cordova

cordova-client

The command line tool to build, deploy and manage Cordova-based applications.

Requirements

• nodejs
• git
• SDKs for every platform you wish to support
  • BlackBerry WebWorks SDK
  • iOS SDK
  • Android SDK - NOTE This tool will not work unless you have the absolute latest updates for all Android SDK components.

cordova-client has been tested on Mas OS X only. Sorry.

In it's prototype stages, cordova-client will only work on Cordova v2.1.0rc1 and above.

Install

npm install -g cordova

The -g flag installs cordova globally, so you can access the tool via cordova.

NOTE: on Mac OS X, you may want to change the owner of the cordova directory that npm installs to. This will allow you to run cordova as local user without requiring root permissions. Assuming your node_modules directory is in /usr/local/lib/, you can do this by running: sudo chown -R <username> /usr/local/lib/node_modules/cordova

Subcommands

format	description
create <directory> [<id> [<name>]]	create a new cordova project with optional name and id
platform ls	list all platforms the project will build
platform add <platform>	add a platform as a build target for the project
platform remove <platform>	removes a platform as a build target for the project
plugin ls	list all plugins added to the project
plugin add <path-to-plugin>	add a plugin to the project
plugin remove <plugin-name>	remove an added plugin
build	compile the app for all platforms added to the project
emulate	launch emulators for all platforms added to the project

File and Directory Structure

A Cordova application built with cordova-client will have the following directory structure:

myApp/
|-.cordova/
|- platforms/
|- plugins/
`- www/

.cordova/

The .cordova directory contains the project's baked-in plugins and platforms, and meta-data used by the rest of the commands. The root project directory has a .cordova directory inside of it, and that directory identifies the parent as a cordova project. Project directories may not be nested. A Cordova project directory is recognized as such when it has a .cordova directory. This data is generated when calling cordova create. It's modified when adding/removing platforms or plugins to the project.

Commands other than create operate against the project directory itself, rather than the current directory - a search up the current directory's parents is made to find the project directory. Thus, any command (other than create) can be used from any subdirectory whose parent is a cordova project directory (same as git).

platforms/ and plugins/

Additional platforms and projects can be installed, and removed, with the cordova platform/plugin add/remove subcommands. The add versions of these subcommands take a URI as a parameter. If the URI does not contain a protocol/scheme, it's assumed to be a 'baked in' platform/plugin. Otherwise, it's assumed to be a URL to a gzipped tar archive of the platform/plugin, in the shape of an npm package.

Platforms and projects are expected to be "CommonJS packages" (loosely), similar to the way npm packages are structured. The main requirement is that there be a package.json file available in the 'root directory' of the archive. The package.json file will contain additional meta-data for platforms and plugins, including pointers to such things as native code that needs to be compiled/linked/added to the application during a build.

platforms/

Platforms added to your application will have the native application project structures laid out within this directory.

plugins/

Any added plugins will be extracted or copied into this directory.

www/

Contains the project's web artifacts, such as .html, .css and .js files. These are your main application assets. The config.xml file within this directory is very important; read on to the next section!

Your Blanket: www/config.xml

This file is what you should be editing to modify your application's metadata. Any time you run any cordova-client commands, the tool will look at the contents of config.xml and use all relevant info from this file to define native application information. cordova-client supports changing your application's data via the following elements inside the config.xml file:

• The user-facing name can be modified via the contents of the <name> element.

Examples

Creating a new cordova project

This example shows how to create a project from scratch named KewlApp with iOS and Android platform support, and includes a plugin named Kewlio. The project will live in ~/MyProjects/KewlApp

cordova create ~/KewlApp

cd ~/KewlApp

cordova platform add ios

cordova platform add android

cordova plugin add http://example.org/Kewlio-1.2.3.tar.gz

cordova build 

The directory structure of KewlApp now looks like this:

KewlApp/
|- .cordova/
|- platforms/
   |- android/
   |  `- …
   `- ios/
      `- …
|- plugins/
   `- Kewlio/
`- www/
   `- index.html

Contributing

Running Tests

npm test

Managing Plugins

Plugin integration hinges on:

• You having the plugin code locally on your computer
• The plugin code adheres to the Cordova Plugin Specification

TO-DO + Issues

Please check cordova-client on GitHub.

Bash Completions

It would be useful to support Bash command-line completions, in the same manner as git. Completions on subcommands, plugins, platforms, files, etc.

• it would be useful
• it would force us into some consistency to maintain an easy completion script