Welcome to Getting Started with NativeScript. In this book, we are going to go on an awesome journey of building cross-platform applications in JavaScript. We will cover everything from how NativeScript works, to how to test, debug, and finally deploy your application. Over the course of this book, we are going to explore how to build a full-featured, cross-platform messaging platform. The application will work the same on all NativeScript-supported platforms. With your ability to develop in JavaScript and the insights provided in this book, you will be releasing your own cool applications in no time.
Chapter 1, Introduction to NativeScript, will teach you about NativeScript and how to install and build your first NativeScript application.
Chapter 2, The Project Structure, provides an overview of what all the different files and folders are used for, and we will build and switch to a second screen for our application here.
Chapter 3, Declarative UI, Styling, and Events, works through how to create screens using the Declarative UI, style them and then how to create and respond to events.
Chapter 4, Building a Featured Application, helps you to actually sit down and build a full-featured, cross-device messaging application using just the standard NativeScript components.
Chapter 5, Installing Third-Party Components, delves into how to install several different types of third-party components to enhance our cool communication application.
Chapter 6, Platform Differences, looks at how to deal with the differences between iOS and Android and the differences in the actual physical characteristics of the devices even on the same platform.
Chapter 7, Testing and Deploying Your App, looks at how to use several different types of testing frameworks, how to debug your application, and finally, how to actually deploy your application.
NativeScript is an open source project; as such, it uses technologies that can be freely downloaded from the Internet. You need to download and install a recent version of Node from http://nodejs.org. You also need a text editor so that you can edit your source code. If you are developing for Android, you need to download and install Java 7, Gradle 2.3, and the Android SDK. For iOS, you need to install Xcode 6.2 or a later version.
If you are already a JavaScript developer and you want to finally build native cross-platform applications for iOS and Android using your skills, then this book is just for you!
In this book, you will find a number of styles of text that distinguish between different kinds of information. Here are some examples of these styles, and an explanation of their meaning.
Code words in text are shown as follows: "which a require statement would load into your code."
A block of code is set as follows:
{
"name": "tns-template-hello-world",
"main": "app.js",
"version": "1.5.0",
... more json documentation fields...
}When we wish to draw your attention to a particular part of a code block, the relevant lines or items are set in bold:
{
"nativescript": {
"id": "org.nativescript.crossCommunicator",
"tns-android": {
"version": "1.5.0"
},Any command-line input is written as follows:
nativescript run ios --emulator
New terms and important words are shown in bold or italics. Words that you see on the screen, in menus or dialog boxes for example, appear in the text like this: "You can probably guess that the Label will still say Tap the button."
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