Now that the prerequisites have been taken care of, we can install Cordova/PhoneGap. You can install one or the other, or both, on your system. To help you make that decision, let's go over some of the differences.
It's possible to do mobile app development using only the Cordova command-line interface (CLI). This requires the platform SDKs to be installed and properly configured.
Adding the PhoneGap CLI enables the use of Adobe's remote building capabilities, which means you don't need to have the platform SDKs installed in order to build your app. (There are caveats here; it is best to refer to the PhoneGap Build website at http://build.phonegap.com for more information.)
Installing the PhoneGap CLI will also install the Cordova CLI since it relies on this for most of its functionality. The PhoneGap CLI does not understand the same commands, but since it works with the Cordova CLI, it's possible to use the Cordova CLI when the PhoneGap CLI doesn't offer to do all the same functionality things.
If you intend to do all your development locally, you only need to worry about the Cordova CLI. If you need the flexibility to do remote builds without having platform SDKs installed on your machine, install the PhoneGap CLI.
It is important to note that the installation process requires that your computer be connected to the Internet as we will use npm to download the required packages.
Based on your earlier decision as to which command line to install, refer to the appropriate section, shown as follows to install Cordova / PhoneGap.
Tip
Downloading the example code
You can download the example code files for all Packt books you have purchased from your account at http://www.packtpub.com. If you purchased this book elsewhere, you can visit http://www.packtpub.com/support and register to have the files e-mailed directly to you.
To begin, open up your terminal or command prompt.
If you're running Mac OS X or Linux, type the following command:
sudo npm install -g cordova
If you're running Windows, make sure you're running as an administrative account and type this:
npm install -g cordova
If prompted, enter your password.
You should see output that looks similar to the following. It won't be exactly the same, but the important thing is that you shouldn't see any errors.
npm http GET https://registry.npmjs.org/cordova npm http 200 https://registry.npmjs.org/cordova npm http GET https://registry.npmjs.org/cordova/-/cordova-3.1.0-0.1.0.tgz npm http 200 https://registry.npmjs.org/cordova/-/cordova-3.1.0-0.1.0.tgz ... /usr/local/bin/cordova -> /usr/local/lib/node_modules/cordova/bin/cordova [email protected] /usr/local/lib/node_modules/cordova ├── [email protected] └── [email protected] ([email protected], [email protected],[email protected], [email protected], [email protected],[email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected],[email protected], [email protected])
To make sure that you can correctly access Cordova from the command line, type this:
cordova --version
You should see output similar to this:
3.1.0-0.1.0
Open your terminal or command prompt. If you're running Mac OS X or Linux, type this:
sudo npm install -g phonegap
If you're running Windows (as an administrative user), type this:
npm install -g phonegap
If prompted for your password, enter it.
You should see output that looks like this:
npm http GET https://registry.npmjs.org/phonegap npm http 200 https://registry.npmjs.org/phonegap npm http GET https://registry.npmjs.org/phonegap/-/phonegap-3.1.0-0.15.0.tgz npm http 200 https://registry.npmjs.org/phonegap/-/phonegap-3.1.0-0.15.0.tgz npm http GET https://registry.npmjs.org/node-static/0.7.0 npm http GET https://registry.npmjs.org/phonegap-build/0.8.4 ... /usr/local/bin/phonegap -> /usr/local/lib/node_modules/phonegap/bin/phonegap.js [email protected] /usr/local/lib/node_modules/phonegap ├── [email protected] └── [email protected] ([email protected], [email protected],[email protected], [email protected], [email protected],[email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected],[email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected],[email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected])
When complete, test whether you can access PhoneGap by typing this:
phonegap --version
You should see output similar to this:
3.1.0-0.15.0
In this section, we successfully installed the Cordova CLI and, if you chose to, the PhoneGap CLI on your machine. Your machine is now ready for Cordova/PhoneGap development.
It's possible that you'll see various errors or notices in the output of the install process. Generally, WARN and 304 notifications aren't cause for alarm, but if you see anything more serious, you may need to retry the install or address the underlying cause.
It's also possible that if your platform SDK is improperly set up, you'll get errors during the installation process. These should indicate the platform SDK in question.