Apache Cordova Extension in Visual Studio VS PhoneGap - apache

Can anyone explain me what is the difference between Cordova Extension that VS offering for building hybrid apps and the PhoneGap Framework? I went to the PhoneGap API document site and it says "Note that Cordova used to be called PhoneGap" but on the other hand I found "Apache Cordova is the core open source project where development and contributions happen. vs "Adobe PhoneGap is a distribution of Apache Cordova that additionally provides integration with Adobe’s utilities and services".
Is the Cordova Extension Visual Studio provides is Cordova PhoneGap combine thing?

Cordova and Phonegap are almost same in coding techniques and API usage. There are few Difference like
PhoneGap Extends Cordova by providing extra options like build tools etc
Cordova use keyword "cordova" in commands while Phonegap uses "phonegap"
cordova has a "serve" command that Phonegap doesn't
Adding platforms seems to be done differently between the two commands ( phonegap uses "install" command, cordova uses "platform add" command
few more..
MoreOver
keep these lines in mind to avoid confusion
You can think of Apache Cordova as the engine that powers PhoneGap,
similar to how WebKit is the engine that powers Chrome or Safari

My opinion based on my experience:
Cordova has a bigger community, has more plugins, updated faster, (is supported by Visual Studio, if this is important for you)
Phonegap is built on top of Cordova and a has some extra features. It has a build (web based) system (which I don't use). The documentation has some nice examples. It has a very nice mobile app that shows the code updates immediately after you save the file. I really like this feature for mobile development.

Related

Can IBM Worklight Mobile build faster

Currently I am using Eclipse. Can I use another IDE or a customized configuration for Eclipse to build for my project faster? I want to increase my production time.
Worklight 6.2 and above provide a command line interface which you can use instead of Eclipse.
With some development effort you could also take the CLI and hook it to other IDEs that provide pluggability options.
You can read more about the CLI, here:
For Worklight 6.2: Command Line Interface for IBM Worklight Developers
For MobilFirst 6.3 and above: Using CLI to create, build, and manage MobileFirst project artifacts

Migrate a 5.0.6 studio project into Worklight 6.1 studio

Is it possible to migrate a WL 5.0.6 project into WL 6.1 studio. The project uses dojo, and Cordova. Initial results are obviously that dojo is not found, and for the java based Cordova code it is not able to find ::import org.apache.cordova.api.CallbackContext;
import org.apache.cordova.api.CordovaPlugin;
Apprecaite any suggestions of steps tpo accomplish this migration, or perhaps the best appraoch is to create a new 6.1 project and manually move in the logic from the 5.0.6 project.
Thanks for any helpful advice.
I cannot imagine for a Worklight 5.0.6-based app with Dojo and Cordova plug-in, to properly migrate to Worklight 6.1.0.x
As you mention, Dojo library is missing, which makes sense. Dojo library is a separate entity from the Worklight project. You will need to import it as well.
Worklight 5.0.6 is based on some very olden version of Cordova 2. Worklight 6.1.0.x uses Cordova 3.1.
In Cordova 3, the structure of config.xml as well as the way you call a Cordova plug-in has changed (if memory serves me right), so I suggest that here too you will consult with the Getting Started training module for creating Cordova plug-ins (also check out the sample project) and verify that in the migrated project you now follow these changes. I believe the migration process should update the config.xml file, but not any code you write... this is not something Worklight can do for you (as this is user-code).
As for the error mesage, I suspect this very much relates to 2 above; take a look at the sample project and see how the Java class (or .m and .h files for iOS) of the Cordova plug-in is done; pay attention to the imports and alike. Compare the two...

Do I need to install IntelliJ IDEA if I already have Android Studio installed?

The title pretty much sums it up. I'm brand new to IntelliJ IDEA, and it's not clear to me if I need separate installs, one for my Android projects and one for my vanilla Java (and beyond) projects. I've read through the docs and couldn't find an answer. Thanks
Android Studio is self-contained for Android projects. If you're going to be doing significant plain Java development, you may prefer to use IntelliJ, becuase Android Studio is in many ways tuned to doing Android development, and could be restrictive for other types of projects.
For example, Android Studio is designed to work with the Gradle build system, which may not be what you want for Java projects; it's possible to use Android Studio with IntelliJ's built-in Java builder, though you can't create new projects that way.
If you are going to be working with many non-Android Java projects, then IntelliJ is definitely the way to go. You may even find that after you start using it you will stop using Android Studio altogether.
IntelliJ includes most of what Android Studio provides for Android development as well as fantastic support for other types of projects. Additionally, IntelliJ has far fewer issues for Android development.
As for running both - they keep all their files separate (config, etc) and it is perfectly safe to run both (even at the same time).
If you do decide to use both then I would just advise you to keep your Android SDK install in a separate location - it just makes it easier to manage and you can point both at a single updated target :)

What IDE's are available for writing google chrome apps?

I want to start writing a google chrome app but I'd like to use an IDE. Searching around I haven't come up with much. Most of my search results are IDEs that are chrome apps rather than for chrome apps. Does anyone have a suggestion? (I realize I don't /need/ an IDE but I want to know what my options are)
Happy to report that Google is now working on an open-source IDE specifically targeted at Chrome app development, codenamed Spark. See this announcement on thenextweb.com for example. You can find the code on GitHub here. The IDE is in a very early stage, but progressing quickly. There are no firm plans yet as to when an initial public release in Chrome Web Store will become available, but if you're interested, you can follow announcements on the GitHub page.
UPDATE (08/12/2014): Spark has been officially announced at Google I/O 2014 and released to the public as Chrome Dev Editor. Install it in your Chrome from Chrome Web Store.
To build a Chrome app, you just use the typical client-side web development stack--HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. This means you can use any IDE you would use for building a web front end like WebStorm, Eclipse, Sublime Text, etc.
You can also build Chrome apps with Google Dart, which means you could also use Dart Editor along with WebStorm and the Dart Plugin for Eclipse.
I started Xpom-Xpum! SDK project — a free and open-source IDE for Google Chrome extensions and apps.
If you interested, you can download it and it's C# code (MIT License) by link http://xpomxpum.codeplex.com/
But now I released it's Alpha version only...

Importing Cordova plugins into Worklight 6

I worked through the ApacheCordovaPlugin example. Its nice to see that creating a new plugin is possible, and I successfully replicated the HelloWorldPlugin in a WL project of my own just to make sure I could get all the plumbing to work. It is tricky, you have to make entries in the right XML files, name your Java and .js files appropriately, know how to include them and call the functions, etc. If you make a mistake there is very little information visible that you can use to debug it. The entire process is very fragile.
Now I would like to have access to the large library of existing Cordova plugins. My primary development target is Android. I downloaded a plugin zip file from a git repository and extracted it. Looking at the files and the directory layout it is not at all clear how to integrate this into a WL project. Cordova has a 'plugin.xml' file that appears to supply all the glue, but there is no such thing in WL. I was not able to determine where to put files and what edits to make in the Worklight project that would cause the Cordova plugin to be recognized and accessed from my application JavaScript.
Surely this process is possible and is documented somewhere? Ideally there would be a utility that we use to import Cordova plugins, but next-best would be a step-by-step procedure description. I saw one somebody did for getting plugins into the iOS application environment, but not Android.
Most probably you've downloaded a plugin for cordova 3.0+. Since latest WL contains Cordova 2.6 you need to download plugin for this (or similar) version. E.g. if you're talking about barcode scanner plugin the most suitable version would be 2.2 (https://github.com/phonegap/phonegap-plugins/tree/master/Android/BarcodeScanner)