Ionic is a free framework that allows users to easily build hybrid mobile applications for iOS and Android using Angular and Cordova. Ionic provides a command line interface, CSS classes, reusable components (directives) and various tools for testing and development. In this session, you'll get a birdseye view of what Ionic has to offer, as well as guidelines for building your first Ionic app, including the use of tools such as Yeoman, Bower and Grunt.

1. Intro to Ionic for Building Hybrid
Mobile Applications
Presented By: Sasha dos Santos
Tampa Code Camp
http://goo.gl/kZgLcm
Ionic is a free framework that allows users to easily build hybrid mobile
applications for iOS and Android using Angular and Cordova. Ionic provides a
command line interface, CSS classes, reusable components (directives) and
various tools for testing and development. In this session, you'll get a birds-
eye view of what Ionic has to offer, as well as guidelines for building your
first Ionic app.
July 18, 2015

2. About The Presenter
• Tampa-area developer with interest in
JavaScript, Mobile, GIS & .NET
• Graduate of the University of South Florida
• Twitter: @SashaGeekette
• Blog: SashaGeekette.wordpress.com
• LinkedIn:
http://www.linkedin.com/in/hiresasha
• Email: sashageekette@gmail.com

3. Ionic
• http://ionicframework.com
• Uses the Cordova project
• Uses Angular framework
• Open-Source
– Development Framework:
https://github.com/driftyco/ionic
– CLI: https://github.com/driftyco/ionic-cli
– Version 1.0 Released May 2015
• Currently supports Android 4.1+ & iOS 7+
– Windows Phone currently in development

4. Ionic Showcase
http://showcase.ionicframework.com

5. Hybrid Mobile Applications
• Build native apps using HTML /JavaScript/ CSS
– Pro: One set of code & resources for all platforms
– Con: Performance compared to native
applications
• The application is actually running in a
frameless browser window called a web view

6. Cordova Plugins
• Plugins provide a bridge between native
device code and JavaScript to access native
capabilities
• Accelerometer, Camera, Capture, Compass,
Connection, Contacts, Device, Events, File,
Geolocation, Media, Notification, Storage…
• http://plugins.cordova.io/#/

7. Application Building Blocks

8. Ionic Setup
• Get Node.js (http://nodejs.org/)
– TIP: Windows users, use Chocolatey package manager
(https://chocolatey.org)
• Use following command: cinst nodejs
• Close window & open new one to continue with new Path variable
• Get git (http://git-scm.com/)
– Used by Cordova to fetch plugins from github repos
– The git protocol is used (port 9418), so if behind a firewall
may need to issue command to use https instead (slower)
• git config --global url."https://".insteadOf git://
– TIP: Chocolatey users, use: cinst git
• Use Node Package Manager (npm) to install Cordova
globally: npm install –g cordova
• Use npm to install Ionic globally: npm install -g ionic

9. Ionic Starter Templates
For list of available starter templates use:
ionic starter -l

10. Sidemenu Example (pt. 1)
• Create new project using:
ionic start <name> sidemenu
• Navigate inside the newly created folder
• Serve the project as a website using:
ionic serve
– Live Reload: once a file is changed and saved, the
browser will automatically refresh

11. Sidemenu Example (pt. 2)
• In Google Chrome, use Developer Tools (F12)
with Emulation to simulate different device
sizes, screen orientations and network speeds
– Keep in mind that most Cordova plugins do not
have a fallback for when testing in the browser

12. Sidemenu Example (pt. 3)

13. Sidemenu Example (pt. 4)
• Use any IDE to open project
– Visual Studio: Open as a Web Site
project
• hooks folder is list of Cordova hooks
– scripts that run during the build
process
• plugins folder is list of Cordova
plugins
• scss folder is for Sass files (not
required)
– Sass is a CSS pre-processor

14. Sidemenu Example (pt. 5)
• index.html – all
style sheet and
script references
– All content
‘slides’ into ion-
nav-view
• www – what will be copied over to
your app
• Use ionic lib update to update ionic
version

15. Sidemenu Example (pt. 6)
• app.js contains routing
configuration
– determines which view ‘slides’ into
index.html
– Ionic does not use Angular’s default
routing, but instead uses ui-router
(https://github.com/angular-ui/ui-
router)
– ui-router uses the concept of a state
machine

16. Sidemenu Example (pt. 7)
• Navigation
elements
(menu, header)
located in
parent state
• Content is
located in child
states
– Inherit $scope
from parent
(prototypal
inheritance)

17. Sidemenu Example (pt. 8)
• .bowerrc and bower.json are for
users of bower (optional)
– package manager for installing &
updating 3rd party JS libraries (more
on this later)
• .gitignore is a file for users of git to
specify which files should be
excluded from source control
– 3rd party libraries

18. TIP: Recommended App Structure
• Template structure is very simplistic
– Ex. All controllers defined in 1 file
• For larger apps, use Angular best practices
– https://github.com/johnpapa/angular-styleguide
• Arrange in folders per feature w/ consistent
naming convention based on type of file
Reusable components
Unit Test
Module Definition

