Doubts on Phonegap.js, Phonegap Build and Intel XDK - html

I am very new to mobile application development. Now I am into a mobile application project which should work on IOS, Android, BB and WP.
After googling to learn what can I do on this, I felt Phonegap fulfils my requirement. I have downloaded and installed phonegap on eclipse to start develop for Android.
I have downloaded, SDK, AVD, eclipse etc to get started with Phonegap for Android.I followed the procedures in the Getting Started Guide.
For User Interface, I took Intel App Framework as my tool of choice.
Everything goes fine with me, other than my doubts in Cross Platform mobile application development.
1) I have read about PhoneGap build, it just requires html,css and js file to wrap up an application for different platforms. So downloading and linking phonegap.js in an the application is not required unless I need to access the device's native function ?
And just create a responsive HTML5 application and build with PhoneGap Build is all I have to do ?
2) If I can just do like above, then why I should install eclipse and android SDK to create for android when I can just make HTML5 application and build with phonegap build and put it on google play.
3) I have came across Intel XDK and they have similar service like phonegap, if I use Intel XDK then I don't have to use any assets of phonegap ?
Please answer these question as these things are confusing me a lot.

As per my knowledge these are the answers,
1) I have read about PhoneGap build, it just requires html,css and js
file to wrap up an application for different platforms. So downloading
and linking phonegap.js in an the application is not required unless I
need to access the device's native function ?
Yes, until your application need to access devices's native function or any inbuilt or custom plugins, no need of phonegap.js.
And just create a responsive HTML5 application and build with PhoneGap
Build is all I have to do ?
2) If I can just do like above, then why I should install eclipse and
android SDK to create for android when I can just make HTML5
application and build with phonegap build and put it on google play.
Phonegap applications need to be developed as native applications using web technologies,
ex: IOS apps need to developed on MAC (using IOS SDK) etc.
3) I have came across Intel XDK and they have similar service like
phonegap, if I use Intel XDK then I don't have to use any assets of
phonegap ?
Intel XDK using cloud based development where your html,css etc are uploaded into the Intel server and the application will build their and give your the final build. In this case you no need of MAC for IOS application development.

In my experience developing with Phonegap and its Build service I generally use a plain web IDE which is based on eclipse called Aptana. It's primary use is for just HTML web development. I never install iOS or Android SDK's since the whole reason you use Phonegap's online build service is so you can be free from having to set up multiple development environments.
All my project specifications are configured in the config.xml. I don't include a copy of Phonegap's libraries since they are bundled at the time of compilation in via Phonegap's online build service.
For general testing and debugging I use either the Chrome debug inspector or Chrome and the Ripple emulator. When I've finished testing and need to compile the binaries I send my code up to Phonegap's build service using maven and Chris Price's Phonegap build maven plugin.
This allows me to :
Unlock the signing keys (maven-ant-plugin and an http get call)
Upload my project for compilation to Phonegap's Build service
Sign my project with a specified signing key
Download a compiled binary for a specified platform
All from one single command. When I develop on my Mac Mini I installed a ruby script which will deploy the downloaded binary straight to my iOS device as final step.
I came up with this solution with the idea that I wanted to be able to checkout my code and be able to compile it online using only maven on any machine. This achieves that.

To answer #2. For phonegap you only need to download eclipse and android SDK or Xcode(iOS) if you are NOT using phone gap build. If you use Phonegap Build (included with Photoshop subscription) you can build with their servers and download the app straight to the device through the phonegap site. Its real simple for Android, a bit harder for iOS.

My understanding is that you have to subscribe to iOS Developer Program (US$99pa) to generate an iOS-installable app (even just for testing it), and publishing/distribution is also a bit more complicated than e.g. Android as well. That is completely regardless of what tool you use to build it, you need an Apple key code to install it. Of course, you can always just build and publish it as a a web application that be viewed in any browser. Then you don't need the iOS developer sub.

Related

how to make Andriod APP base on kaa SDK

I studied the Android samples in GitHub and the Kaa sandbox, and noticed that those apps are standardized and can not be changed.
Then I tried to build-up my own Android app base on the library in the downloaded SDK, but didn't find out a way.
Can you help with the following ?
Which Android developing tool (IDE) is recommend to develop Kaa Android apps?
How can I make my Android app downloadable in sandbox web page?
How can I publish it?
You can use any one IDE for the development of your own Android application with or without use of Kaa SDK. Kaa does not provide any recommendations usually. But, we use IDEA Studio at the moment.
You should not normally add any applications to the Kaa Sandbox. This is complex and requires many steps to do.
But, you can contribute your application to the Sample Apps GitHub repository. This way, it might be included into one of the next future Kaa Sandbox releases.
To publish your Android application, you can do any combination of the next:
Contribute the application to the Sample Applications repository on GitHub so it might be included into the future Kaa Sandbox releases
Publish your application on Google Play Market just as any other Android application so it will be publicly available for all Android users.
Note: Due to the nature of the Kaa SDK emdedded into the Kaa-based Android applications, the published application will be bound to one Kaa server (or cluster) the SDK was generated on. This applies some limitations on the Android applications published to the Google Play Market.

