PhoneGap is a open source API that we can use to develop applications that run on variety of mobile devices and platforms
Introduction
With this article we are going to look into step-by-step series on how to use
Phone-Gap . In the course we are basically going to be discussing
using Phone-Gap and we will learn how to build a phone gap
application.
In this article “Day-1” of the series, we will learn how to get started
with Phone-Gap. We will go through the introduction to Phone-Gap, why
we should use Phone-Gap and then download and install it today.
What
does Phone-Gap do?
Phone-Gap makes it easy for us to develop a hybrid/platform
independent app and hence reduces the time consuming learning process.
Phone-Gap is an amazing technology, since it allows us to develop platform
independent apps and such apps can be developed quite easily using HTML5, CSS
and JavaScript.
History
of Phone-Gap
Developed at iPhoneDev Camp event in
San Francisco
First stale release
Version 1.0 released
How
Phone-Gap works?
Phone -Gap has two major components and if we understand these two
things we can know how the Phone-Gap works first thing it is gonna launch
an HTML app the second that it does is it let you get in to that Apis and
some hardware features of the device through javascript..
Lets us understand how we are able to launch an html app on native
platform using Phone-Gap
first the native shell is going to launch (iOS ,ANDROID,WINDOWS) and from
that native application and it will launch the browser and than it will
redirect to that browser to the html app that packaged with that application..
and secondly it will access the APIS that are particular to each
native platform through java script
Why Phone Gap?
- Simple application native feel isn't important
if we just need a simple application and if we are not doing something which is not very complicated Phone gap is going to do that for you..
- Reuse HTMl and javascript skill set
we can use the skill set of different javascript frameworks
- Need to deploy to multiple devices
if we need to go to multiple devices(IOS.Android,Windows)..Phone gap is able to do that
Why not Phone Gap?
- Native look and feel needed
If we need native look and feel Phonegap might not be the right choice
- Complex UIs and API usage
if we using lot of native features of the device and you have complicated user interfaces..Phonegap is not gonna work for you
Phonegap is probably going to slow you down as it will launch through browser.
Conclusion
In this article we have seen the background of phonegap.In next article we will learn setting up the environment of Phone Gap..
Reference
http://phonegap.com/about/