Best way to proceed

[Michael Barber]

I have 20 years experience in web development and about 40 years experience in software development.  We need to build an app. 

1.  Is this the easiest way to proceed?
2.  If I use PhoneGap, can I use standard CSS, and drive .aspx database driven queries and submissions? 
3.  If I use PhoneGap, can I code once but deploy to both Android and iPhone?

[Steve Sobol - Lobos Studios]

In many cases, hybrid app development using PhoneGap/Cordova or a similar technology can be very helpful. Yes, you use standard HTML, CSS and Javascript in the app.

For the server-side stuff, you'll need a server, of course, and you would need to expose an API to the app. The easiest way to consume data coming from the server, or manipulate data on the server, is to create a REST API that outputs JSON. Since you're talking about ASPX pages, I would say the quickest way to success would involve using Microsoft's Web API to process requests and output the JSON; then you can use jQuery, in the app, to do whatever you want to do client-side.

And to answer your final question: yes, you code once and can deploy to several different platforms including Android and iOS.

Michael Barber wrote:

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[mayor]

it depends on whether you are comfortable with responsive design.  assuming that is true, then:

first thing is to get your head around the viewport meta tag so that the "app" renders to the size of whatever screen.

second is to obsess over the number of resources your web app requires on load.  a normal web page in a normal browser opens up new connections for each css document, javascript ref, image source, yada yada.  this is bad mojo via mobile networks.  personally, I incorporate all CSS, JavaScript, HTML, and images (base64) into one document that I gzip and send down that loads as a file:// url.  then AJAX from there.  (yes, I realize that Phonegap imagines that you are making an app where all the code exists in the app bundle.  I don't.)

last, make absolutely sure that your app responds appropriately if there is no network.  Apple will reject it immediately - usually without explanation - if they start it up on a device with no net and it barfs.  or if it starts with net, then they remove net and it barfs.  usually a simple error screen is appropriate.  the vast majority of apps folks use require a net connection anyway.  (i.e. what does Facebook do when you start it with no net?)

outside of that it's all design and function.  like any other app, if it sux it won't get approved (by Apple anyway).

[Steve Husting]

In addition to the replies already given, you may find the following Cordova/PhoneGap basics helpful:
https://iphonedevlog.wordpress.com/explanation-of-phonegapcordova-for-the-layman/

[Michael Barber]

Well, someone showed by ThemeRoller and JQuery Mobile that essentially provides the tools to build an HTML5, 100% responsive website that for all intensive purposes looks and acts like an app.   Do I really need to build "another layer" that wraps asp.net functionality into a service with an API for JSON output?  I would think another layer would "slow things" down which would be especially bad for mobile responsiveness.  Can you not use CSS, Ajax and JavaScript sufficiently enough to fix the asp.net web output by isolating the asp.net functionality in page?

The only thing that I need access to from the phone is GPS....everything else is really a web page that "looks like" an app.  It really is getting to the point now that there is NO difference between a web page and an app except for paying Apple a fee and getting approved.

[Michael Barber]

Excellent article/overview.  I see.  So you have to make the asp.net into a service in order to keep the web page 100% client side (html5 and JavaScript)...otherwise, you can't use phonegap.  That's it in a nutshell.

[Michael Barber]

Doesn't phone gap have a way to deal with the original downloads.  It would be easy to trap an error based upon no connectivity to the remote service.  However, no access to remote css, to jquery .js files, to Google .js files?   So we have to trap all those error conditions?  Those would seem to be standard across every phone gap application....

[Rob Willett]

Michael,

Phonegap/Cordova allows you to wrap all of your web/app logic in the (more or less) the same JavaScript/CSS files your web browser would use into a package for deployment on iOS/Android. This means that your App does't need to download jquery.js or whatever each time as its there in your app.

The line starts to blur between what an App is or what a web app is to what a Web browser is. Until recently I understand that the Apple Store wouldn't allow you to download files for your app, however I understand that restriction may have eased.

