Which IDE for Phonegap? Is Eclipse enough?

android ios eclipse cordova phonegap-build

60,603

Solution 1

I'm currently using intel-xdk and it's been great so far. It has the ripple emulator embedded which is great to test your app quickly.

Solution 2

Yes, Eclipse is more than enough to target all the platforms.

Using PhoneGap Build, you could write the entire app using any text editor - no IDE required - and upload to their service. Their service handles the compilation in all the target mobile environments for you, and then provides the final files to download for each platform.

From their FAQ:

How do I get started with PhoneGap Build?

Simply upload your web assets - a ZIP file of HTML, CSS and JavaScript, or a single index.html file - to PhoneGap Build, point us to your Git or SVN repository. Then we’ll undertake the compilation and packaging for you. In minutes, you’ll receive the download URLs for all mobile platforms.

For ease of development I'd recommend installing one of the IDEs (probably whatever matches the physical devices you have for testing or prefer). This way you get IDE assistance like Intellisense, but as I said it's not strictly required to have one.

Your alternative if you want to compile for all those platforms locally is pretty ridiculous:

iOS - install Xcode
Android/BlackBerry - install Eclipse
Windows Phone - install Visual Studio

Even if all you have is a web browser you could edit your code in its repository directly through GitHub.com's web interface, and then tell PhoneGap Build to clone the repo and build, then download the builds for each device.

Solution 3

It seems Visual Studio would be better for someone more familiar with that:

1) http://kencenerelli.wordpress.com/2012/08/10/extending-phonegap-for-visual-studio-to-android-devices/

Excerpt: "PhoneGap:Build. The online service can take your HTML, CSS and JavaScript files (everything the PhoneGap templates create using Visual Studio) and compile them into apps that are ready for a vendor’s app marketplace."

2) http://anindita9.wordpress.com/tag/visual-studio-phonegap/

3) - you can use Visual Studio Lightswitch and Nomad, too:

https://www.facebook.com/vslightswitch/posts/658678164147712

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/phonegap/_eNL6viCFhs

4) Also, tip on Android/Eclipse:

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/phonegap/-wYLoYWwp-I

5) PhoneGap tutorials:

http://vsnomad.com/documentation/learning-phonegap.html

http://pieterderycke.wordpress.com/2012/03/26/developing-mobile-applications-with-phonegap-and-jquery-mobile/

6) PhoneGap/Cordova vs. Nomad:

http://brantleclercq.com/2012/12/15/vs-nomad-vs-phonegap-build/

UPDATE

But, for somebody more conversant/fluent with Eclipse, perhaps Aptana Studio, an open source IDE based on Eclipse but web-centric:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aptana_Studio

Solution 4

I develop apps plus web-service backends (mostly in PHP). Some of my "apps" are designed to run as apps on phones/tablets and as Chrome plugins (or just webpages) on desktop/laptop systems.

I currently use JetBrains PHPStorm (buggy, and service isn't great, but it hassome cool IDE features and reasonably priced) and Eclipse together. In Eclipse, I have Aptana plus web tools platform, and of course the Android ADT plugins installed.

I've got another guy who does builds/plugins for iOS using a Mac/Xcode/etc.

We try to do as much debugging in browsers as we possibly can and just use the simulator/emulator (and devices) for testing plugins and other device-specific stuff.

We're just moving to PhoneGap 3 and are evaluating PhoneGap build as an alternative. (We're particularly interested in the debug capabilities. It's not clear how much they really add over what's already out there.)

It certainly sounds good on paper, but we'll have to see.

If you're doing plugin development, you'll need the appropriate system for development (PC or Mac) and testing.

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B. Clay Shannon-B. Crow Raven

My novel about climate change and social justice featuring talking animals traveling through time and space to prevent disasters is now available on amazon, in three formats: Taterskin & The Eco Defenders Kindle eBook; Taterskin & The Eco Defenders Paperback; Taterskin & The Eco Defenders Hardcover Taterskin & The Eco Defenders, told in “first canine” by the titular character, a Labrador Retriever, is the story of a few humans and several talking animals who travel through time and space to make the past—and thus the future—a better place. The improvements effected by the Eco Defenders benefit not just the earth itself, but also mistreated humans and animals. In Book 1 (“Wonders Never Cease”), The Eco Defenders travel 150 million years into the past, to meet a Pterodactyl and make plans to “nip Nazism in the bud.” After that, it's on to 1787 Australia to protect the indigenous people and the environment there. The Eco Defenders next go to India, where they assemble animals from all over that country to put an end to Thuggee and fights to the death between Cobras and Mongooses. Their final stop is 1885 Africa, where the Eco Defenders band together with the local animals to prevent King Leopold of Belgium from taking control of the Congo, following which they put an end to the poaching of animals throughout the continent. Book 2 (“Tell it to Future Generations”) takes up with the Eco Defenders following up on their earlier adventures by 1) Preventing the American Civil War in 1861, after which a slave they free joins them; 2) Saving the Indians from being massacred at Wounded Knee in 1890, following which Chapawee, a Sioux Indian, joins the Eco Defenders; 3) Putting an end to the practice of vivisection (experimentation on live animals) in 1903; 4) Coming to the aid of exploited workers in 1911 Manhattan, saving hundreds from the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire; and 5) Traveling to the Amazon Basin in 1978 to protect and preserve the Amazon rainforest. @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ I have lived in eight states; besides my native California (where I was born and where I now again reside), in chronological order I have infested: New York (Brooklyn), Montana (Helena), Alaska (Anchorage), Oklahoma (Bethany), Wisconsin (New Berlin and Oconomowoc), Idaho (Coeur d'Alene), and Missouri (Piedmont). I am a writer of both fiction (for which I use the nom de guerre "Blackbird Crow Raven", as a nod to my Native American heritage - I am "½ Cowboy, ½ Indian") and nonfiction, including a two-volume social and cultural history of the U.S. which covers important events from 1620-2006 and can be downloaded gratis here.

Updated on December 17, 2020

Comments

B. Clay Shannon-B. Crow Raven over 3 years

I am about to jump into Phonegap and realize that it doesn't have an IDE of its own. I know that I could use Eclipse to create Android-centric Phonegap apps, but what about the iOS and perhaps Windows Phone and perhaps Blackberry "versions" - can Eclipse be used for all of it? What do most Phonegappers use as an IDE?

Does PhoneGap Build make it possible to do it all in Eclipse, and then throw it up to the cloud for the iOS, etc., builds?
Surya Deepak about 9 years

i feel it is the best solution suggested so for inspite of less upvotes
Bhupinder almost 9 years

Yes comparing with others I found it better than others, very easy to setup and that is great for free service.
siddhesh almost 9 years

but how to debug and test it on the desktop?
Ahmad Ismail over 8 years

now you can use VS2015 with Xamarin.
Redoman about 8 years

@AhmmadIsmail not without paying, yet...
oli-ver about 8 years

Doesn't Intel SDK use its own app and Apache Cordova without Phonegap? Am I missing something, or has it changed since 2014?
Bruno_Ferreira almost 7 years

@oli-ver I think this answers to your question: stackoverflow.com/a/32763548/933558