PhoneGap Essentials

Ivan Turkovic

• Éditeur: Packt Publishing
• Année: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781785284687
• Édition: 1
• Sujet: Informatik
• Sous-sujet: Programmierung von Mobilgeräten

Use PhoneGap to build cross-platform mobile applications quickly and efficiently

About This Book

• Build native mobile phone applications with HTML5, JavaScript, and CSS
• Incorporate smartphone capabilities such as GPS, camera, accelerometer, and more into your apps for any mobile platform
• Use Cordova view to embed PhoneGap into native applications to either transit smoothly to PhoneGap or incorporate PhoneGap functionalities

Who This Book Is For

If you are a mobile application developer in iOS or Android, or a web application developer who wants to learn how to make cross-platform mobile applications using PhoneGap, this book is perfect for you. To make the most of this book, it will be helpful if you have prior knowledge of HTML5, CSS, and JavaScript.

What You Will Learn

• Get to grips with the fundamentals of PhoneGap to get started
• Set up a development environment for Linux, Mac OS, and Windows
• Use Cordova CLI, workflows, and Plugman Plugin manager to create mobile applications efficiently
• Understand the development workflow to create native cross-platform mobile applications
• Embed plugin support to transition to PhoneGap or use it to enhance existing applications
• Improve your mobile development knowledge using object-oriented programming (OOP), reusable components, and AJAX closures
• Be empowered to build your own mobile apps quickly with ease
• Discover tips and tricks to make app development fun and easy

In Detail

PhoneGap is an open source framework that allows you to quickly build cross-platform mobile apps using HTML5, JavaScript, and CSS. PhoneGap Build is a cloud service that allows you to quickly develop and compile mobile applications without SDKs, compilers, and hardware. PhoneGap allows you to use its existing plugins or create new ones, as per your requirements, to enhance your mobile applications.

Starting by installing PhoneGap, you'll develop an app that uses various device capabilities through different plugins and learn how to build an app in the cloud with PhoneGap's Build service.

You'll discover how to use PhoneGap to create an application view, along with how to use a camera, geolocation, and other device capabilities to create engaging apps. Next, you'll augment applications with PhoneGap's plugins using minimalistic code. You'll explore the app preparation process to deploy your app to the app store.

By the end of the book, you'll have also learned how to apply hybrid mobile UIs that will work across different platforms and different screen sizes for better user experience.

Style and approach

This is an example-based, fast-paced guide that covers the fundamentals of creating cross-platform mobile applications with PhoneGap.

PhoneGap Essentials

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Table of Contents

PhoneGap Essentials

Credits

About the Author

About the Reviewers

www.PacktPub.com

Support files, eBooks, discount offers, and more

Why subscribe?

Free access for Packt account holders

Preface

What this book covers

What you need for this book

Who this book is for

Conventions

Reader feedback

Customer support

Downloading the example code

Downloading the color images of this book

Errata

Piracy

Questions

1. Get up and Running with PhoneGap

A brief history

What is PhoneGap?

Where can it be used?

What PhoneGap is not

Competition

PhoneGap or Cordova?

Setting up a local development environment

Mac OS

Linux

Windows

Summary

2. Mobile Platform Support

Supported platforms

Supported features by platform

Support for development

PhoneGap Build

Platform support

Using PhoneGap Build

The PhoneGap Developer App

How to use it

Summary

3. Command-line Interface

Introduction to a command-line interface

PhoneGap CLI versus Cordova CLI

Installing the PhoneGap CLI

Creating a new project

Creating a Hello project

Creating a new project

Managing platforms

Adding a platform

Listing platforms

Removing a platform

Keeping platforms up-to-date

Application description

Creating a project from a template

Managing the project

Application preview

Preparing an application

Compiling an application

Building an application

Running an application

Emulating an application

Using PhoneGap Build

Authentication

Preparing the application

Building the application

Summary

4. Plugin Support

Introducing plugins

What is a plugin?

Support for different mobile platforms

Installing plugins

Command-line Interface

Finding plugins

Adding plugins

Listing plugins

Removing plugins

Plugman

Installing Plugman

Searching for plugins

Installing plugins

Removing plugins

npm

Plugins

Battery Status

Camera

Contacts

Device

The Device Motion plugin

Device position orientation

Dialogs

FileSystem

File Transfer

Geolocation

Globalization

InAppBrowser

Media

Media Capture

Network Information

Splashscreen

Vibration

StatusBar

Summary

5. First PhoneGap Application

Starting a new application

Creating a new application

Setting up the initial code

Project folder structure

Core PhoneGap events

The deviceready event

The pause event

The resume event

Essential plugins

The Device plugin

The Network Information plugin

The StatusBar plugin

The Dialogs plugin

Summary

6. Accessing Native APIs

Native APIs

Device status plugins

Motion sensing plugins

Media functionality plugins

Notification plugins

The Battery Status plugin

The Battery Status event

The Low Battery event

The Critical Battery event

The Device Motion plugin

The getCurrentAcceleration method

watchAcceleration

clearWatch

The Device Orientation plugin

getCurrentHeading

watchHeading

clearWatch

The Geolocation plugin

getCurrentPosition

watchPosition

clearWatch

The Position object

The Coordinates object

The Vibration plugin

Vibrate

Standard vibrate

Vibrating with a pattern (Android and Windows only)

Cancelling the vibration (not supported in iOS)

Summary

7. Accessing Media Content

Introducing multimedia

Media

File management

Contacts

File Transfer

The FileTransfer object

The FileUploadResult object

Upload

Download

Abort

Contacts

Contact

The Contact object

ContactName

ContactField

ContactAddress

ContactOrganization

The create method

Find

pickContact

Camera

getPicture

cleanup

InAppBrowser

The InAppBrowser object

The InAppBrowserEvent object

Open

Summary

8. Application Development Workflow

An introduction to a development workflow

Web project development

Native platform development

Best practices

Use local assets for the UI

Network access for data

Non-blocking UI

CSS animations

Click events

Performance

Optimize the image assets

Offline status

Load only what you need

Transparency

JSHint

Testing

Debugging

Desktop browsers

The PhoneGap emulator

Weinre

iOS Debugging

Xcode

Safari Remote Debugging

Android debugging

User interface

Summary

Index

PhoneGap Essentials

Copyright © 2015 Packt Publishing

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles or reviews.

Every effort has been made in the preparation of this book to ensure the accuracy of the information presented. However, the information contained in this book is sold without warranty, either express or implied. Neither the author, nor Packt Publishing, and its dealers and distributors will be held liable for any damages caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by this book.

Packt Publishing has endeavored to provide trademark information about all of the companies and products mentioned in this book by the appropriate use of capitals. However, Packt Publishing cannot guarantee the accuracy of this information.

First published: September 2015

Production reference: 1310815

Published by Packt Publishing Ltd.

Livery Place

35 Livery Street

Birmingham B3 2PB, UK.

ISBN 978-1-78528-468-7

www.packtpub.com

Credits

Author

Ivan Turkovic

Reviewers

Johnathan Iannotti

Yousuf Qureshi

Anthony Rumsey

Kasper Souren

Tomasz Trejderowski

Commissioning Editor

Neil Alexander

Acquisition Editor

Subho Gupta

Content Development Editor

Manasi Pandire

Technical Editor

Bharat Patil

Copy Editors

Stephen Copestake

Tasneem Fatehi

Project Coordinator

Suzann...