Create a cross-platform mobile app using Cordova+visual Studio (2)

There are three modes for developing mobile applications: Native, Hybird, and the Web, Hybird is a great choice for developing cross-platform mobile applications and for interacting with local APIs.

as a. NET programmer, you can use the familiar Ide,visual studio to develop mobile applications, there are already Visual studio-based extensions to help us develop quickly:

• Cordova (Html/javacript)
• Xamarin (. Net Framework)

Please refer to the following articles:

• Developing applications for Windows, Android, and IOS devices (. NET Framework)
• Developing applications for Windows, Android, and IOS devices (Html/javascript)

1 Cordova

Apache Cordova is a platform for building local mobile apps through HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.

Cordova provides a set of device-related APIs that enable mobile apps to access native device features, such as cameras, microphones, and so on, with JavaScript.

Cordova also provides a unified set of JavaScript class libraries, as well as native background code related to the devices used by these class libraries.

Cordova supports mobile operating systems: IOS, Android,ubuntu phone OS, Blackberry, Windows phone, Palm WebOS, Bada and Symbian.

1.1 References

• Apache Cordova

http://cordova.apache.org/

• Apache Cordova for Visual Studio Extension

Http://www.visualstudio.com/en-us/explore/dn841948#Fragment_Overview

• Telerik AppBuilder for Visual Studio Extension

Http://www.telerik.com/platform#overview

1.2 Apache Cordova for Visual Studio Extension

After Visual Studio Update 4, you can use an Apache Cordova for Visual studio Extensions called MDA, which enables you to develop cross-platform on Visual Studio, Debug, publish, see the following diagram, smart tips, breakpoints debugging, is not very familiar with it.

1.3Telerik AppBuilder for Visual Studio Extension

AppBuilder is a mobile development framework developed and maintained by Telerik, based on the Cordova platform, which allows you to create an app that runs on Android, iOS and Windows Phone in minutes.

AppBuilder Extension for Visual Studio currently only supports:

• Visual Studio 2012
• Visual Studio 2013

2 Xamarin

After you get update 2 or later in Visual Studio, you can create applications for Windows devices and add Windows project and Windows Phone project. You can write applications for all Windows devices with a common Application project template. If you want to write an app for Android or iOS, you'll need to install Xamarin. You can build a common solution for Windows, Android, and iOS devices, and then share your code using shared projects or portable class libraries.

You can share the code under different platforms. Includes business logic, cloud integration, database access, or other code written by the. Net Framework. You can share more code between Windows and Windows Phone projects. Because of the differences in different platforms, you cannot share the UI part of the code.

2.1Windows Equipment

After Windows 8.1 and Visual Studio Update 2 are released, you can write applications for Windows phones, desktops, and tablets.

• Desktops: Desktop Applications
• Tablets: Tablet PC app

If you are facing the above three platforms you can consider using a generic project template. This project template contains Windows project (for desktops and tablets), Windows Phone Project, and shared project. The Shared projects is new in Visual Studio Update 2. With this template you can write more easily the project code written for Windows and Windows Phone devices.

The solution shown contains three items (Windows Phone, Windows, and shared). You can create such a solution via the hub App Universal apps template.

Currently, this generic project template only supports C # and C + +.

2.2 Android&ios Equipment

With Xamarin installed, you can use C # to develop applications for Android and iOS devices. Find the project template for Android and iOS as shown in.

These templates will provide access to C # objects for native Android and iOS features. You can access native APIs and local user controls for Android and iOS devices as you would write objective-c or java.

You can create projects for Android, iOS, and windows in the same solution. Shows a common project template that can share code in shared project with different projects.

Create a cross-platform mobile app using Cordova+visual Studio (2)