George McKinney Adventures in Software Development

December 27, 2013

Widgets, Config.xml and Cross-Platform Mobile Development

Filed under: Cordova,PhoneGap,PhoneGap Build,Samsung TV,Tizen — georgemck @ 10:35 pm

Mobile Applications aka Apps that run installed on mobile devices are of two types: native and hybrid apps.

Many of these hybrid apps use a config.xml file which follows the W3C widget specification (http://www.w3.org/TR/widgets) in order to instruct the native compiler to load required elements that a physical device (phone, tablet, television, car, you name it!) needs that a web browser does not. These elements pertain to security, loading times, splash screens, permissions, license, icons, author, content type and more.

Because many web apps are packaged in this way. It’s a good idea to be familiar with them as you will see them again and again and understanding the similarities will help you to more quickly port your existing apps to other platforms.

The following platforms use config.xml for packaged apps:

Apache Cordova
http://cordova.apache.org/docs/en/3.2.0/config_ref_index.md.html

Adobe PhoneGap
http://docs.build.phonegap.com/en_US/2.9.0/configuring_basics.md.html#The%20Basics

BlackBerry WebWorks
https://developer.blackberry.com/html5/documentation/beta/modifying_your_config_file.html

Tizen Web
https://developer.tizen.org/downloads/sample-web-applications/load-web-app-tizen-sdk/sample-config.xml-file

Samsung Smart TV
http://www.samsungdforum.com/Guide/tut00001/index.html#opening-the-application

These will be helpful resources for you.

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