixed by adding the following lines in your strings.xml:

<string name="app_name">__NAME__</string>
<string name="title_activity_kimera">__TITLE_ACTIVITY__</string>

NOTE: CLI will replace these placeholders directly in your <project dir>/platforms/android once it builds the application.

Can you give it a try and inform us if it works for you?

[mudlabs]

Just experienced this when I created a strings.xml that only had the app_name declared. The build failed because title_activity_kimera couldn’t be found. After reverting my changes the build still failed though, so I just removed the label attribute from activity to fix.