Can PhoneGap be used in apps built with theos? - ios

I want to use PhoneGap to make a Cydia app, however the iOS instructions on their website only show how to use it with Xcode.
I don't have a Mac, but I'd like to be able to make my app for Cydia, with theos. Is this possible with PhoneGap, or is it only usable with Xcode?

I've never done this, but YES it should be entirely possible. The Xcode instructions set it up for you to have a specific template with all of the phonegap files already in the proper locations. So it's easy to get going. But it doesn't do anything else that is particularly special. Theoretically you could simply setup all of the files in a theos project.
To do this you will need to 'reconstruct' exactly what goes into a phonegap template. I have no experience with theos, but a rough idea of what you will need to be able to do includes the following:
Import PhoneGap.framework
Reconstruct AppDelegate code
Import Supporting Files (PhoneGap.plist)
Additionally you will need to configure the folder structure with the www folder (that the webview loads from) including the index.html file and the phonegap-1.0.0.js file.
So yes, it should be possible. Let me know if you are successful. Good luck!

Related

How can you permanently change iOS app configuration in Meteor Cordova?

Every time I meteor build, I have to open XCode and do the following:
remove and add an item from "Link Binary With Libraries" (Facebook SDK)
add a URL Type (custom URL scheme for my app)
add a "Required device capabilities" to "Custom iOS Target Properties"
How can I edit my Meteor project to have these steps done automatically, and to auto add things to AndroidManifest.xml?
In some way use mobile-config.js or cordova-build-override?
I'm happy to see another guy who is trying to build a hybrid application using Meteor / extending a Meteor Cordova iOS app, since I'm facing the very same issues. So I'm very happy to share my experiences and approaches with you. :-)
So far, I ended up with the following approach:
I created a base template for my iOS app using meteor build (not meteor run ios-device, since I did not know if Meteor does some optimizations for production code).
Then, I copied the whole Xcode project under /platforms/ios to another loaction and used this new project as my "master" project from then on. This project is being enriched with native code, e.g. it also includes the Cocoa Pods I'm needing.
Of course, I also did not want to copy files each and every time I trigger a new Meteor build. At least, I would like to have the Staging/www folder updated, as this is happening quite frequently.
So my first (rather naive) approach was
delete the Staging/www folder in the master project
replace it with a relative link (using Xcode's linking functionality) to the Staging/www folder inside the .meteor/local/.../ios/ project
This approach did not work, since the shell script used in the Meteor Xcode project can't handle these links.
My second approach is to create a symlink on the filesystem level instead. This works as it should, and I'm able to build the project in Xcode as it should.
I could have followed the same approach for the Cordova plugins folder, but I've decided to replace the plugins manually in order to get a better control over them, even it means a bit more effort then.
Having the symlink in place also means that Xcode's version management (and also SVN which I am using for everything) will ignore everything below Staging/www, which is good in my opinion, because I'm already versioning the webapp code in the Meteor project itself.
BTW: I've started a discussion thread on hybrid mobile app on the Meteor forums as well, but so far it did not get too much attraction:
https://forums.meteor.com/t/building-a-hybrid-meteor-cordova-app-share-experiences/8212
Maybe we could follow up on Meteor-specific things there, to have the Meteor community participate in the discussion?
EDIT: I would also like to share an approach that failed completely, at least for me, maybe I was too dumb... Before I used Meteor's Xcode template as the starting point, I also tried it "the other way round", i.e. I started with my already existing Xcode app project and tried to include Meteor's / Cordova's part by hand. Using this approach, I never managed to set everything up correctly. I had lots of troubles and also had to tweak a lot of the compiler / linker flags to even get the code compiling. This grew me a lot of gray hairs. But even after I managed to get everything to compile, Meteor hang during startup - and I never figured out why.
One remaining problem I'm still facing is that Meteor's hot code push functionality seems to have some severe issues on iOS, that are also documented as GitHub issues. It can happen that the iOS app gets completely broken and needs to be reinstalled. I tried the mdg:reload-on-resume package, but this did not work as it should and made things even worse. As far as I can tell from the GitHub discussions, one should better disable hot code push until the Meteor team has addressed these issues. Breaking the app completely due to code pushes is not what my users would expect.
Unfortunately plist values (and assumably AndroidManifest.xml as well) can only be changed by a plugin:
Add entry to iOS .plist file via Cordova config.xml

MergJSON LiveCode External for iOS standalone setup

Currently we are only testing LiveCode 7.0.4 to see how it works and if we want to even use it. In our apps we need JSON from our server and have setup the mergJSON library/External in Livecode. So far, this is working very nicely in standalone tests for both MacOS and Windows. Today I started doing some simple tests on iOS and I am having a hard time with it.
I found answers where we need to use the Copy Files section in Standalone Settings, and that we need to copy the *.lcext file for mergJSON. Also watched the youtube how-to video that had mergSettings. There are no .nib files for mergJSON. Only .so, .dylib, and .dll, and the .lcext. I tried to add the .bundle file like the video, but the app will not launch, only black screen. Are other files required for mergJSON? And where do we put them? Do they stay in the same Externals folder structure or in project folder. Also, does an IOS runtime folder need to be created like in Widows/Mac? The app runs, no errors, but no JSON results are returned. I guess I am just a little confused on the Externals setup for iOS.
Just quick notes of our environment. We have Xcode 6.2 and the iOS Sdk 8.2. Live Code is 7.0.4 GPL (just testing and learning this way for now, will purchase commercial once I learn more.) I think the mergJSON I have is 1.0.15, downloaded from mergext.com. (which appears to be offline today) I have only tested on the simulator.
Thanks for any help.
You only need to include the lcext file in the copy files section of standalone settings. No need to setup a runtime folder for iOS etc.

iOS 8 App Extension and Host App in separate project files. Is it possible in Xcode 6?

Currently we're using premake5 to generate our project files, as we develop multi-platform. Obviously we don't need premake to know anything about the extension (as it's iOS8 exclusive feature) but we're facing a problem: Every time we regenerate the main app project file (which happens sometimes) we're forced to manually add all the files and configure the extension, which is dull and error-prone.
Is there a way to add the app extension (a Today Widget) to a separate project? Pbxproj files aren't version control friendly as its contents seem to be shuffled every time you save. So, saving a patch file with all the changes needed doesn't seem like an alternative.
I know this is a broad question about a convenience issue, maybe seasoned Xcode devs know some trickery (or maybe it's just something obvious we're missing here).
Thanks all in advance.

How to deploy a SenchaTouch App with Cordova?

A friend send me the code of a SenchaTouch App (v2.0) he made. I should make some changes as the performance is not so good. To start, I want to "deploy" the App on my iPad and see where its slow. He told me that he didn't use SenchaCmd and the Cordova version seems a little bit older, too. In the picture below you can see the project structure. How can I deploy the App to my iPad (there are no XCode project files in these folders)? In the future I will do a complete refactoring of the App but for the moment he wants me to do some little performance tweeks with his code... Any suggestions?
Andres commnt was the correct hint. I could just create a new cordova/phonagap project with the command line and then put the contents of the folder in the www directory.

adding a library for iOS app

I am building an iOS app that requires the use of the glm library(link to site). I don't necessarily want to place the entire library in the app folder every time I want to use it. Is it possible to
A) point xcode to the library folder so it knows where to find the headers
or
B) place the library in the standard iOS library folder.
Im sure this is something developers must do all the time, but Ive been unable to find a simple solution on the web.

Resources