I'm a middle aged developer who grew up compiling .exe and building raw html/css/js. How do I transition to Capacitor?

Capacitor
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I have three frustrating hurdles I’m facing as I transition from legacy app/web development into this brave new world of … whatever this is.

First, there seems to be a lot of manual steps involved with Capacitor. Per-project installations, lots of command lines. If I’m to use my favorite IDE or text editor, how do I integrate this very disparate way of working? Remember, in my day, all we had to do was click File > New Project and a dialog box would ask us what we wanted to make. It was all very clear. With Capacitor, I don’t see any guidance on how I make it fit with Visual Studio or anything else. Am I really expected to make command line operations part of my daily work routine? I use a GUI on a daily basis. Using a command line seems backwards to me.

Second, does Capacitor even work without a web framework? I’m a seasoned html/css/js developer. I don’t need React or Vue or anything else. I know what I’m doing and I don’t need someone’s training wheels restricting me. Yet, Capacitor seems obsessed with forcing me into using a framework. Am I really expected to learn the Capacitor framework AND another framework simultaneously? Again, that seems backwards to me.

Finally, I understand the need to simultaneously install Xcode and Google and whatnot, but the integration between those IDEs and the npm/npx/capacitor command line seems to be threadbare. Is this because Xcode and Google don’t play nicely with 3rd party toolchains like node? Or, is this just another result of a fetish for the command line?

Maybe I’m too old to be a developer. Capacitor was sold to me as this great time-saving tool that would make my dev life really easy. I’ve been banging my head against the keyboard trying to understand the “why” behind this system and I’m just not getting anywhere.

File > Exit

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Yes. And after accepting this, all answers to the remaining questions fall into place (re IDEs and CLI).

Capacitor cli commands are limited in complxity and amount. You are not alone using CLI. Don’t feel backward about it!

No, u dont need a framework to deploy htlm/css/js in a Capacitor container. You do want to assure all stuff u would normally reference to remotely (like jQuery link yo CDN) are made local-so put next to your own js stuff - so that stuff works while offline. Then u assure all assets are bundled in one folder which u copy using npx cap copy. Then use the greatness of xcode/android studio IDE to make the app “exe”: ipa or apk

I like CLIs and maybe to cater your need there is some sort of vscode plugin to help? But then again vscode (and other great tools) cater for nice cli integration to cater for productivity

Web dev, also because of frameworks but also git, is indeed a CLI world. And lucky for u: you click yourself crazy finding info on CLI stuff on the web :crazy_face:

> exit
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