May 9, 2013 · Javascript Tutorials · Mobile Tutorials ·

In the part one and part two of this tutorial we have discussed what PhoneGap mobile application framework is, its key components and elements. We have created a new PhoneGap mobile app project for iOS platform and started adding code for most used mobile application components. First such functionality was a communication with remote web services and 3rd party API’s through HTTP protocol by using jQuery library. Our mobile application has got a minimalistic and nice looking design created by using HTML5 markup and CSS styling.

In this part of the tutorial we will be adding data storage functionality and native application controls. Yes, native iOS controls so our PhoneGap based mobile app has a native look and feel native to its users. Such possibility to add native elements to PhoneGap hybrid mobile applications is one of the biggest strengths of this framework.

I’m going to be working with the code from the last tutorial part (you can find it on the bottom of the previous tutorial page). And the link to completed source code of today’s tutorial can be found at the end of tutorial. Lets get started.

First we are going to write a code to store last keyword that was used for search on the mobile device and retrieve it (for refilling search text box) once user launches application next time.

What storage for PhoneGap projects?

April 25, 2013 · HTML Tutorials · Javascript Tutorials · Mobile Tutorials ·

In the part one of these series we have checked what PhoneGap mobile application framework is, downloaded its latest version and have created our initial first project for iOS smartphone platform. I have also outlined frame for example mobile app we are going to build and the set of web APIs that we will be using to make this example application somewhat useful for its users.

In this part of the tutorial we will take a closer look to PhoneGap framework structure, its main files and will write code to consume data from the web based APIs. Lets call it slightly advanced “Hello World” example which instead of printing just simple text will display 5 yummy receipts retrieved from external web service.
We will continue working on the code of the initial project created in the part one of this tutorial. You can follow the steps we took last time, they are quite simple.
As we have much more code in this part, the all source code for today’s finished tutorial is located at the bottom of the post. Feel free to download and use it for testing. Now, lets get started.

PhoneGap structure for iOS mobile project

Let’s take a look at the structure and contents of the project created by PhoneGap script. Open the project with XCode (key tool for developing iOS based mobile applications). The structure will look the same as I have pictured below, with the key files for iOS project as well as PhoneGap specific www directory and few configuration files.
For iOS apps main.m objective-c implementation file represents the main loop application is constantly running. From the contents of this file we see that AppDelegate is being referenced as a main controller. Quick view to AppDelegate.m implementation file shows us that it sets some configuration parameters for the mobile project. Cache size, window size, splash screen, default start page for view controller (project default is always index.html) and other properties. The main directory where all application files have to be placed is www and they will be served via special custom view (web view).

AppDelegate.m implementation file for newly created PhoneGap iOS project.

April 11, 2013 · HTML Tutorials · Javascript Tutorials ·

Recently I had a chance to take a closer look at relatively new tool for creating interactive iPad tablet reading experiences called iBooks Author. It was released by Apple in January 2012 and is aimed at book authors and publishers to allow for an easy publishing of their books on Apple iBook platform. Application supports its own format .ibooks as well as .pdf and .ePub formats for exporting.

But what really caught my attention was the possibility to embed interactive elements inside actual ebooks. It can be done in the form of HTML5 widgets, with CSS styling and JavaScript support for building interactivity.  As it was a good fit for one of interactive digital mobile content projects we will be crafting at PopularOwl and I went through the process of creating and adding HTML5 widget to iBook project to understand how it all comes together.

In this tutorial I’m going to walk you through the steps for building fully working HTML5 widget to be used in iBooks Author projects. This sample widget will help eBook authors to easily add social follow option to their digital books so their readers can interact from within the eBook.

Source code for finished widget project is located at the bottom of this tutorial, feel free to download and test it. The final result:

February 26, 2012 · Javascript Tutorials · PHP Tutorials ·

Whenever you’re working on a new WordPress theme that includes hover (mouseover) effects, especially dropdown or flyout menus, you might want to include hoverIntent. HoverIntent is a term that describes a concept through which you delay a hover action until a certain amount of time has passed, in order to make sure that the user really intended to trigger that action.

We’ve all been on websites with dropdown menus that tend to get in the way of the content, and pop open as soon as your mouse touches even a small portion of them, and we’ve most likely all been annoyed by it. The idea behind hoverIntent is to measure the speed of the mouse movement, attempting to determine whether the user actually intended to stop on the item or not. If the mouse just moves over an item with a hover effect, but doesn’t stop on it, the hover effect should not be triggered; if, however, the user’s mouse does slow down enough or stop on the item, the hover effect should be triggered.

October 15, 2011 · Javascript Tutorials ·

Anyone that’s used Google Analytics to track cross-domain requests has probably run up against the fact that Analytics adds some really ugly GET variables to the end of your URLs when you click on links. Not only are they ugly, but they also can stop things like WP Super Cache from caching your pages. We also found that the query string appended by Google Analytics was causing server errors when appended to the URLs of some of our hosted apps.

There is a little-publicized feature in Analytics, though, that lets you change the query string into a hash string. Therefore, instead of having some long, ugly string that can mess things up (and, to be honest, long, confusing query strings can sometimes scare users); you get a long, ugly hash appended to the URL, instead (which has no effect on the way the page is rendered, and, therefore, doesn’t mess up nearly as many things).

September 30, 2011 · Javascript Tutorials ·

Today, I discovered an issue that I have probably encountered in the past; but it’s been so long I forgot about it. I had some JavaScript set up to select a radio button based on text input, and then update the text based on the selected radio button (it’s a TinyMCE plugin that inserts a shortcode into the WordPress visual editor). Throughout all of the testing I performed, everything worked just fine. Today, though, someone else was testing the interface and could not get the text or the radio button to update properly.

After a bit of testing and messing around with the interface, I finally discovered that my JavaScript wasn’t recognizing the existence of the radio button on the form. After a bit more testing, I realized that’s because only one radio button existed; and JavaScript doesn’t treat radio buttons as arrays when there’s only one instance. When I had been testing before, I had multiple radio buttons, so everything worked; but now there was only one button, so it fell over.