My company has been looking to release an iphone app for over a year now. Now that our website redesign and rebuild is completed the app is next on the list. Since I’m not a dedicated app developer objective C wasn’t exactly an option. In my search for options I came across PhoneGap. It’s a great framework that allows you to build an with HTML/CSS/JS. Considering our needs were minimal as far as functionality this would work extremely well. Getting up and running was a bit confusing, so I wanted to put together a ‘zero to app’ list that should get you up and running in 10-20 minutes assuming you’re starting fresh.
I prefer to do things through the CLI options but node can be downloaded and installed from nodejs.org. The CLI requires you have homebrew installed. Once it is –
brew install nodeSuper easy right?
Install PhoneGap
Now, to actually install PhoneGap from your terminal –
npm install -g phonegapInstall Cordova
You’ll also need apache cordova moving forward –
npm install cordovaYou should have all the necessary components to create an iOS app in xCode and run it in the simulator.
Create a Project
If you don’t already have it, you’ll need xCode and the iOS SDK. Assuming you have said items you can create a new PhoneGap app easily. Again, in your terminal –
$ cd path/to/dev/folder/you/want
$ cordova create appName com.reversedomain.appName "Hello World"
$ cd appName
$ cordova platform add ios
$ cordova prepare
You should be all set now!
Open Your Project in xCode
Just navigate to your ‘appName’ folder that was just created in the finder. From there your going to platforms > ios and simply just opening your appName.xcodeproj. You can hit the build button (play button – top left) and see the default Hello World app.
Hopefully this helps someone just getting started. It’s a condensed version of the time I spent figuring all this stuff out. PhoneGap is super useful but the documentation can be pretty outdated/confusing. Happy coding!