The tools we need in this course

The tools that we need in the course.

1. Webkit based browser — Google Chrome
2. Text Editor — Sublime Text

You can choose any text editor but we will use Sublime Text because of its killing feature — Multiple Cursors.

And the libraries we need for every example project.

1. PhoneGap 2.9
2. jQuery Mobile

Obviously we need the PhoneGap package. There are two names, PhoneGap and Cordova.

In our course, we will focus on using PhoneGap 2.9. The plugin in PhoneGap 3.0 are not compatible with old existing plugins. It would be a good time to upgrade to PhoneGap 3.x after the plugins list are rich enough.

To install, we can either use Node.js or download the package from the PhoneGap website.

What is Node.js? It is a runtime that executes JavaScript in shell instead of running it in browser engine.

It means we can write JavaScript code in server-side.

It means we can run JavaScript-based program in our computer.

So, what is the difference between PhoneGap and Cordova?

The PhoneGap is a superset of Cordova. It comes with all the features in Cordova. And PhoneGap comes as extra with the web service, such as the PhoneGap build, which let you submit the code to their web service and in return you get the platform compiled package.

And thus we can choose to install the Cordeva CLI or the PhoneGap CLI, if we are using Node.js.

Or you can download the project from the archive.

jQuery mobile uses the familiar jQuery syntax. We plan our app in page-by-page approach. And each “page” is inside a special div within one single HTML document.

And the following is the jQuery mobile demo from the official website.

iOS

1. Mac
2. XCode

Android

1. Mac / Win / Linux
2. Android SDK
   1. Eclipse + Android Development Toolkit (ADT)
   2. IntelliJ IDEA
   3. Google Android Studio

Windows Phone

1. Windows
2. Windows Phone SDK

What’s next? We’re going to take a look at “App categories”.