Whilst you can do downloads from servers to your app, you will suffer if you are doing that every time as you are doing unnecessary downloads. On a local WiFi point this may not be that bad, but if you have limited mobile connectivity then you're in trouble. As an example I was using my own app (for testing) today and I moved from WiFi at home, to 4G outside to 3G as I got outside London to GPRS and Edge as I hit the pagan badlands of Essex. if I had to download js files through GPRS or Edge I'd slit my wrists now and get it over with :) Most of my code is in the app, most of the base data is in the app, I only call out to download specific and updated data, this means that the user gets fast refresh, and minimal download bills.

I'm unclear (because I'm not as clever as some of the people here) if you could even do some of the stuff you want to do with downloads, e.g. background GPS geo-location, barcodes, etc. These are provided through plugins and I've never even considered doing them through downloads. I wouldn't have thought you could but take my advice with a pinch of salt.

There are standard ways to get data from external websites to your app and to do error checking, See Angular promises for the background (no pun intended) on this (stackoverflow is your friend).

Your background in development will stand you in good stead. I've been developing since, gulp, 8 bit micros you brought as a kit, remember the Nascom-1 anybody. My very, very first program was written on a Heathkit 256 byte (yes 256B) hexadecimal development rig. I also have developed C compilers and written chunks of low level UNIX stuff, so I *thought* I knew development. JavaScript and Angular and Phonegap/Cordova are very different. JavaScript used to be a bit like C. Nowadays its very, very asynchronous (think signals and semaphores, locks and whatever you used to use or call). It took some time for me to get my head around it as people have come up with all sorts of new names for what we used to do with signals and async stuff in the 80s. Some low level stuff is really well abstracted away but some stuff is a nightmare as the names have changed and the patterns insist you work this way or no way. I'm sure other people have their view on things, but thats my view as a old-school C hacker. There's also a major problem in that lots of people write stuff up for the Internet thats very specific, and often not quite right. The signal to noise ratio is way too low for my liking, Too many small pages with lots of ads and little real usable up to date content. 

JavaScript/Angular/Phonegap/Cordova is/are also nice to use, but you have to get used to the patterns that people/systems/processes want/need/demand to use. The syntax for Angular stuff makes Lisp look really neat and tidy IMHO, it tends to mean that you have long files and the abstraction of services/controllers/UI is nice but sometimes gets in the way. Its taken a long time (circa six months) to get used to the way of working and to find a workflow thats good for me. You will have that learning curve to go through. 

My suggestion is to start with the simple docs and build a dead simple app. Its quicker to build a simple one first and then do a more complicated one rather than jumping in at the deep end with the complicated one. The act of building a simple app that gets some JSON data from a server and displays it on multiple screens is really useful and powerful. Also consider the use of a framework to ease some of the work. I use Ionic as it was suggested to me and as I'm not very bright it was easy to learn. However the more 'stuff' you layer in, the more issues you may face. Take your time and learn. I have read a lot of stuff but I do wish there were more paper manuals around, however the delivery cycle for a book means the subject matter is often out of date buy the time the book is printed.  People on this group will take the time to answer your questions if you frame them well and show that you have done your homework. Bland questions such as "it doesn't work, help" get little response, though sometimes the responses are witty as well as pointed (if you are lucky).

Hope that helps, start reading, write the first simple app and learn,

Best wishes,

Rob

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[Steve Sobol - Lobos Studios]

All good points. You also need to make sure you follow the UI guidelines for the platforms for which you are developing.

[Rob Willett]

Steve,

Good point on the UI. 

I use the Ionic framework so that takes care of a lot of the UI stuff for me.

However one point I forgot to mention was the use of Model-View-Controller stuff. Angular is built up to use it from the start and is critical to getting the app working. Whilst I've no doubt you can make an app without it, it would be poorer for it.

It took me a few days to start to appreciate it and a few months to really start to use it but it is at the heart of most apps.

Rob.

[Steve Sobol - Lobos Studios]

Yeah, I *heart* Ionic too.

I advocate using Ionic because it has the UI components and is built on top of Angular. You're basically creating a single-page HTML-powered app, and Angular' a good way to do it.