19. Working with Platforms
• To build the app will require setting up the environment as required
for native development
– iOS: requires a Mac, developer account, setup Xcode, provision
devices
– Android: JDK, Ant, Android SDK, enable developer options on phone
• Official Ionic Video for Android on Windows:
– http://learn.ionicframework.com/videos/windows-android/
• My blog post on setting up environment on Windows:
– https://sashageekette.wordpress.com/2015/03/24/how-to-get-
started-with-ionic-framework/
• Add platform to project
– ionic platform add <android Or iOS>
• ionic build
• ionic run or ionic emulate
– Add –l option to have livereload on the device
• Modify source and automatically have it refresh on device

20. Debugging on Devices - Android
• Use chrome://inspect to debug WebView
– Assumes Android tools installed on computer and
phone enabled for USB Debugging
– Screencast also available for devices on 4.4.4+

21. Debugging on Devices - iOS
• Safari Web Inspector
– Under Develop menu

22. User Interface

23. UI - CSS
• Many of the UI elements rely solely on CSS

24. Platform Continuity
• Ability to design app according to the style
guidelines of target platforms
– Ex. Centered header on iOS, left-aligned on Android
– Ex. Bottom tabs on iOS, top tabs on Android
• Ionic will automatically apply styles on some of
the UI elements based on the OS
– This can be overridden
• Required for being featured by Apple/Google as
well as Ionic Showcase

25. Complex Lists

26. Tabs
• Both css-only and ion-tab
directive available
• If using ion-tab directive, tabs
appear on the bottom for iOS
devices and on the top for
Android, though this is
configurable
• Each tab has its own
navigation stack

27. Slidebox
• Swipe left of right to
navigate through
different screens
• Great for images, but
can hold any type of
content

28. Popover
• Can contain any type of
content
• Good for context menus
• List of hyperlinks
• Slightly different appearance
on iOS vs Android to conform
to default styles

29. Gestures / Events
• Based on Hammer.JS
• Add event handler to any element
• tap
• double-tap
• touch
• hold (>500 ms touch)
• release
• drag
• drag-up
• drag-right
• drag-down
• drag-left
• swipe
• swipe-up
• swipe-right
• swipe-down
• swipe-left

30. Pull to Refresh
• Swipe down to trigger action
upon release

31. Theming
• Ionic uses Sass, a CSS
precompiler, to provide default
color themes
• Ex. <ion-bar class=‘bar-
positive’> to generate a blue
header
• You can override Sass variables
and tweak Ionic’s css to create
a custom theme
• http://learn.ionicframework.c
om/videos/sass/

32. Ionic Lab
• Side-by-side comparison of default app styling
for different platforms
• ionic serve --lab

33. Ionicons
http://ionicons.com/

34. Ionicons
• Over 700 MIT-licensed font icons
• Based on vector graphics (.svg) and scale well for both
low & high resolution displays
• Many icons based on native imagery
– Ex. Download for iOS and Android, respectively:
• Multiple uses:
– In an icon tag: <i class="icon ion-settings"/>
– As the content of a :before or :after pseudo class
.warning:before{
font-family:'ionicons';
content: 'f100'
}
– <button class="button icon-left ion -settings">Settings</button>
– In lists, headers, tabs etc.

35. Ionic Marketplace
• http://market.ionic.io/
• Place to sell & buy addons, themes and
plugins
• Coming Soon (as of July 2015)

36. Ionic.io
http://ionic.io

37. Ionic Deploy (pt. 1)
• Update app without having to submit to Apple
& Google for approval
• Apple allows hybrid apps to update
themselves as long as app binary is not
updated (aka – no added plugins)
• Ability to roll-back to previous version
• Channels allow different users to get different
versions of app (ex. Production vs Beta)

38. Ionic Deploy (pt. 2)
• Upload app to Ionic.io
w/ updated HTML,
JavaScript and CSS
• App checks for update
from Ionic server and
then downloads it
• Continuous or On-
demand
http://docs.ionic.io/docs/deploy-updating-apps

39. Ionic Push
• Sign up for Google Cloud Messaging Service
• Sign up for Apple Push Notification Service
• One REST API to manage all notifications
http://docs.ionic.io/docs/push-sending-push

40. Ionic Analytics (pt. 1)
• Captures event (single, isolated action) as key-
value pair (name, object as event description)
• Track users anonymously or via unique
identifier / data of your choosing
• Automatically collects the following:

41. Ionic Analytics (pt. 2)
• Custom events for app-specific tracking
• Via ion-track-* directives
– tap, hold, release, doubletap
• Via the track method

42. Ionic Creator
https://creator.ionic.io

43. Ionic Creator
• Good for prototyping
• Create screens using drag & drop interface
• Templates for common screen types and navigation
methods
• Link between screens
• Various Export Methods
– Project: ionic start <appName> creator:<creator ID>
– Zip File
– View raw HTML

