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I'm having trouble getting started with PhoneGap on windows 8, VS 2012, namely:

I don't know how to install the templates

  • I open the template projects I've downloaded from PhoneGap, but they are in compatible with VS2012

I don't know where to start in respect to creating my first simple CRUD application

  • I want to connect to a WCF API and make some calls

How to publish the result allowing installation on many devices:

  • I mainly want to use iPhone and Android devices

How do I get started with PhoneGap?

Smithy
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5 Answers5

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@Smithy, Microsoft just made it possible to develop Cordova apps with Visual Studio 2013 Update 2.

Its just a preview as far as I understand, but go have a look.

If you have the latest version of Visual Studio installed, you need to go to Microsoft'd download page and download the installer:

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=42675

This comes along with documentation on how to get started and how to install and set it up in VS 2013.

Good luck.

UPDATE:

With the release of Visual Studio 2013 Community Edition along with Update 4, MS has made it easier than ever to create Cordova project....and best thing of all is it's FREE!!!!

Benefit is that if your used to VS like me, this is a comfortable environment, and its super easy to get started.

To get access to these templates, follow the steps when creating a new project in VS, and you will be prompted to install additional software, including but not limited to SDK Manager, adt, iTunes, emulators etc..

After these are installed, it is now simple to create projects, edit and run them in the included RIPPLE emulator.

These projects can also in addition be deployed to your device from VS.

To check if your device is picked up on your PC, open a cmd and run "adb devices" to see if your device is picked up on your PC and a list of connected devices.

Easy, effective and it works. From, see link on terms of use and limitations in organisations: Free Dev Tools

Download link here: http://www.visualstudio.com/en-gb/products/free-developer-offers-vs

Q: Who can use Visual Studio Community? A: Here’s how individual developers can use Visual Studio Community: Any individual developer can use Visual Studio Community to create their own free or paid apps. Here’s how Visual Studio Community can be used in organizations: An unlimited number of users within an organization can use Visual Studio Community for the following scenarios: in a classroom learning environment, for academic research, or for contributing to open source projects. For all other usage scenarios: In non-enterprise organizations, up to 5 users can use Visual Studio Community. In enterprise organizations (meaning those with >250 PCs or > $1 Million US Dollars in annual revenue), no use is permitted beyond the open source, academic research, and classroom learning environment scenarios described above.

Thanks Microsoft!

fransHbrink
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  • I didn't see any reference in the link for Cordova. Is there a link with that info? – Lizz May 14 '14 at 20:33
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    @Lizz, from the description in the link:"Use Visual Studio and Apache Cordova™ to easily build hybrid apps that run on iOS, Android, Windows, and Windows Phone using a single project based on HTML and JavaScript.". Follow the link, click Download. Check the boxes for the documentation, as well as the .exe for the integration and download both. Read through the documentation, which will guide you through running the installation process on the executable. You need to install this to integrate Visual Studio with Cordova. – fransHbrink May 14 '14 at 20:42
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You can use VS to edit the html, css, and javascript files, but I don't believe there are any VS project templates available. At least I've never seen any.

But, you won't be able to compile and deploy. The templates for Android for instance are eclipse project templates since phonegap is building a java application in order to deploy to android.

If you want to develop for android, follow the getting started guide from Phonegap ( I can't get you a link right now due to firewall issues). The files you put in the www folder will be the html, css, and javascript files for your project and you can use anything you want to edit them, including VS.

Geoff
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  • Ok, so say I wanted to develop on Windows 8 (I have a sample up and running now) but I want my project to be deployable to WinPhone, iPhone and Android etc. How do I turn my VS project files into a APK? – Smithy Jul 09 '13 at 16:25
  • To make an APK to deploy to android you need to use the eclipse project template to build a java application. – Geoff Jul 09 '13 at 16:34
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    An alternative to setting up the environment on your local machine to do Android developement would be to use PhoneGap's Build service: build.phonegap.com – Andy T Jul 09 '13 at 23:28
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You can create PhoneGap application using

  1. Cordova vs plugin
  2. Telerik App Builder
  3. vsnomad

for more information please see the below link

http://sourcefreeze.com/cross-platform/visual-studio-cordova-plugins-for-cross-platform-mobile-apps/

Bharathi D
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You may also want to refer to this post that describes how to use Phonegap projects in the new Multi-Device Hybrid Apps that uses Cordova integration in VS - https://stackoverflow.com/a/23621633/1277291

Community
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Priyank
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RedGate has a product called Nomad which integrates beautifully with Visual Studio 2013. It makes use of the PhoneGap Build cloud service. With this approach you don't need all the platform SDK's on your system. Works very well. See this video. Unfortunately RedGate recently stopped supporting Nomad. I'm hoping Microsoft's new offering will offer similar capability.

CraigP
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