[mharr]

If all you need from the phone is GPS, and you object to paying the fee to Apple, Google, etc for app developers, you might want to consider leaving it as a web site.  Most browsers, and all native mobile browsers, support HTML5 Geolocation so that you can just get your location from the browser itself.  

Ref: http://caniuse.com/#search=geolocation

Sample: http://html5demos.com/geo

Personally, I think there are valuable reasons to "pay the fee" for an app.  Visibility in the store is huge, as your website will not be listed where a mobile user will likely look first for a solution: the app store.  Also, having fairly frequent updates for your app provides a tickler to your users that the app and service you provide is there, in case that slipped their mind.

[mayor]

my most popular app is fairly real-time.  my index.html for Phonegap just looks at the downloaded html file (with all the CSS, HTML, & JavaScript in it).  if it is more than 10min old then go get another bundle and load that as file://.  otherwise load the existing as file://.

if it's the first time evah and there is no existing bundle *and* no existing net connection... then it displays a super-pretty error screen.

easy

I've had "web apps" in Apple's store since the first months of it's existence and far before Phonegap existed.  if you're app is good, then they are fairly flexible.  I have certainly gotten rejected, but never forever.

[Michael Barber]

So you are suggesting ionic over something like Jquery Mobile...

[Steve Sobol - Lobos Studios]

I personally would, yes, but it's a question of personal preference. Ionic does have a UI library...

[Michael Barber]

This is where I'm stuck at.   It seems to me that JQuery mobile is easier to get something going at  this point but its loosing support because its not build on angularjs or an MVC client.  It has spinners, tabs, slide-menus and a lot of the same stuff.

The big thing that JQuery mobile has is its themeroller....does Ionic have an equivalent?  It is nice to go to a single screen and create a unified color theme base for the whole app and be able to change that with a few clicks without so much as going into the code.  It literally means you don't have to go and look to buy themes as you can roll your own in seconds.

[Steve Sobol - Lobos Studios]

There's nothing stopping you from using angular with jQM. Angular rocks for single-page applications, which makes it ideal for a mobile app where you can't make HTTP requests to pull down different HTML pages into the app.

[Steve Sobol - Lobos Studios]

In other words: cordova + ionic is one solution. cordova + angular + jQM is another solution. Either one works, and there are others that also work.

[Michael Barber]

My app won't work without http requests because it uses data coming in from around the world, much like Facebook.  So are you referring to using ngStorage instead of HTML5 local storage?

So there is no themeroller than...right?  lol ;)

[Rob Willett]

Michael,

I can only comment on my experiences. 

I use Ionic as it have me a ready built app out of the box, not a "Hello World" app but a decent working tabbed single page app with no more work than a single command.

http://ionicframework.com/getting-started/

I recall looking at JQuery mobile but thought it too low level for me. However my research into it was short and sweet, Ionic seemed to do most of what I was after so I went with that. I don't regret it but I can't say its better than anything else as I haven't done anything in anger with anything else.

I can say that I have managed to do everything I wanted to do with Ionic, but sometimes the framework gets in the way, not often but occasionally. However I would suspect that any framework wool be good for 90% of work and difficulty for 10%, its just that the 10% is different for each framework. 

The support for Ionic is pretty good, the forums tend to be useful, though not quite as good as here.

There are some dependency issues, weird and odd ones. e.g. I use a commercial GPS background plugin thats bleeding edge and there appears to be some sort of conflict between the plugin, Cordova, Ionic and no doubt the phase of the moon. Moving to Cordova 5.0 cleared it but none of us have a clue what the problem was. Again I would expect other frameworks to have gotchas as well and anybody who says otherwise is smoking something illegal. 

You need to work out whats important to you. I have no idea about changing a unified color base (or even what it means). My CSS skills are rubbish so I don't bother with that stuff. 

I will second Steve's view on MVC. You will really struggle without that. 

I'd play about with Ionic, its trivial to download and install. Use one the tab or side menu starter apps and try it out. I'm pretty dumb and I found it quite easy.

Rob.

[Rob Willett]

My app makes HTTP requests to pull JSON data in so there's no issue in doing it. Are you pulling data or code in?

