minSDKVersion for Android Capacitor vs Cordova

Ionic Framework ionic-v3
1

I am using Cordova for my project and attempting to target android API 17. In the documentation it states:
**Note:** Currently to use an Android Emulator you must use a system image of at least Android version 7.0 on API 24. This is due to the System WebView version not being able to be updated on emulators. Physical devices should work as low as Android 5.1 so long as they are kept updated.

The minSDKVersion in my build.gradle is 21 by default and if I set it lower I get an error on build in android studio.

I have several questions:

  1. Does Cordova have a lower minSDKVersion? If so should I switch to this if I want to target an older device?
  2. Does changing the minSDKVersion actually do anything during build or is it just checked on install to see if the apk will work on the device?
  3. Do I have any other options if I want to target an older device?
2

Hi wekas, i got the same issue did you find the answer anywhere?

3

@dionesky I think I ended up taking out the Capacitor Plugins reference and it worked ok.
e.g. import { Plugins } from ‘@capacitor/core’;

I may have used a cordova plugin instead for whatever I was doing.

4

ok @wekas thanks for your tip, Ill try it too.