How to access a native cordova plugin?

Ionic Framework ionic-v3
1

How to access a native cordova plugin? My case:

I added a method to a plugin in the plugins folder. I already tested it on native cordova project. It works great. But the ionic has a wrapper for this plugin. Now I just want to bypass the ionic wrapper and access the cordova js API to call a method.

Ok, to ignore the typescript errors you can just declare an any variable like let myPlugin: any = ionicPlugin; and you be able to call whatever you want. It’s an ugly way, necessary for special reasons.

Or how to extend the ionic wrapper?

2

Depends of the plugin but you could write your own definition’s file

For example, I access the calendar without ionic-native. I have a cordova.d.ts file I wrote in my project where I’ve got

 interface Window {
    plugins: WindowPlugins;
}

interface WindowPlugins {
   calendar: ICalendarService;
}

interface ICalendarService {
    createEvent(title: string, eventLocation: string, notes: string, startDate: Date, endDate: Date, success: any, error: any);
}

which could then be use in my app code like

window.plugins.calendar.createEvent(...

but if the ionic-native wrapper exists, I would rather use it. More users support/helps to maintain these

3

Thanks for fast response.
I’m using the Ionic BLE Plugin.

I tried to call

console.log(Object.keys((<any>window).plugins));

result: Some plugin names but not ble.

Now I found out, that the ble variable es accessible in global scope (window).

console.log(Object.keys((<any>window).ble));

result: All original methods, but not my custom added. In a native cordova project it worked. Maybe the ionic has to re-build it. But how? The changes are not yet built on installed app. (using ionic cordova run android -lc)
I’ll test to reinstall the android platform.

4

Ok, it worked. On ionic you have to reinstall the platform. (or maybe there is another solution?)
Now you can access the plugin e.g. by:

(<any>window).ble.yourMethod();

This is a quick’n’dirty solution. Of course typed-files are useful.

5

There is a wrapper actually, you could follow the doc https://ionicframework.com/docs/native/ble/

6

Right, I already using it. But the wrapper is not actual up to date. Because I’ve just updated the cordova plugin. To test the new method, I easiely bypass the ionic wrapper. In up coming releases (if my pull-request gonna be merged), the ionic wrapper should be updated too.
In this case I just updated the source files in the ionic project /plugins/ble/ folder (www for the JS API and src/android test it.

Otherwise I have to wait until the the ionic wrapper is updated. Or I have to fork it, publish to npm and update my packages. A long way. Actually I have no idea how the workflow is until ionic updated the wrapper to the latest plugin version.

1 Like
7

Simply awesome :thumbsup: