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

Building the main screen


We will start with the code of the application, as it is fairly simple and gives you some context for the rest of the screen. Then, we will dig into the screen Declarative UI and finish off with the CSS for the screen.

JavaScript code

The main screen code is straightforward. We need to require the same application settings as we used in the settings screen to see whether we need to make the settings screen pop up. Then, we will require the observable array, which holds all our messages. Then, we will include a file that deals with our communication, which we will discuss after the screen is done. Let's take a look at the following code snippet:

var appSettings = require('application-settings');
var ObservableArray = require("data/observable-array").ObservableArray;
var Socket = require("./AjaxSocket.js").AJAXSocket;

Next, we will define the icon array and the message array. Each of the icon values, such as 0xE0C9, is easily accessible on the icon fonts website. We will...