cordova- plugins(phone gap plugins)

Add Plugin Features

When you build and view a new project, the default application that appears doesn't do very much. You can modify the app in many ways to take advantage of standard web technologies, but for the app to communicate closely with various device-level features, you need to add plugins that provide access to core Cordova APIs.

A plugin is a bit of add-on code that provides an interface to native components. You can design your own plugin interface, for example when designing a hybrid app that mixes a Cordova WebView with native components. (See Embedding WebViews andPlugin Development Guide for details.) More commonly, you would add a plugin to enable one of Cordova's basic device-level features detailed in the API Reference.

As of version 3.0, when you create a Cordova project it does not have any plugins present. This is the new default behavior. Any plugins you desire, even the core plugins, must be explicitly added.

A list of these plugins, including additional third-party plugins provided by the community, can be found in the registry atplugins.cordova.io. You can use the CLI to search for plugins from this registry. For example, searching for bar and codeproduces a single result that matches both terms as case-insensitive substrings:

    $ cordova plugin search bar code

    com.phonegap.plugins.barcodescanner - Scans Barcodes

Searching for only the bar term yields and additional result:

    org.apache.cordova.statusbar - Cordova StatusBar Plugin

The cordova plugin add command requires you to specify the repository for the plugin code. Here are examples of how you might use the CLI to add features to the app:

·         Basic device information (Device API):

  $ cordova plugin add org.apache.cordova.device

·         Network Connection and Battery Events:

  $ cordova plugin add org.apache.cordova.network-information
  $ cordova plugin add org.apache.cordova.battery-status

·         Accelerometer, Compass, and Geolocation:

  $ cordova plugin add org.apache.cordova.device-motion
  $ cordova plugin add org.apache.cordova.device-orientation
  $ cordova plugin add org.apache.cordova.geolocation

·         Camera, Media playback and Capture:

  $ cordova plugin add org.apache.cordova.camera
  $ cordova plugin add org.apache.cordova.media-capture
  $ cordova plugin add org.apache.cordova.media

·         Access files on device or network (File API):

  $ cordova plugin add org.apache.cordova.file
  $ cordova plugin add org.apache.cordova.file-transfer

·         Notification via dialog box or vibration:

  $ cordova plugin add org.apache.cordova.dialogs
  $ cordova plugin add org.apache.cordova.vibration

·         Contacts:

  $ cordova plugin add org.apache.cordova.contacts

·         Globalization:

  $ cordova plugin add org.apache.cordova.globalization

·         Splashscreen:

  $ cordova plugin add org.apache.cordova.splashscreen

·         Open new browser windows (InAppBrowser):

  $ cordova plugin add org.apache.cordova.inappbrowser

·         Debug console:

  $ cordova plugin add org.apache.cordova.console

NOTE: The CLI adds plugin code as appropriate for each platform. If you want to develop with lower-level shell tools or platform SDKs as discussed in the Overview, you need to run the Plugman utility to add plugins separately for each platform. (For more information, see Using Plugman to Manage Plugins.)

Use plugin ls (or plugin list, or plugin by itself) to view currently installed plugins. Each displays by its identifier:

    $ cordova plugin ls    # or 'plugin list'
    [ 'org.apache.cordova.console' ]

To remove a plugin, refer to it by the same identifier that appears in the listing. For example, here is how you would remove support for a debug console from a release version:

    $ cordova plugin rm org.apache.cordova.console
    $ cordova plugin remove org.apache.cordova.console    # same

You can batch-remove or add plugins by specifying more than one argument for each command:

    $ cordova plugin add org.apache.cordova.console org.apache.cordova.device

Advanced Plugin Options

When adding a plugin, several options allow you to specify from where to fetch the plugin. The examples above use a well-knownregistry.cordova.io registry, and the plugin is specified by the id:

    $ cordova plugin add org.apache.cordova.console

The id may also include the plugin's version number, appended after an @ character. The latest version is an alias for the most recent version. For example:

