Category Archives: jQuery Mobile

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My Setup

Before I start talking too much and documenting my travels, I decided to mention what setup I’m currently running, which, as it turns out, is very important when you’re asking for information.  This is mainly due to the rapid pace of development of all the components involved.  I have the following:

  • OS: Windows 7.  Not much to say about this one.
  • IDE: Eclipse Classic / Version: 4.2.0 64-bit (http://www.eclipse.org/downloads/).  The first thing I noticed about this IDE is that it seems pretty slow, clunkyish.  The thing works, though.  I have to say that coming from a Visual Studio environment, Eclipse is awkward at best when you first touch it.  I’ve read of some people who find it downright repulsive.
  • Framework: Cordova 2.0 / PhoneGap.  In case you didn’t already know, this was previously known as PhoneGap, but Adobe Systems owns that name now. http://www.phonegap.com/download
  • Plugin: MDS AppLaud.  This is a plugin for Eclipse which gives you:
  • Plugin: ADT Plugin (Android Development Tools) version 20.0.2.  This is a plugin for eclipse that gives you the capability to quickly set up and Android project. http://developer.android.com/tools/sdk/eclipse-adt.html
  • jQuery Mobile version 1.1.1.  Simplifies a LOT of the JavaScript development and gives you some pretty nifty UI elements and animations by making use of a comprehensive JavaScript library and HTML5 tags.  This is not your typical drag and drop thing you may be used to, but with little effort I was able to create clean-looking UI’s for my test applications.  Worth it.  Get it.  http://jquerymobile.com/
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Hello World!

After spending a couple of days setting up my development environment with Eclipse, PhoneGap (Cordova 2.0), and jQuery Mobile, I tackled my first application: “Hello World!”

Granted, I can only work on this for 1 or 2 hours at a time since this is my after-work self-improvement studies.  Still, I thought, a simple “Hello World!” shouldn’t take more than 1 hour, right? Wrong! I think one of the biggest contributors to the learning curve for me was learning a whole new world of terminology, including esoteric acronyms like:

AVD

It took me quite a while to even get to the point where I could deploy my app to AVD.  In fact, it even took me a while to figure out what AVD meant! What the heck is the AVD? Oh, yes, it’s the Android Virtual Device, in other words, this is the emulator in which you can run your applications for testing purposes … as long as you’re willing to wait and wait and wait for the AVD to launch.

JAR

If you’ve never played around with Java, the JAR is simply a thing you use to store things in, such as cookies, pickles, candy, etc.  Well, in Java it’s a bit similar, JAR (Java ARchive) files contain things like classes or executables that can be used by the Java run-time and so on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JAR_(file_format)

ADT

ADT Plugin.  This is the Android Development Tools plugin for eclipse.  It makes your life easier … supposedly.

I’ll add more acronyms as they pop into my head.

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Traveling through the Gap

The title is in reference to mobile application development using the PhoneGap framework (Cordova 2.0 is my starting point).  I started this learning experience about a week ago.  Sometimes the gap narrows to painful widths, sometimes it opens up and I see the light.  It’s been quite a ride, especially since I haven’t really been able to find comprehensive documentation.  I attribute that to two things: the framework is moving forward at breakneck speed and the project is very community driven and apparently not very organized in terms of disseminating the information.  All in all, it appears to be very promising and to have great potential, even if things are a bit of a mystery to me still.

I’ll try to keep this blog updated with issues I find and how I resolve them.