Book Image

Getting Started with NativeScript

By : Nathanael J. Anderson
Book Image

Getting Started with NativeScript

By: Nathanael J. Anderson

Overview of this book

NativeScript allows you to build a fast cross-platform application that has a native UI. NativeScript is a true cross-platform framework that generates native speed applications using the native components of the host platform, all using JavaScript. Although NativeScript allows you to build your application in JavaScript, you have full access to the host OS from your code, allowing you to easily tweak or use new platform features instantly at native code speeds. Whether you have already developed multiple applications or zero applications, this book will help you to develop your next application in a cross-platform framework quickly, saving you a massive amount of time and money. This book concisely shows you NativeScript’s built-in framework that allows you to rapidly develop a fully-working compiled cross-platform application in just a few chapters. It starts by laying the foundation of NativeScript and working through the fundamentals to create a basic shell of the application. Moving on, you’ll see how to build a full-fledged application step by step. We’ll show you how to use plugins, and how to communicate with the native OS libraries easily so that you can customize your application as if your app was created in Java or Objective C. We then deal with the issues that arise from being cross platform and compensate for the different screen sizes, screen resolutions, and device abilities. Finally, we progress to testing and deploying your app.
Table of Contents (15 chapters)
Getting Started with NativeScript
Credits
Foreword
About the Author
About the Reviewer
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Index

Event system


While we have already touched briefly on one use of the Observable component when we discussed the model file in Chapter 2, The Project Structure, let us go more in-depth on this component.

This component has two similar responsibilities; both deal with events. First, this class is used as the source class for using any variables that need binding.

By source, I mean this is the class that provides the memory location for you to store your variables that you want to stay in sync with other components and your code. For example, if you look at our created main-view-model.js property that we discussed in Chapter 2, The Project Structure, it uses the Observable component for the counter variable and the tapAction. This is the source class for tracking our counter variable. The other components and your own code can also listen for propertyChange events. This event is fired, which allows you to react anytime that property or variable is changed. The NativeScript components, when bound...