When you create a webapp or hybrid app, i mean, that one that is a web development placed in a native wrapper, this wrapper is usually a nuisance for many people, especially web developers who know nothing about mobile programming. They create the webapp, but when they need to place the development in native wrapper is when the trouble starts: First, install the native development environments (xCode, Eclipse, etc ...), then make a lot of configurations, install certificates, etc... all these efforts only to create a wrapper that lets you publish your web development on the Appstore or Google Play.
To facilitate the creation of these wrappers, comes Phonegap Build. Since Adobe acquired Phonegap, they are very active with the issue of webapps.
This service is a creator of wrappers in the cloud. Let's try it. First we create an account at build.phonegap.com. To do this they ask for an Adobe ID or Github account, so I go with my Github account login data (you can register at Github for free).
The service has several plans, one free, and many more paid, that allows to have a certain number of public, private or collaborative apps.
Having private apps is what "costs money", why? because the public apps are accessible by Github, so everyone have access to your code, but on private apps the code is only accessible by you and your team. The free plan only allows you to have one private app.
To upload to Phonegap Build the web development that we want to convert on webapp, we can upload a ZIP file or give the address of our Github repository.
I upload a web development done with PhoneGap / JQM in a zip file. Once uploaded, I get a summary of it, which shows the name, Phonegap version, etc...
The icon is the default Phonegap icon (later I saw that the icon can be changed in the app settings).
We are ready to proceed to create the archive: you have the choice of create a wrapper for iOS, Android, Windows Mobile, BlackBerry, WebOS and Symbian.
I select Android, and immediately i see the APK download dialog. Let's try the APK on a real device.
I do the usual "adb install" and it installs correctly, I test it and everything is perfect.
To make the wrapper for iOS it asks for the usual certificates, the P12, the provisioning profile, etc. .. but hey, it is also quite simple.
The tool can also make new versions, generate installation QR pictures; we can not find any fault (only having to pay :-) ).
Keep in mind that we must include with the web development the config.xml file, as it has many important data for the compilation of the wrapper, as versions, used Phonegap plugins, etc...
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