Newbie questions

1

Hi Folks,

I’m new to this platform and I’m looking to better understand a few points. I’m developing and iOS app and running OSX ElCapitan.

What I’ve done so far:

  • Installed node.js, cordova, angular, phone gap, bower, grunt, yo and generator-ionic from npm
  • Created new dir for project and ran yo ionic to generate a template
  • Ran grunt serve to get the local server running and the generated template to render in browser.

Beautifully simple

Where I’m confused:

  • How will this app run once it’s delivered to clients from the app store. When developing for Android I just uploaded an executable to google play (my app doesn’t require any server interaction, all the functionality is local to the phone).
  • I read on the ionic framework page that building and serving an app was done with ionic build ios, ionic emulate ios and ionic serve. Is using grunt serve any different? I ask this because the tutorial video I was watching was building for android, is it different for iOS?
  • What is the best way to test the app? Can it be run in Xcode’s iOS emulator? Should it be tested in browser?

Thank you for helping, Happy New Year!!

2

grunt serve lets you run your app in a browser.

You have decided to use an app generator, maybe because you wanted to use grunt rather than gulp.

So the ionic framework docuemntation may refer to things that are not valid in your generated app build process, you must refer to the generator docs.

In your case, you will build your app using grunt build:ios.
Build will generate a native package: an ipa for iOS and an apk for Android.
I recommend that you read about Cordova as this is what is used under cover.

Regarding testing, testing in browser will be limited as soon as you start using plugins to access device features that are not available in browser. Personally I don’t use emulator, I prefer to test on real device connected through USB and using remote debugging.

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