1. Building Native
Mobile Apps With
WordPress
NIKHIL VISHNU
@nikhilvishnu
WordCamp Pune 2013

2. About Me
 2008 Started web development with WordPress
 2011 Started with iOS/Mac Development
 2012 Started with windows 8 Development
 2013 Released Wordpress backed windows 8 &
android applications

3. The Story Behind The Topic

4. We Are Going Mobile

6. How To make your website mobile
ready?

7. Native Apps VS Mobile Web

8. Native Apps VS Mobile
 Go native when
 Need to produce the best user experience —
fast and fluid
 People are going to use it quite often ( daily
basis )
A lot of users request for it
 Customers really want an app

9. Go Native

10. What does it Means
 You need to communicate with another
developer
 Need to build an API that the developer can use
 So you need to understand what a mobile
developer wants
 Need to build additional fields in WordPress for
information that the mobile app can use

11. The API

12. How to build an API out of
WordPress?

13. Options
 XML-RPC
 API-Plugins

14. Using XML-RPC as an API

15. Why XML-RPC Won’t work
 It is not designed as a data fetching API
 XML-RPC uses about 4 times the number of bytes
compared to plain XML
 Need a lot of code on the app side
 In the end the size of requests/responses do
matter

16. Using Plugins for creating API

17. Available Plugins
 JSON API
 WP RESTful
 WP API

18. JSON API (Plugin)
 Simple, consistent external interface
 Stable, understandable internal implementation
 Enable new types of extensions for WordPress

19. What is JSON?
 JavaScript Object Notation
 Alternative to XML
 text-based open standard designed for human-
readable data interchange
 Represents simple data structures and
associative arrays, called objects

20. JSON Example
myObject = {
"first": "John",
"last": "Doe",
"age": 39,
"sex": "M",
"salary": 70000,
"registered": true,
"interests": [ "Reading", "Mountain Biking", "Hacking" ]
}

21. JSON API Interface

22. Built in Controllers
 Core Controller
 Post Controller
 Respond Controller

23. Core controller methods
Info get_recent_posts get_post get_page get_date_posts get_category_posts
get_tag_posts get_author_posts get_search_results get_date_index get_category_index
get_tag_index get_author_index get_page_index get_nonce

24. Post & Respond controller methods
create_post submit_comment

25. http://nikhilvishnu.com/api/get_recent_posts/

26. Developing JSON API controllers
 Create a controller file (hello.php) inside wp-
content/plugins/json-api/controllers
<?php
class JSON_API_Hello_Controller {
public function hello_world()
{
return array( "message" => "Hello, world" );
}
}
?>

27. Developing JSON API controllers
public function hello_person()
{
global $json_api;
$name = $json_api->query->name;
return array(
"message" => "Hello, $name."
);
}

28. External controllers
function add_hello_controller($controllers) {
$controllers[] = 'hello';
return $controllers;
}
add_filter('json_api_controllers', 'add_hello_controller');
function set_hello_controller_path() {
return "/path/to/theme/hello.php";
}
add_filter('json_api_hello_controller_path','set_hello_controller_path');

29. Important Points
 Only return data that is needed
 Don’t change the feed without notifying the app
developer
 A call shouldn’t take to long, speed is everything
 Cache the data if possible
 Transients:
http://codex.wordpress.org/Transients_API

30. Ways To Improve
 Add consumer key/secret
 Admin page for customizing response (remove
categories)

31. More Plugins
 WP API
 WP-RESTful
 JSON only

32. Is there a way to create a native
app from WordPress without
coding?

33. Plugins
 Joemobi
 Turn your WordPress blog into native iPhone, Android and BlackBerry
applications
 WiziApp
 Turns your WordPress blog into a native iPhone app
 Native Apps Builder
 Converting WordPress site to native apps for apple store and android market
 Appifier
 Website for creating native mobile apps from WordPress

34. RECAP

35. One More Thing…

36. ONE CLICK NATIVE APPS FOR YOUR
WORDPRESS WEBSITE
www.mobapper.com

37. DEMO
www.mobapper.com
twitter: @mobapper

38. Reference
 www.wikipedia.org
 http://www.slideshare.net/markoheijnen/creatin
g-native-apps-with-wordpress

39. Thanks!
www.nikhilvishnu.com
nikhil@mobapper.com
@nikhilvishnu