Launch Desktop Application Chrome

So today, Google announced a desktop app launcher for its Google Drive service: http://googledrive.blogspot.ca/2014/11/launch-desktop-applications-from-google.html.
Any ideas on how they implemented this? I'd like to do the same for a personal project. I know there's a way in node-webkit to do something like this, but if this ever becomes a native capability within Chrome browser...
To quote the announcement:
To get started, install the latest version of the Drive app for Mac or PC (version 1.18) ...
They are using a native app (not a Chrome app) to provide the functionality. As such, they can do whatever they want.
You can replicate this with a Native Host + extension approach.

Can you display a PhoneGap app as a Screencast in Chrome Developer Tools

Can't find an answer to this anywhere.
We have a prototype PhoneGap app that we deploy to Android devices. Using Chrome Developer tools we can debug it using the normal tools edit CSS etc and it will change the display on the device.
This is all great but I was wondering is there a way to use the screencast tool that displays your phone screen within developer tools for a phonegap app. From what I can tell it on;y seems to be able to pick up sites open in Chrome on the android device.
Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Ashley
Screencasting of WebViews is not supported at this time.
Maybe it's not exactly what you are looking for, but it helped me when troubleshooting:
Depending on the toolset you are using, you can try to access your local webserver on your development machine from the chrome browser on your android device. For this to work, the phone must be in your network (Wi-Fi).
I'm developing a PhoneGap app using Visual Studio and configured my environment to allow access from remote computers, see this blog post.
I also ran this command for my 'web site', found on the blog of Scott Hanselman:
C:\Program Files (x86)\IIS Express>IisExpressAdminCmd.exe
setupFriendlyHostnameUrl -url:http://yourcomputername:555/
Finally I was able to use the Screencasting feature, using the chrome browser from android.
Except that I was not able to use hardware features such as NFC, using the app via the browser felt the same.
For other environments, the procedure to enable remote access should be similar.
Martin

Is there any certification toolkit for WP8 apps?

I am developing a new application that will target the new WP8 platform.
Previous versions of Phone SDK, like WP7.1 or WP7.5 SDK contained special toolkit to test you XAP before submission for some obvious problems (like some mandatory image files missing).
A similar function is fulfilled by the WACK for Win8 Desktop Apps.
But I can't find any toolkit for testing my WP8 applications. The only option I found is to "Windows Phone Application Analysis" provides me with some performance information but there seem to be no static rule-based check of the XAP package performed.
Am I missing some software installation?
For WP8 apps, right click on your project in VS2012 Solution Explorer ---> Click "Open Store Test Kit". You can read more about what's being tested for on MSDN # http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windowsphone/develop/hh394032(v=vs.105).aspx

Client Machine requirements to run windows8-style app?

I used Windows8 Release Preview and Visual Studio2012 RC to develop my windows8-style application, And I want to run my application on another machine(client).They have windows8 Release Preview on their machine . So here my question are:
Are they need to install any other software like Visual Studio2012
and .NetFramework4.5 on their machine or not?
Can anyone give me some helpful information related to client's
machine requirements to run metro app successfully?
Thank you.
Are they need to install any other software like Visual Studio2012 and .NetFramework4.5 on their machine or not?
You can test it with PowerShell, it may require .net framework to install and for detailed information follow the links below.
Refer these:
How to deploy a Metro App to the Desktop?
Will Metro-style applications be able to be installed outside the market frame?
Deploying Metro style apps to non-development systems
Sharing an app package locally (Metro style apps)
Deploying Windows Metro style apps from Visual Studio
Can anyone give me some helpful information related to client's machine requirements to run metro app successfully?
Check the Edit Section of the answer and the reference video in the another answer for your second query.
Supporting a Metro style Device App
Hope this help you explore about the metro app deployment.
You can also configure your machines to do remote debugging if you want. This is useful if your development machine is a traditional laptop or desktop but you want to debug your app running on a slate that has an accelerometer, GPS, multi touch, etc.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bt727f1t.aspx has information on how to get that set up.