    $ cordova plugin add org.apache.cordova.console@latest
    $ cordova plugin add org.apache.cordova.console@0.2.1

If the plugin is not registered at registry.cordova.io but is located in another git repository, you can specify an alternate URL:

    $ cordova plugin add https://github.com/apache/cordova-plugin-console.git

The git example above fetches the plugin from the end of the master branch, but an alternate git-ref such as a tag or branch can be appended after a # character:

    $ cordova plugin add https://github.com/apache/cordova-plugin-console.git#r0.2.0

If the plugin (and its plugin.xml file) is in a subdirectory within the git repo, you can specify it with a : character. Note that the # character is still needed:

    $ cordova plugin add https://github.com/someone/aplugin.git#:/my/sub/dir

You can also combine both the git-ref and the subdirectory:

    $ cordova plugin add https://github.com/someone/aplugin.git#r0.0.1:/my/sub/dir

Alternately, specify a local path to the plugin directory that contains the plugin.xml file:

    $ cordova plugin add ../my_plugin_dir

Using merges to Customize Each Platform

While Cordova allows you to easily deploy an app for many different platforms, sometimes you need to add customizations. In that case, you don't want to modify the source files in various www directories within the top-level platforms directory, because they're regularly replaced with the top-level www directory's cross-platform source.

Instead, the top-level merges directory offers a place to specify assets to deploy on specific platforms. Each platform-specific subdirectory within merges mirrors the directory structure of the www source tree, allowing you to override or add files as needed. For example, here is how you might uses merges to boost the default font size for Android and Amazon Fire OS devices:

·         Edit the www/index.html file, adding a link to an additional CSS file, overrides.css in this case:

  <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="css/overrides.css" />

·         Optionally create an empty www/css/overrides.css file, which would apply for all non-Android builds, preventing a missing-file error.

·         Create a css subdirectory within merges/android, then add a corresponding overrides.css file. Specify CSS that overrides the 12-point default font size specified within www/css/index.css, for example:

  body { font-size:14px; }

When you rebuild the project, the Android version features the custom font size, while others remain unchanged.

You can also use merges to add files not present in the original www directory. For example, an app can incorporate a back button graphic into the iOS interface, stored in merges/ios/img/back_button.png, while the Android version can instead capture backbutton events from the corresponding hardware button.

Help Commands

Cordova features a couple of global commands, which may help you if you get stuck or experience a problem. The helpcommand displays all available Cordova commands and their syntax:

$ cordova help
$ cordova        # same

Additionally, you can get more detailed help on a specific command. For example:

$ cordova run --help

The info command produces a listing of potentially useful details, such as currently installed platforms and plugins, SDK versions for each platform, and versions of the CLI and node.js:

$ cordova info

It both presents the information to screen and captures the output in a local info.txt file.

NOTE: Currently, only details on iOS and Android platforms are available.

Updating Cordova and Your Project

After installing the cordova utility, you can always update it to the latest version by running the following command:

    $ sudo npm update -g cordova

Use this syntax to install a specific version:

    $ sudo npm install -g cordova@3.1.0-0.2.0

Run cordova -v to see which version is currently running. Run the npm info command for a longer listing that includes the current version along with other available version numbers:

    $ npm info cordova

Cordova 3.0 is the first version to support the command-line interface described in this section. If you are updating from a version prior to 3.0, you need to create a new project as described above, then copy the older application's assets into the top-level wwwdirectory. Where applicable, further details about upgrading to 3.0 are available in the Platform Guides. Once you upgrade to the cordova command-line interface and use npm update to stay current, the more time-consuming procedures described there are no longer relevant.

Cordova 3.0+ may still require various changes to project-level directory structures and other dependencies. After you run the npm command above to update Cordova itself, you may need to ensure your project's resources conform to the latest version's requirements. Run a command such as the following for each platform you're building:

    $ cordova platform update android
    $ cordova platform update ios
    ...etc.