When you learn a new programming language, the traditional first step is to go through a Hello, World tutorial that teaches you everything you need to know to get a basic program working, such as one that prints the text Hello, World on the screen. In this sense, this book is the Hello, World tutorial to build your first PhoneGap application.
This book provides you with a great way to get started with PhoneGap and also gives detailed examples from the different areas that PhoneGap covers. It can be a great reference book for later use, in case you want to quickly refresh the essentials with PhoneGap. This book is updated with the latest releases so it supports the npm plugins too. It will take you through the process of installing everything that you need to get started with PhoneGap. It will cover the basics of PhoneGap, such as the command-line interface (CLI), PhoneGap plugins, and APIs provided by PhoneGap.
You'll find this book to be a great introduction to PhoneGap. It will give you a chance to learn some more about the Framework and give you the confidence to build something great that works across difference devices.
Enjoy the book!
Chapter 1, Get up and Running with PhoneGap, shows you what PhoneGap is used for, a basic understanding of what you can achieve with the framework, and why it is good to use.
Chapter 2, Mobile Platform Support, will go into more detail about the various platforms that are supported in PhoneGap and what their limitations are.
Chapter 3, Command-line Interface, shows you that the Cordova command line is crucial for the effective and streamlined development of PhoneGap applications. It will give you an overview of the capabilities and how to use them.
Chapter 4, Plugin Support, will show you that accessing any platform API is disabled by default, so all features are nicely packed in separate plugins that you can add and manage based on your needs.
Chapter 5, First PhoneGap Application, shows you how to create the first basic Hello World application with PhoneGap and tells you about the file structure organization and building a fully functional application.
Chapter 6, Accessing Native APIs, discusses the different hardware APIs that are available on most of the platforms PhoneGap supports.
Chapter 7, Accessing Media Content, covers additional native features that are available through JavaScript. This chapter will cover accessing the native camera capabilities and other media content on the device.
Chapter 8, Application Development Workflow, will cover the basics on how to work with the PhoneGap application development process and how to go through the phases until the application is built.
Online Chapter, Beyond PhoneGap – Ionic, goes a little bit forward by teaching you how to apply hybrid mobile UI that will work across different platforms and different screen sizes. Ionic framework seems like a great option to apply it on the top of the PhoneGap. This chapter can be found online at https://www.packtpub.com/sites/default/files/downloads/Beyond_PhoneGap_Ionic.pdf.
In order to fully understand the concepts explained in the book, knowledge of the following subjects is mandatory:
Knowledge of modern web application languages such as HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript
Being comfortable with the use of the Unix terminal and the Microsoft Windows command line
The book is targeted at developers who want to develop hybrid mobile applications that have some basic understanding of frontend web development. It is intended for those developers who have experience with modern languages and development environments. Also, if you are familiar with the concepts of Object-oriented programming (OOP), reusable components, AJAX closures, and so on, this book will help you leverage that knowledge in the field of mobile development.
This book will cater to PhoneGap's users who want to know more about PhoneGap's broad range of capabilities and will also help you to expand the basic set of features using plugins.
In this book, you will find a number of text styles that distinguish between different kinds of information. Here are some examples of these styles and an explanation of their meaning.
Code words in text, database table names, folder names, filenames, file extensions, pathnames, dummy URLs, user input, and Twitter handles are shown as follows: "Unzip the content into the folder C:\Android\apache-ant-1.9.4."
Any command-line input or output is written as follows:
phonegap create hello com.example.hello HelloWorld cd hello
New terms and important words are shown in bold. Words that you see on the screen, for example, in menus or dialog boxes, appear in the text like this: "After opening the window, we should see an empty list. Switch to the Device Definitions tab and press Create AVD."
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