A unified JavaScript layer for Apache Cordova projects.
Project Structure
./
|-src/
| |-cordova.js ........ common Cordova stuff
| |-common/ ........... base modules shared across platfoms
| | |-builder.js ..... injects in our classes onto window and navigator
| | |-channel.js ..... pub/sub impl for custom framework events
| | |-common.js ...... common locations to add Cordova objects to browser globals
| | |-exec.js ........ interace stub for each platform specific version of exec.js
| | |-platform.js .... stub for platform's specific version of platform.js
| | '-utils.js ....... closures, uuids, object, cloning, extending prototypes
| |
| |-scripts/ .......... non-module JS that gets concated to cordova.<platform>.js
| | |-bootstrap.js ... bootstrap the Cordova platform, inject APIs and fire events
| | '-require.js ..... module definition and require() impl
| |
| '-<platform>/ ....... contains the platform-specific base modules
|
|-tasks/ ............... custom grunt tasks
'-tests/ ............... unit tests
Building
Make sure you have node.js installed. It should come pre-installed with npm - but if you install node and can't run npm
then head over to the website and install it yourself. Make sure you have all of the node dependencies installed by running the following command from the repository root:
npm install
All of the build tasks can be run via the grunt
node module. Install it globally first by running:
sudo npm install -g grunt-cli
Then from the repository root run:
grunt
For integration, see the 'Integration' section below.
Known Issues
- On Windows, when you run
npm install
, you may get errors regarding contextify. This is necessary for running the tests. Make sure you are running node v0.6.15 at the least (and npm v1.1.16 which should come bundled with node 0.6.15). Also, install Python 2.7.x and Visual C++ 2010 Express. When that is done, runnpm install
again and it should build contextify natively on Windows.
How It Works
The build/packager.js
tool is a node.js script that concatenates all of the core Cordova plugins in this repository into a cordova.<platform>.js
file under the pkg/
folder. It also wraps the plugins with a RequireJS-compatible module syntax that works in both browser and node environments. We end up with a cordova.js file that wraps each Cordova plugin into its own module.
Cordova defines a channel
module under lib/common/channel.js
, which is a publish/subscribe implementation that the project uses for event management.
The Cordova native-to-webview bridge is initialized in lib/scripts/bootstrap.js
. This file attaches the boot
function to the channel.onNativeReady
event - fired by native with a call to:
cordova.require('cordova/channel).onNativeReady.fire()
The boot
method does all the work. First, it grabs the common platform definition (under lib/common/common.js
) and injects all of the objects defined there onto window
and other global namespaces. Next, it grabs all of the platform-specific object definitions (as defined under lib/<platform>/platform.js
) and overrides those onto window
. Finally, it calls the platform-specific initialize
function (located in the platform definition). At this point, Cordova is fully initialized and ready to roll. Last thing we do is wait for the DOMContentLoaded
event to fire to make sure the page has loaded properly. Once that is done, Cordova fires the deviceready
event where you can safely attach functions that consume the Cordova APIs.
Testing
Tests run in node or the browser. To run the tests in node:
grunt test
To run them in the browser:
grunt btest
Final testing should always be done with the Mobile Spec test application.
Integration
Cordova
Build the js files by running grunt as described above. Update each platform independently. For a given platform:
Replace the cordova.js file in the cordova-PLATFORM directory with the newly generated cordova.PLATFORM.js file. If necessary, change the name of the new file to match that of the overwritten one.
Once the new js file has been added, any new projects created will use the updated js. To update an already existing project, directly replace the cordova.js file within the project's www/ folder with the generated cordova.PLATFORM.js. Make sure to change the file name to match the original.
Adding a New Platform
- Add your platform as a directory under the
lib
folder. - Write a module that encapsulates your platform's
exec
method and call it exec.js. Theexec
method is a JavaScript function that enables communication from the platform's JavaScript environment into the platform's native environment. Each platform uses a different mechanism to enable this bridge. We recommend you check out the other platformexec
definitions for inspiration. Drop this into thelib/<platform>
folder you created in step 1. Theexec
method has the following method signature:function(success, fail, service, action, args)
, with the following parameters:
success
: a success function callbackfail
: a failure function callbackservice
: a string identifier that the platform can resolve to a native classaction
: a string identifier that the platform can resolve to a specific method inside the class pointed to byservice
args
: an array of parameters to pass to the native method invoked by theexec
call It is required that new platform additions be as consistent as possible with the existingservice
andaction
labels.
-
Define your platform definition object and name it platform.js. Drop this into the
lib/<platform>
folder. This file should contain a JSON object with the following properties:id
: a string representing the platform. This should be the same name the .js file hasobjects
: the property names defined as children of this property are injected intowindow
, and also overrides any existing properties. Each property can have the following child properties:path
: a string representing the module ID that will define this object. For example, the filelib/plugin/accelerometer.js
can be accessed as"cordova/plugin/accelerometer"
. More details on how the module IDs are defined are above under the "How It Works" section.children
: in a recursive fashion, can havepath
andchildren
properties of its own that are defined as children of the parent property object
merges
: similar to the aboveobjects
property, this one will not clobber existing objects, instead it will recursively merge this object into the specific targetinitialize
: a function that fires immediately after theobjects
(see above) are defined in the global scope
The following is a simple example of a platform definition:
{ id:"atari", initialize:function(){ console.log('firing up Cordova in my Atari, yo.'); }, objects:{ cordova:{ path:"cordova", children:{ joystick:{ path:"cordova/plugin/atari/joystick" } } } } }
-
You should probably add a
packager.bundle('<platform>')
call to theJakefile
under thebuild
task. -
Make sure your native implementation executes the following JavaScript once all of the native side is initialized and ready:
require('cordova/channel').onNativeReady.fire()
. -
The deviceready event is important. To make sure that the stock common JavaScript fires this event off, the device and network connection plugins must successfully be instantiated and return information about the connectivity and device information. The success callbacks for these plugins should include calls to
require('cordova/channel').onCordovaInfoReady.fire()
(for device information) andrequire('cordova/channel').OnCordovaConnectionReady.fire()
(for network information). -
Last but certainly not least: add yourself to the contributors list! It's in the
package.json
file in the root of this repository. You deserve it!