7. Accessing the Device Sensors and Locations API | PhoneGap Beginners Guide (third edition)

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PhoneGap Beginners Guide (third edition)

By : Ramanujam, Giorgio Natili

3.7 (6)

PhoneGap Beginners Guide (third edition)

3.7 (6)

By: Ramanujam, Giorgio Natili

Overview of this book

This book is for web developers who want to be productive in the mobile market quickly. In fact, by using PhoneGap, it's possible to deploy native applications based on web standards. This book assumes a very small knowledge of HTML/CSS/JavaScript and mobile platforms, such as Android, BlackBerry, iOS, and Windows Phone, and takes the reader step-by-step into a deep overview of PhoneGap and its APIs.

Preface

Preface

What this book covers

What you need for this book

Who this book is for

Sections

Time for action – heading

Conventions

Reader feedback

Customer support

Free Chapter

1. Introduction to PhoneGap

1. Introduction to PhoneGap

About PhoneGap

PhoneGap and Apache Cordova

Choosing an operating system for development

Mobile web versus mobile app

Installing dependencies

Installing PhoneGap

Setting up your development environment

Time for action – setting up Android using PhoneGap 3.x

Getting started with Android and JBoss

Time for action – using JBoss Developer Studio

Getting started with iOS and Xcode

Getting started with Windows Phone and Visual Studio

Summary

2. Building Your First PhoneGap Project

2. Building Your First PhoneGap Project

The structure of a PhoneGap application

Using the PhoneGap CLI

Cordova events

Time for action – the Hello World example

WebKit debugging – Chrome, Safari, and Opera

Gecko debugging – Firefox

Internet Explorer

Debugging workflow

Building and deployment

Summary

3. Mobile Frameworks

3. Mobile Frameworks

Building native UI for the mobile

Achieving a native look and feel on iOS

Choosing mobile frameworks

Time for action – developing with jQuery Mobile

Selecting a framework

Summary

4. Working with Plugins

4. Working with Plugins

An introduction to plugins

Exploring the Device API

Time for action – accessing the Device API

Custom plugins

Summary

5. Using Device Storage and the Files API

5. Using Device Storage and the Files API

Application data storage

Time for action – reading and writing data on the LocalStorage

Time for action – populating a local database

Database limitations

Understanding the Files API

Time for action – listing folders

Time for action – reading and rendering an image

Time for action – downloading and saving a file

Summary

6. Using the Contacts and Camera APIs

6. Using the Contacts and Camera APIs

The Contacts API

Time for action – searching device contacts

Time for action – adding a new contact

Camera API or Capture API?

Accessing the camera using the Camera API

Time for action – accessing the device camera

Time for action – controlling the position of the camera roll

The Media Capture API

Time for action – manipulating images with a canvas

Summary

7. Accessing the Device Sensors and Locations API

7. Accessing the Device Sensors and Locations API

Introducing device sensors

Accelerometer

Time for action – handling device orientation with JavaScript

Compass

Time for action – using the Compass API

An introduction to geolocation

The PhoneGap Geolocation API

Time for action – showing device position with Google Maps

Summary

8. Advanced PhoneGap

8. Advanced PhoneGap

Using the Globalization API

Localizing your app

Time for action – rendering localized messages

Adding multitouch gesture support

Time for action – implementing gesture support

Handling click delays

Summary

9. Getting Ready for Release

9. Getting Ready for Release

Exploring JavaScript compression

Time for action – compressing files using the Closure Compiler

Time for action – using UglifyJS

Time for action – optimizing JavaScript with RequireJS

Comparing compression tools

Using template engine compression

Time for action – compiling a template using Pistachio

Creating fluid, multiple app views

Using hardware-accelerated transitions

Porting web applications

Summary

10. A Sample PhoneGap Project

10. A Sample PhoneGap Project

What's in the app?

Creating the project

Scope for improvements

Summary

A. The JavaScript Quick Cheat Sheet

A. The JavaScript Quick Cheat Sheet

The getElementById() method

The getElementsByTagName() method

The getElementsByName() method

The alert method

The toString() method

The parseInt() method

The getDate() method

The onclick event

The ondblclick event

The window.location object

Selectors using jQuery

B. Publishing Your App

B. Publishing Your App

Publishing on Google Play

Publishing on Blackberry World

Publishing on the Apple App Store

Publishing on the Windows Phone Store

Summary

C. Related Plugin Resources

C. Related Plugin Resources

Summary

D. PhoneGap Tools

The PhoneGap Developer App

The PhoneGap Desktop App

Summary

Index

Index

Compass

The PhoneGap Compass API allows you to obtain the direction that the device is pointing to. The compass is a sensor that detects the direction or heading in which the device is pointed and returns the heading of the device in degrees using values from 0 to 359.99. The Compass API works similarly to the Accelerometer API; in fact, you can read the current device heading or you can define a watcher in order to continuously read the heading value.

The Compass API is available on the compass property of the navigator object and exposes the following functions:

compass.getCurrentHeading: This reads the current compass heading through a handler
compass.watchHeading: This reads the compass heading at a specific time interval through a handler and returns a reference to it
compass.clearWatch: This stops a previously defined time interval reading handler

The getCurrentHeading and watchHeading functions accept very similar arguments; the only difference is the last argument of the watchHeading...

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Programming languages

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PhoneGap Beginners Guide (third edition)

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