Mobile App Development using PhoneGap - A Comprehensive Walk-through

Gomathi Viswanathan &

Vijesh K V

Unimity SolutionsChennai

Lets Checkout an App!

Lets Checkout an App!

• What do Apps typically accomplish?

Present Information

Transmit Data to remote servers

Access device APIs

Capture and Save Information

Handle NotificationsImages Courtesy various Internet Sources

A Sample App - Meetup Updater

• Here is an App that will help you be updated with the Meetups of your preferred groups in & around your place

• It fetches Meetup Details from a remote server• Has a local data store for your preferences• Send Data to Server - Register for an Event• Encompasses the typical navigational and user

interaction elements

What is behind the scenes? PhoneGap

PhoneGap• Is a Cross Platform Native Mobile App development

framework• Leverages HTML, CSS and Javascript • Supports – Android, iOS, Blackberry, Symbian, Windows,

WebOS, Bada and Palm• Has APIs for sensors and data • Was recently acquired by Adobe and the current code base is

to be submitted to Apache Software Foundation

PhoneGap Build

• PhoneGap Build an Online service to compile code blocks in HTML, CSS, JS to native apps without the need for the developer to work with the respective APIs

• Without PhoneGap build, you need to download and work using different SDKs and builds.

• Beta is free

Want to know how to get all this done?

Gearing Up for Development

Since the App is compiled as a Native application, respective SDKs for each platform needs to be installed.

Mac 10.6 OS computer

XcodeWindows (or) Mac computer

Android SDK

AVD

Eclipse and

ADT plugin

Windows Computer

Apache Ant

Sun JDK

BB WebWorks SDK

The Nuts & Bolts

Getting Started• PhoneGap is open web-standards based, which means you can run and test and test your App on any Webkit based Browser (Chrome,

Safari)

• The application creation is very similar to that of web pages creation, except for the installation and deployment stages. HTML, CSS and Javascript is all that you need from a programming perspective.

• You can use Browser based debugging tools that are available as addons. Eg. FireBug

The Add-Ons• Use popular JS plugin like JQuery (mobile version), mobile

specific like jQTouch, Sencha.• Use Webkit specific pre-release implementation of certain

CSS properties.• Use Local Storages

– Cookies for session maintenance– PhoneGap API – Web SQL database– HTML5 local Storage API is a breeze – Indexed storage option Indexed DB is upcoming

• Structure App in a MVC model

Environment Views

• Switching to IDE view (will be removed from slides)

Looking Inward – PhoneGap API

Images Courtesy various Internet Sources

Looking Inward – PhoneGap API

• Accelerometer – Device motion sensor• Geolocation – GPS Sensor• Compass• Capture – audio, video and image capture capabilities• Camera • Media- Allows Record and Playback of Audio• Contacts database• File• Connection type• Device • Notification – Audio Visual and Tactile

• Deviceready

• Pause and Resume

• Online and Offline

• Menubutton

• Searchbutton

• Startcallbutton and endcallbutton

• Volumedownbutton and volumeupbutton

Core Events

Looking Outward - Linking to Remote Servers

• PhoneGap Applications can communicate with Remote web servers• Remote servers can be public (meetup, twitter etc) (or)

proprietary, eg. Any business app say a CRM APP may contact a central proprietary web server of the company.

• Services can be RESTful API based (or) SOAP based• The response can be XML (or) JSON• The client can use XHR (Ajax HTTP request) • WebSockets are an emerging trend

The Demo

Flow of Building and Deploying

Courtesy www.phonegap.com

Code Aside – The design elements, best practices and testing

Visual Design• User experience is enhanced when the App is Consistent in

design and behavior with Native device. Eg. The menu style, notifications style.

• This means some of the core design components and their consistency need to be maintained. – Fonts and Sizes– Icon Styles– Device Sizes and Resolutions– Notifications– Screen Navigation

• Data display– Running Text– Categorized Text – Images and Media– Scroll - Slide, with Thumbnail

Design Elements

Images Courtesy various Internet Sources

• Data capture options– Text Boxes– Select Fields– Multi-Select

Design Elements

Images Courtesy various Internet Sources

Testing your App

• The features testing at a unit level, needs to be done not only

on the emulator, also at the device level.

• Apart from testing for the functionality, pre-market

submission checklists need to be applied

• Testing of the Installation Process, Upgrades Workflow and

Application fire-up are also equally critical

• The response to external events like incoming calls and

application state maintenance is at the outset taken care of

by PhoneGap

References• Looking for Support

– IRC Channel for JS, JQuery

– Google PhoneGap group

– iOS, Android communities on Social Networking Sites

• References made in this presentations

– http://www.meetup.com

– http://www.phonegap.com

– http://www.patternsofdesign.co.uk

– http://developer.android.com

– Images from various internet sources

Thank you.