Minimalistic GAE Endpoints in Android Studio

The goal

The goal is to remove deprecated code that is auto-generated by Android Studio.  I only want my entities in the project, no depreciated dependencies.  I will add push notifications through Google Cloud Messaging library.

Q/A

Q: Which code is deprecated?

A: Any generated code that depends on com.google.android.gcm is deprecated.

Generating initial backend and client libraries

1. Open an existing Android project
• Let's call it Project
• Let's assume that the package name is com.example.package
2. Generate App Engine Backend
• Tools -> Google Cloud Tools -> Generated App Engine Backend
• This will create two projects:
• Project-AppEngine
• Project-endpoints

Cleanup

1. Delete
• Under Project-AppEngine
• google_generated
• target
• Under Project-AppEngine/src/main/java/com.example.package
• Device*.java
• Message*.java
• From Project-AppEngine/src/main/webapp/index.html
• scripts
• content of the <body/> tag
• add something like <h1>Sample Project</h1> under <body/>
• Under Project-endpoints/src/endpoint-src/java
• com.example.package
• Under Project-endpoints/src/main
• com.example.package
• From Project-endpoints/src/main/AndroidManifest.xml
• GCMIntentService
• GCMBroadcastReceiver
• RegisterActivity
• More stuff can be removed from this file, like unused permissions.
• From Project-endpoints/build.gradle
• compile files('libs/gcm.jar')
• more dependencies can be removed from this file
• Under Project-endpoints/libs
• gcm.jar

Adding Entities and deploying

1. Add a test entity under Project-AppEngine/src/main/java/com.example.package
• Test.java
2. Generate TestEndpoint.java
• Select Test.java
• Tools -> Google Cloud Tools -> Generate Endpoint
3. Deploy the project to GAE 
• Maven Projects -> Project-AppEngine/Plugins/appengine/appengine:update
4. At this point you can interact with TestEndpoint in APIs Explorer
   

Client libraries

1. Generate client libraries
• Select Project-AppEngine
• Tools -> Google Cloud Tools ->  Generate Client Libraries
2. Synchronize the project (refresh)
• This step creates
• Project-AppEngine/google_generated
• Project-AppEngine/target/Project-
  AppEngine-1.0
• Nothing is yet created under Project-endpoints/src/endpoint-src/java
3. Generate client libraries - AGAIN!
• Select Project-AppEngine
• Tools -> Google Cloud Tools ->  Generate Client Libraries
4. Synchronize the project (refresh) - AGAIN!
5. Look under Project-endpoints/src/endpoint-src/java/com.example.project.testendpoing
• On the second attempt the client code for TestEndpoint is generated
• Now this code can be used in the original Android Project to communicate with GAE.

Notes

When you add a new entity under Project-AppEngine/src/main/java/com.example.package, the step of generating client libraries has to be performed twice, at least at the moment.

• First run will modify Project-AppEngine
• Second run will generate client code under Project-endpoints

Hopefully this will be fixed in the future.