Storage is a lille bit of PITA as the standards are odd or out of date, or that people are changing code, e.g. bleeding new versions of Chrome have/had an issue where stuff wasn't being written out in time. 

I suspect that you can do anything you want with anything but you need to work out the important bits to you.

Rob

[Michael Barber]

I'm still in the design stages and I have 3 "mockup" screens built already with JQuery Mobile so I can still change pretty easily to Ionic if that is the right way to go.  I will also do http requests to pull Restful JSON data from asp.net WCF services.  However, that data is dependent on current GPS location. 

Steve suggested in his post that angularJS gives you a better handle of "off-internet/network" support, but I wasn't following that since you can write JavaScript using HTML5 local storage to handle it.    I need an Internet connection to do the HTTP request or the App will have nothing really to show.  There is "your own view of the world" that could be stored locally and the app could fall back to only showing that.

It seems to me that angularJS just complicates stuff but I admit I really don't know enough about it.  I do see that it take 2x the # of lines of code to do the same thing something bootstrap or Jquery can do with half as much code.  But that's really just looking without much knowledge on it.  I see Ionic as well being about twice as complex as Jquery Mobile for the same functionality....  My only fear there is JQuery Mobile seems to be dead.

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[Rob Willett]

Michael,

I'm not sure how angularJS gives you a better off-internet/network support. I have the same issue that if there is no network connection my app simply doesn't do a great deal. Thats OK for me as there's nothing I can do about their mobile reception. I simply fail gracefully, and provide no data as no data is better than old or wrong data for my use case. 

I've written code to handle queuing of information and making the lack of network connections and its pretty simple in Angular. 

I can't comment on the code amount difference. I know that I moved from a pure Angular approach in my App to Ionic in around two days. It was a breath of fresh air to have a decent framework to play with. I really like the way Ionic has all the UI elements easy to hand and they look good (at least to my eye). I can play with different UI approaches and have little to worry about. I also don;t see Ionic as difficult at all.

Rob

[Michael Barber]

I think angularJS makes more sense in a true web application.  I really think its "overkill" for a mobile application that typically has 1/4 of the functionality possibilities of a whole web based application with a full screen of real estate to work with. 

That's just my 20,000 ft view though.

You can use Jquery, Ajax to handle JSON so I'm still not seeing exactly WHY I need the complexities of AngularJS on a mobile app.  Its bigger, clunky, and seems to take two lines of code to do what one line of either Jquery or Knockout code can do.  My experience of that is that it typically means a "performance" penalty in the end....

[Steve Sobol - Lobos Studios]

We will have to agree to disagree on that point. :) But if your mockups were done with jQM, you should continue using jQM. Whether or not you use Angular is up to you.

My point is that Cordova apps use HTML, CSS and JavaScript. But within those constraints, you have a LOT of latitude as to which tools to use. Use what works for YOU.

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[Steve Sobol - Lobos Studios]

Also Michael, I don't think you fully understand why I think Angular works well for hybrid apps, but it's my fault... Let me clarify... The two other reasons: 1. Angular makes it simple to create templates for frequently-used content and can easily populate those templates using JSON data, and 2. there can be noticeable delays when switching from one html page to another in a hybrid app, even though the pages are already stored on the device. And again, I'm just expressing my personal preferences... nothing more.

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[Michael Barber]

I'm not married to anything yet.  I just noticed with jQM I just start writing mockups in an editor.   With ionic, I have to install node.js, java, and all the mobile OS, just to get started, just to look at it in operation....is that right?

[Steve Sobol - Lobos Studios]

Um... hold on.

Are you using PhoneGap Build? Because if you are, I don't know if Ionic is supported.

If building locally, you DO need node.js and then you'd need to install Ionic via npm, but you'd also have to do that with Cordova if building locally anyhow...

Drifty (the company that develops and supports Ionic) does now have a web-based editor here: http://creator.ionic.io/ - but I think they're still adding features to it.

