Mobile App Journey - Part II

For convenience (mine namely), I shall refer to the HTML/javascript/CSS mixture as "HJC".

The next major point to cover is that while I know some HTML, some CSS, and some javascript, I am by no means an expert, at all, in any of them.  What I am good at is finding solutions to problems.

I suggest you read up on PhoneGap.  Then read up on PhoneGap Build.  If I were just using PG, then I would perhaps be using Eclipse and compiling using various SDKs for Android, iOS, etc.  PGB doesn't give me all the options that the Eclipse/SDK combination does, but it saves much time if you can live with what it does give you.

Next, I needed to settle on an editor.  Having a .NET background I could have used Visual Studio, but to try something (quite) different I chose JetBrains Webstorm, which ties nicely into Google Chrome (using the Ripple emulator) for testing.  There are any number of combinations you can decide on.  I'm not saying this is the best.

Next, I decided on what extra libraries I wanted to use.  My inclination is to use as few as possible.  I chose the ubiquitous jQuery, and Twitter Bootstrap.  I decided not to mix in jQuery Mobile.  jQuery has ease of use with making AJAX calls, notation, etc., and TB's framework does a good job of allowing one to build a web app that fits on about any screen.

We will leave PG out of the picture for now.

A reminder:  this series' purpose is not to teach you HJC (be thankful for that!).  It's merely retracing the things I learned and went through to get an app to market, using HJC and PGB.

to be continued...