Building from source

Layout

Folder	Content
app	Android app (Kotlin, Jetpack Compose, Media3)
desktop	Windows app (Kotlin, Compose Multiplatform, VLC through vlcj), its own Gradle project
desktop/src/native	XaosMedia.cs, the bridge to the Windows media controls
desktop/installer	Inno Setup script and installer artwork (make_images.py)

Android

Open the root folder in Android Studio, or:

./gradlew :app:assembleDebug

The APKs are split by ABI; the one shipped is app-arm64-v8a-debug.apk.

Desktop

Needs a JDK 21 that includes jpackage (for example Eclipse Temurin).

cd desktop
./gradlew run                  # run from source
./gradlew createDistributable  # app folder with its own Java runtime
./gradlew packageInstaller -PandroidApkDir=../app/build/outputs/apk/debug

packageInstaller needs Inno Setup 6.7 (winget install JRSoftware.InnoSetup). The build bundles:

• the Android APK found in androidApkDir;
• an audio-only subset of the VLC installed on the build machine (-PvlcDir to point elsewhere);
• adb from the Android SDK platform-tools;
• ffmpeg (LGPL build), Deno and yt-dlp, downloaded once and cached in the Gradle user folder;
• the media bridge, compiled with the C# compiler that ships with Windows.

Development switches

Variable	Effect
XAOS_HOME	Use another data folder instead of ~/.xaos. Such an instance does not connect to the phone and can run next to the installed app.
XAOS_START	Open directly on a section: ALBUMS, SONGS, PLAYLISTS, SETTINGS, PHONE, FULLSCREEN, MINI...

How the sync works

The phone app exposes a broadcast receiver, protected by the DUMP permission so that only adb can call it. The desktop app asks it to export favorites, playlists and history to its folder in /sdcard/Android/data, reads them, merges them with its own data against the state agreed at the previous sync, and pushes the result back. The phone applies it only if nothing changed in the meantime.