I build locally, using Android Studio on my Windows laptop and Xcode on my Mac. So yes, you do have to install node.js and ionic at the very least, but that's not a big deal for me. Ionic apps are just HTML/CSS/JS, so you can edit the files in a text editor if you want to. (I choose to use an IDE, but it's not necessary to do so throughout most of the app development lifecycle.)

[Steve Sobol - Lobos Studios]

Mailing List ProTip:  Engage brain before using fingers to type a reply. :)

"If building locally, you DO need node.js and then you'd need to install Ionic via npm. But if you were building locally and just using Cordova, you'd need to install Node.js and use npm to install Cordova anyhow."

[Michael Barber]

Yes, I'm building locally and using a server as a development view.  l I just want to evaluate and mockup the GUI first.  I don't understand why I would need Cordova right from the beginning.  What is the minimum I need to install just to see an html/http view that works on say a web server.

I have a mockup of JQuery Mobile running on a server and didn't install anything...just referenced the .js and css files.  

[Kerri Shotts]

Not sure if this is what you're looking for, but:

npm install -g http-server

http-server -p 8080 path/to/www

Navigate to locahost:8080 in a browser.

Chrome won't apply any emulation to it, and you wouldn't have access to any plugins. But as long as you avoid that (or mock the responses), you can mock in a desktop browser to your heart's content. (I do.) Just know that just because it might /work/ in a desktop browser doesn't mean it will (or will work well) on devices.

NOTE: If you use XHR, make sure it uses CORS, otherwise those requests /will/ fail.

Also note: If you've already got the content being served from some other server, ignore the http-server bit above. Just navigate to your index.html using whatever browser you want. XHR/CORS still applies.

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[Michael Barber]

I already have access to a webserver.  I don't want to install a local web server because its a security nightmare especially since we need to access "outside" services.

I'm confused.  If Ionic is just a .js and .css framework why it even needs a webserver.  Those are all "client" technologies.  Right now, I just want to do a mockup and if I like that...then I will move further into the back end functionality.  

I understand the mockup will need functionality and that functionality will be specific to the devices.  It sounds like Ionic must have too much stuff intertwined in it and is not really a pure front-end framework.

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[Kerri Shotts]

Are you required to host a local web server? No.  Is it nice? Yes -- especially when the tools provide live-reload functionality (like ionic serve, phonegap serve, BrowserSync, etc.). Even ignoring live-reload, it's still useful if I want to pop the app up on another device using its browser or corresponding dev app (like PhoneGap Developer App).

Could you navigate to file:///path/to/your/project/platforms/browser/www/index.html or whatever after a cordova prepare? Yes. But you'll almost certainly need to add flags to Chrome (or whatever browser you use) in order to relax some security settings, and I don't trust myself not to forget and browse to another site in another tab. So for me it's FAR safer and convenient (I always have to look up the command line to type) to use a local web server. :-)

Note that there's still a prepare step. While in Cordova's case, it's pretty simple (largely copying www from one place to another), it looks like Ionic does quite a bit more (including compiling sass if your project uses it). As long as you don't use those technologies or any plugins, you could point at your project root's www folder instead. But if you were to use Sass with Ionic, you'd have to do the prepare or serve step to handle the conversion for you. (I'm not an expert on ionic, so this could be totally wrong... just going off of a quick read of the docs)

I'm not sure that helps or not. I don't use Ionic myself (I'm a bit rogue: I use my own framework). My workflow is largely Gulp + Cordova-tasks (a utility I use to work with Cordova-lib & Gulp) + a local server with live-reload capability that uses Browserify to transform and bundle all my ES6 code and transform my Sass code to CSS. I can then work with my app using my desktop browsers as long as I don't use Cordova plugins (or mock their response/code around them appropriately). Then I can deploy to a device to verify things are working there (and test any plugins). But that requires Node, NPM, Gulp installed globally and then quite a bit installed locally to the project. It's a little bit (a lot) to set up at first, and maybe it sounds a bit complicated, but long term it speeds my workflow considerably. And if it's something you do a lot, you can create or utilize a Yeoman generator to take care of the project scaffolding for you. (See http://yeoman.io/generators/)