Every time I
Update my Cordova version
Update a Cordova platform version
Update a plugin
Add a plugin
To an existing app using node e.g.
cordova plugin add [some-plugin]
cordova platform update ios
etc
The update/add process always resets my [platform]/www/ folder to an empty project. I always take a backup before doing this, and put the www files back in. But there is always a conflict, or missed or forgotten files, which just increases the time to update.
This can't be right. Surely the Cordova update process can't really involve wiping out your existing project and starting again.
What am I doing wrong?
With a regular Cordova workflow you shouldn't be making any changes within the platforms directory. The platforms and plugins folders should be considered build artifacts and not checked in to source control. Cordova will automatically recreate them when needed.
When you run cordova prepare it will install all of the plugins you have listed in config.xml and copy the content of your root www folder to the platform www folder.
Related
Absolutely new to Cordova. These are the steps I've done:
Checked out an existing project
run cordova build ios
The above generates this build error:
(node:10242) UnhandledPromiseRejectionWarning: Error [ERR_UNHANDLED_ERROR]: Unhandled error. (The platform "ios" does not appear to be a valid cordova platform. It is missing API.js. ios not supported.)
I've Googled for a solution to the above and the general consensus seems to be to remove and then add the iOS platform.
Now there's a problem with that. Looking through the commit history, I can see that there have been code changes done to files within the platforms directory so I can't just remove it, or...
Question 1)
Can I?
Question 2)
Is it right to make code changes within the platforms directory? Because it seems like those are generated directories.
Question 3)
Why is it that when I open the Xcode project under platforms/ios, I am able to build/run it fine despite the Cordova CLI error above?
it's not right to manually edit the platform files. And some manual changes might make the project not build, so might be related to the manual changes somebody did. So if you don't want to risk to remove the platform, continue building from Xcode
from root www to platforms/ios is transferred by cordova commands such us cordova prepare ios or cordova build ios or cordova run ios.
So if you can't do a cordova prepare ios because of that error you can try a few things.
Copy your files from www to platforms/ios without replacing the whole folder, just the duplicate files. cordova prepare ios is not just a copy, it's also does some modifications/aditions, but if you don't remove existing files it might work.
Create a new project and copy the platforms/ios/cordova to your own project and see if that fixes the mentioned problem, as that's where the Api.js file is.
Downgrade the Cordova CLI, try to latest 7.x.x and if it doesn't work, try with latest 6.x.x, one of those won't require the Api.js as it relatively new.
I am trying to upgrade my Cordova Ionic project ios platform from 3.0.1 to the newest 4.5.2 using xcode 9. I remove the ios platform and re-add it again under CLI 7.1.0. Then I restore all the .xcodeproject settings by copy the old .xcodeproject into the new ios platform and reset all the path necessary in the workspace. Luckily my project build successfully and runs fine in the debug mode.
However when I am trying to upgrade some out of date plugins in the new project, I found that I can only "add" plugin, which everything just goes fine. But when I am trying to remove any plugin (whether they have been added in the new workspace or not), the CLI always show red font message: Error: Could not find *-Info.plist file, or config.xml file.
This message will also show up if I tried to run ionic prepare ios command. Interestingly enough, if I use the .xcodeproject file cordova originally generated, then all the things will just work fine.
Any idea on what specific settings is wrong so that the CLI could only recognize the new .xcodeproject file but not the old .xcodeproject file?
To answer "why don't want to use the new .xcodeproject automatically generated". My project is pretty huge which contains 4 different targets and each of them have different project settings. First of all, CLI don't know that and will only generate one target and I have to duplicate it another 3 times. Secondly, it will be such a pain to restore each target settings one by one. And thirdly the new project doesn't contain any changes in the iOS native code I made such like in appDelegate class. Therefore I just want to find a trick way to make it through.
Cordova creates the files automatically, I believe copying a file generated from an old version and pasting a new one will break your project.
What happens if you remove the platform, add again but without reusing the .xcodeproject? The normal thing is that you got to work normally.
Another option would be to upgrade Cordova or a downgrade, using nvm you can have several versions of Nodejs and Cordova.
You didn't mentioned in your question how you are removing the ios platform , try to do them as follows:
cordova platform remove ios
cordova platform list here you can verify that ios platform deleted
cordova platform add ios --save
I don't know what version you are using but cordova 6.5.0 should solve the ios-build issues. you can install using like below:
sudo npm i -g cordova#6.5.0
I am trying to build a Cordova app. All is set up fine, but I am confused now.
There is a www folder in the main folder which is displayed in Xcode. But there is a second in platforms/iOS. This folder is used when I am building the app.
Is that the way it should work? Or can I tell Xcode to take the other folder and not the www in root?
THANKS!
EDIT: And where to locate config.xml? Because in root the iOS App will not find any plugin e.g.
EDIT2: Got that with plugins! Have to install them over terminal
Yes this is a way Cordova is working.
The www in the main folder is the place where you have to implement you changes if you willing to support more then one platform. That folder copied to the platforms/ios/www each time when you run cordova prepare ios and this is actual folder which will be bundled with you iOS application. You you made changes in you main www folder and forget to run cordova prepare ios then you would not see you changes in you application if you run it. You have to run cordova prepare after making changes in the www in the main folder of you app.
Note: If you using cordova build or cordova run then you don't need to call cordova prepare, these commands will call it internally during the run.
As of Cordova 3.5 folder www in the Xcode which you see is same folder which is located in you main appication folder, and folder Staging->www in XCode is folder pointing to platforms/ios/www folder created by cordova prepare for you.
Before Cordova 3.4, www folder in XCode was pointing to platforms/ios/www folder.
