Phonegp Install command line tool Process

On the Mac, the command-line is available via the Terminal application. On the PC, it's available as Command Prompt underAccessories.

The more likely it is that you run the CLI from different machines, the more it makes sense to maintain a remote source code repository, whose assets you pull down to local working directories.

To install the phonegap command-line tool, follow these steps:

1. Download and install Node.js. Following installation, you should be able to invoke node or npm on your command line.
2. Install the phonegap utility. In Unix, prefixing the additional sudo command may be necessary to install development utilities in otherwise restricted directories:

   $ sudo npm install -g phonegap

   The installation log may produce errors for any uninstalled platform SDKs. Following installation, you should be able to run phonegap on the command line.

Create the App

Go to the directory where you maintain your source code, and run a command such as the following:

    $ phonegap create hello com.example.hello HelloWorld

The first argument specifies a hello directory to be generated for your project. Its www subdirectory houses your application's home page, along with various resources under css, js, and img, which follow common web development file-naming conventions. The config.xml file contains important metadata needed to generate and distribute the application.

The other two arguments are optional: the com.example.hello argument provides your project with a reverse domain-style identifier, and the HelloWorld provides the application's display text. The -i and -n command-line options and their corresponding flags make these explicit:

    $ phonegap create hello -n HelloWorld -i com.example.hello
    $ phonegap create hello --name HelloWorld --id com.example.hello

Alterately, you can edit both of these optional values in the config.xml file later during development.

Build the App

All subsequent commands need to be run within the project's directory, or any subdirectories within its scope:

    $ cd hello

By default, the phonegap create script generates a skeletal web-based application whose home page is the project's www/index.html file, with its default logic referenced from www/js/index.js. Edit this application however you want, but initialize it as part of a deviceready event handler, which executes once device APIs become available.

The build command compiles an application for whichever platform you specify, identified by common stub arguments, generating platform-specific files within the project's platforms subdirectory. For example, the following targets iPhone and iPad devices:

    $ phonegap build ios
    [phonegap] detecting iOS SDK environment...
    [phonegap] using the local environment
    [phonegap] compiling iOS...
    [phonegap] successfully compiled iOS app

High-level information on the command's progress displays as feedback. If you need lower-level details, use the -V (verbose) option:

    $ phonegap -V build ios