44. Ionic View App
• http://view.ionic.io
• Download ionic view app
• Upload build to ionic
– ionic upload
• View your app on devices without installation
• Warning: Not all Cordova plugins supported at
the moment

45. Tools

46. Codepen (pt. 1)
• View output of HTML, CSS & JavaScript

47. Codepen (pt. 2)
• Official Ionic examples:
– http://codepen.io/ionic/public-list/
• When reporting a bug or requesting assistance,
start with a fork and embed a link to the forum
post
– Blank Template: http://codepen.io/ionic/pen/Qwpxer
• To target a particular version of Ionic, use the
CDN’s ionic.bundle.js and appropriate css
– http://code.ionicframework.com

48. Codepen (pt. 3)
• Can start a project based on a Codepen demo
– great for testing on a real device
– ionic start <name for your new app> <url of pen>
ionic start myapp http://codepen.io/ionic/pen/hqcju

49. ngCordova (pt. 1)
• http://ngcordova.com/
• Stand-alone project created by Drifty
• Angular wrappers for over 63 Cordova Plugins
– Plugins exposed via service with support for promises
– Rely on Angular’s dependency injection => good for
unit testing
– Future Plans: ability to mock services, simulate data
• bower install ngCordova --save

50. ngCordova (pt. 2)
Using plugin directly
Using ngCordova wrapper

51. Icon & Splashscreen Generation (pt. 1)
• Generate icons and splashscreens of different
sizes and pixel densities via Ionic CLI
• Create ‘resource’ directory at root of project
• Uses .png, .psd (Photoshop) or .ai (Illustrator)
– icon file should be 192 x 192
• iOS will automatically round corners
– splash file should be 2208 x 2208 (artwork centered
1200 x 1200)
• Use command: ionic resources
• Generates images and adds lines to config.xml to
be used by Cordova during build process

52. Icon & Splashscreen Generation (pt. 2)
• http://ionicframework.com/blog/automating-
icons-and-splash-screens/

53. Crosswalk for Android
• Crosswalk allows your app to provide the WebView
– https://crosswalk-project.org/
– http://ionicframework.com/blog/crosswalk-comes-to-ionic/
• Based on latest Chromium browser
• No need to worry about supporting old, outdated versions
of Android (device fragmentation)
– Latest HTML 5 support & improved performance
– Works on Android 4.0+ devices
• Adds 10 – 15 MB to .apk file
– Two separate builds, one for x86 and one for ARM
– Play store automatically installs the correct version for device
• ionic browser add crosswalk

54. The Yeoman Ionic
Generator

55. Yeoman
• http://yeoman.io/
• npm install -g yo
• Scaffolding tool for generating new projects
based on best practices and tools
– Opinionated workflow

56. Bower (pt. 1)
• http://bower.io/
• npm install -g bower
• Install 3rd-party JavaScript libraries
• Recursively installs dependencies
• ex. bower install momentjs --save
– Installs momentjs and all of its dependencies and saves reference
in bower.json
• bower.json file tracks libraries in use by project
• Removes need to store 3rd party libraries in source control
• New developer runs bower install to get all dependencies

57. Bower (pt. 2)
• Use bower update or bower update <library
name> to update library based on bower.json
– Matches minor version: ~1.2.3
– Up to but not including next major version: ^1.2.3
– For alpha & beta, ^ and ~ ignored => must
manually modify bower.json to latest version

58. Grunt
• http://gruntjs.com/
• Use npm install grunt -g to install globally
• JavaScript task runner
– Automate repetitive tasks
• Ex. Minification, Linting, Unit Testing, Compilation

59. Ionic Generator - Intro
• https://github.com/diegonetto/generator-ionic
• npm install -g generator-ionic
• To create new app use yo ionic
• Series of questions to determine best
structure for app
– Ex. Starter template, required Cordova plugins,
Sass requirement

60. Ionic Generator – Project Structure
• Develop in the app folder
• During build process, files moved
from app folder, combined,
minified and placed in www folder
• Gruntfile.js contains list of grunt
tasks
– Replace ionic commands with grunt
equivalent (ex. grunt serve, grunt
build, grunt run, grunt emulate)

61. Ionic Generator - Grunt Tasks
• Minify html, css, js
– Use ng-annotate to protect
dependency injection
• Inspect JS for errors
• Inject new bower js dependencies
into index.html
• Run unit tests with Karma
– TIP: Easy to switch from Mocha/Chai
to Jasmine by installing karma-jasmine
– Calculate code coverage with Istanbul

62. Additional Resources
• Job Postings: jobs.ionic.io/
• Documentation: ionicframework.com/docs
• Community Forum: forum.ionicframework.com
• GitHub / Issue Tracker: github.com/driftyco/ionic
• Learn Ionic: learn.ionicframework.com/
• Feature Requests
https://trello.com/b/nNk2Yq1k/ionic-framework
• YouTube Channel / Ionic Show
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChYheBnVe
CfhCmqZfCUdJQw

63. http://goo.gl/kZgLcm