I would recommend you made changes in www subfolder of you main folder and run cordova prepare\build\run to build/run your application if you plan to mainly work with HTML + JS or your application would support more then one platform. Otherwise, if you app is strictly iOS you could made you changes directly in Staging->www inside XCode and test you changes immidiately
You could start reading about development path with Cordova here: http://cordova.apache.org/docs/en/3.5.0/guide_overview_index.md.html#Overview_development_paths
More information about using Cordova CLI is here:
http://cordova.apache.org/docs/en/3.5.0/guide_cli_index.md.html#The%20Command-Line%20Interface for explanation of the workflow.
www folder in root level has html, javascript etc. When you build your code, same www folder for each platform will be created. So If you make any code changes in main www folder. You should rebuild the code for specific platform each time. Then only your changes in the main www will be applied in the platform specific www folder.
i've a cordova project created via cordova cli command.
i build the project for Android and iOS platform but... i copied the build project into respective workspace (eclipse/xcode) and i updated that single project.
Now i need to add a plugin.
The project into cordova project folder is now so outdate so i would add the plugin via cli and copy the plugin to the respective project.
I copied successfully the generated plugin into the android project, but i'm not able to do the same thing with iOS.
For example i added the console plugin for iOS
cordova plugin add org.apache.cordova.console
if i open and run the build project it work and i see my message in console, but if i try to copy the generated plugin into my existing project it doesn't work.
nobody could help me to understand how add manually a plugin into my existing project?
update
yes i know, i'll try to explain better
i have my cordova project under folder /Document/cordova
when i made an ios build via command line cordova put the built project under /Document/cordova/platforms/ios
well i copied the folder ios under /workspace/my-project-name
after some work under workspace i see that i need to add a cordova plugin.
i added the plugin via command line and it was added to /Document/cordova/platforms/ios
at this poin i have a project under /Document with plugin but asset outdated and one project updated without plugin under /workspace
i'm trying to copy from built project to /workspace project.
i copied
/workspace/my-project-name/my-project-name/Plugins
/workspace/my-project-name/my-project-name/config.xml
/workspace/my-project-name/www/plugins
/workspace/my-project-name/www/cordova.js
/workspace/my-project-name/www/cordova_plugins.js
but it doesn't work... i missed somethings?
After reading it several times I think I get more less the idea...
Well, I am not sure why do you want to copy the ios project outside the current location. I suppose you have a good reason to do it, however you can always tweak that project instead of going back and forward, cordova will not impact non cordova related files each time you run "cordova build".
Are you familiar with control versioning? Git, SVN, mercurial? If so it is simple just we which files were impacted once you add the plugin and copy those... If no, I suggest using control versioning anyways to help keep track of your code changes.
NOTE: Be aware if you build the cordova projet and then you just want to update the files noted above it is highly likely that it won't work, that is why you run "build" is not a simple file sync. I recommend taking the new cordova project with the plugin added and then just add you personal tweaks on the ios in the other folder. Or just tweak the ios folder inside platforms folder...
I hope you are doing for good reason. Anyway you are missing to copy below file to work
/workspace/my-project-name/my-project-name/platforms/ios/my-project-name/config.xml
Copying the cordova iOS platform folder is not a good idea. The reason is, cordova builds an Xcode project in the platform folder, and there is some sort of caching/built in references to absolute location of the original Xcode project. Therefore it would be unclear to you and to Xcode which file is being referenced from within Xcode. This may have caused some other unnoticed errors in the project as well. So therefore, instead of keeping original project path available along with the new path, I would recommend renaming the original project folder in order to remove the ambiguity. This way, you will assure that the right file versions are referenced.
I am trying to install the cordova console.log plugin.
when i am trying to install it using the command line using:
cordova plugin add https://git-wip-us.apache.org/repos/asf/cordova-plugin-console.git
I am running it from the path of the root application path
the structure of the folder is:
projName
|-- --project
|-- projName
|-- cordova
|-- CordovaLib
|-- projName.xcodeproj
|-- plugin
And the error i receive in the command line is
[Error: Current working directory is not a Cordova-based project.]
i should mention that i build the cordova project manually using imports of the frameworks because in the xcode new project window there was not Cordova/Phonegap new project option.
I am using xCode 5.0.1 and cordova 3.1.0
The error you get is self-explanatory, it is because you have not created a cordova project as it must be created. Keep reading to solve the problem.
Cordova basic project preparation steps
Based on my comment and your answer, you should follow the cordova workflow for creating projects using the CLI (command line interface), it is strongly recommended to avoid unnecessary problems, and the steps are not hard to follow.
Please follow the steps described here (official doc), read it fully, it will save you more time later if you read it:
http://cordova.apache.org/docs/en/3.2.0/guide_cli_index.md.html#The%20Command-Line%20Interface
In brief the steps are:
Install node.js
Install cordova using npm
Create a cordova project / app using the CLI
Add the desired platform to the project (android, ios, etc, as needed)
Work on your project
Add cordova plugins as necessary (for example if you need notifications add the notificacion plugin)
Build the project
Test of device or emulator (in your case iPhone, iPad simulator)
iOS Platform Guide
Also check the iOS Platform Guide completely, it is very helpful, explain additional instructions to prepare and work with XCode.
http://cordova.apache.org/docs/en/3.2.0/guide_platforms_ios_index.md.html#iOS%20Platform%20Guide
Plugins
For each plugin in the API reference you will find instructions to install them using the CLI, as well as to "uninstall" them.
Only install the plugins you will need
Just for reference, the code to install notifications-dialogs plugin using the terminal (run the command inside your project folder):
$ cordova plugin rm org.apache.cordova.dialogs
On the other hand, the easier way to solve the problem is create the new project following the noted steps and later just add your existing code or files to the proper folders, as well as add the required plugins, not that difficult.