Mihai Corlan Developer Evangelist / Adobe / @mcorlan

Ge!ing Started with PhoneGap

Mobile Development

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Bridging the Gap … PhoneGap

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PhoneGap

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Cordova ?

Why would you use PhoneGap?

§  Write once, run everywhere

§  Native Installers -> Application Stores

§  Use standard web technologies

PhoneGap could be your best friend if

§  You want to target multiple mobile platforms

§  You know HTML/JavaScript/CSS

§  You already have a web site/web application. !us you can reuse parts of this (see Wikipedia)

PhoneGap supports 7 platforms

PhoneGap Device APIs

Demo

How does PhoneGap work?

PhoneGap App Mobile Device

PhoneGap Native Engine

PhoneGap JavaScript Engine

Web View Renders the app UI

Access to native mobile features Your Code

HTML/JavaScript/CSS/Images/ Frameworks/Libraries

PhoneGap Plug-ins

§  h"p://wiki.phonegap.com/w/page/36752779/PhoneGap%20Plugins

§  Examples of plugins: h"ps://github.com/phonegap/phonegap-plugins

§  Extend the built-in functionality with custom plug-ins

§  Delegate heavyweight data processing to native code

§  Create background services

Building PhoneGap Apps

Build your PhoneGap app as you’d build a regular web app

§  Using your favorite editors (Eclipse, vim, Dreamweaver, Visual Studio)

§  Test and debug the app using your desktop browser

§  Test and debug the app using mobile simulators/emulators and the physical devices

What can you use to build your app?

§  Remember your application will run on the device’s browser

§  You can use whatever JavaScript frameworks or libraries you like. Eg. jQuery, jQuery Mobile, Sencha, Backbone, Liquid, Mustache, Bootrstrap, and so on

§  Pay a"ention to performance (mobile vs. desktop)

§  Pay a"ention to mobile browser features or lack of them (SVG for example)

Creating the native installers

!ere are 2 different methods:

§  Using the target platform tool chain

§  Using PhoneGap Build – a cloud service

Using the platform native tool chain

§  Use the OS and tools each platform recommends:

§  iOS - h"p://phonegap.com/start#ios-x4

§  Android - h"p://phonegap.com/start#android

§  BlackBerry - h"p://phonegap.com/start#blackberry

§  Windows Phone - h"p://phonegap.com/start#wp

§  WebOS: h"p://phonegap.com/start#webos

§  Symbian: h"p://phonegap.com/start#symbian

Using the PhoneGap Build – a Cloud Service

§  h"p://build.phonegap.com - a cloud service

§  Supports: iOS, Android, BlackBerry, WebOS, Windows Phone 7, and Symbian

§  Supports one plugin (ChildBrowser); but you can hack in support for other plugins

§  It is in beta and it is free; it will always be free for Open Source projects

§  You upload your $les (index.html, CSS, JS, images)

§  Or you provide a Git / SVN link

§  Support for debugging

Resources

§  Source: github.com/callback

§  Docs: docs.phonegap.com

§  Wiki: wiki.phonegap.com

§  PhoneGap Build: build.phonegap.com

§  Plugins: github.com/phonegap/phonegap-plugins

§  Support: groups.google.com/group/phonegap

§  IRC: irc.freenode.net #phonegap

§  Apps: phonegap.com/apps

§  Bugs: issues.apache.org/jira/browse/CB

PhoneGap Day Europe – Amsterdam September 14th

h"p://pgday.phonegap.com/eu2012/ 100 Euro early bird

Questions & Answers!

!ank you! Mihai Corlan @mcorlan h"p://corlan.org h"p://github.com/mcorlan