Cordova Plugin not found

Today I ran into Cordova plugin mapping issue.

Spent around 2 hours time to find out the root cause of the missing plugin,
it happens every time we rebuild iOS before any plugin is cloned.

To replicate the problem:

1. In the cordova app project directory, remove "plugins" & "platforms" folders
2. run `cordova platform add ios` to add platform directly (this step will fetch required plugins stated in config.xml and generate the iOS platform)
3. Once iOS platform is ready, run `cordova run ios`.

The three steps above will lead you to problems like screenshot below.

Plugins not found

ERROR: Plugin 'File' not found, or is not a CDVPlugin. Check your plugin mapping in config.xml.
["File334867545","File","requestAllPaths",[]]
ERROR: Plugin 'NetworkStatus' not found, or is not a CDVPlugin. Check your plugin mapping in config.xml.
inJSON = ["NetworkStatus334867546","NetworkStatus","getConnectionInfo",[]]
ERROR: Plugin 'Device' not found, or is not a CDVPlugin. Check your plugin mapping in config.xml.
788:2282747] -[CDVCommandQueue executePending] [Line 159] FAILED pluginJSON = ["Device334867547","Device","getDeviceInfo",[]]

In case I proceed by ignoring those "plugin not found" issues,
and run the buggy app on my device.
I'll end up getting errors like below in my debugging tool's console:

deviceready has not fired after 5 seconds
Channel not fired: onPluginReady
Channel not fired: onCordovaReady

---

To workaround this issue,

you'll need to rebuild the cordova iOS platform again with all the plugins fetched at first.

Now, since I have all the required plugins ready (from previous added iOS platform),

I'll keep the fetched plugins (inside plugins folder) and follow the steps below.

Remove and add back the iOS platform:

1. cordova platform rm ios
2. cordova platform add ios

Cordova: phonegap-facebook-plugin alternative with Facebook SDK 4

There are choices of cordova Facebook login plugins available, but I found two useful at the time I'm developing my Cordova mobile app.

Those are:
- phonegap-facebook-plugin
- cordova-plugin-facebook4

phonegap-facebook-plugin is mostly recommended by the internet community at the time I am writing this, as example ngCordova - Facebook,
but it caused some UX and development issues to me as a developer.

phonegap-facebook-plugin
It uses FacebookSDK version 3.21.1, with this SDK, for iOS 9, it leads to problems like:

• must not have bitcode enabled (activated by default in xcode 7)
• requires manually add whitelist Facebook access every time you have your iOS platform created
• add LSApplicationQueriesSchemes manually 
• add NSSApplicationTransportSecurity manually
• Every login will leave a blank safari browser opened for Facebook browser login (unless user has native Facebook app installed)
• Symlink of FacebookSDK is broken with direct cordova plugin add phonegap-facebook-plugin

cordova-plugin-facebook4

The purpose this plugin is to make use of FacebookSDK 4.

• It helps saving the drudgery on adding LSApplicationQueriesSchemes and NSSApplicationTransportSecurity items.
• support bitcode encoded, so you don't need to deactivate it every rebuild of the cordova platform.
• Time saving on git cloning to workaround broken FacebookSDK symlink.

Added 2015-11-13 10:55 PM
the only bad thing about cordova-plugin-facebook4
there is different between plugin cloned by cordova added through new platform build (cordova platform add ios/android) with the one manually added with cordova cli (cordova plugin add).

Differences:

#	Cloned with platform add	Plugin added with cordova cli
1	Need manual add of LSApplicationQueriesSchemes	Auto added
2	Bitcode_enabled to be disabled	support bitcode_enabled
3	Facebook login with safari browser	Do not need external browser for Facebook login

Even though both cordova cloned with platform and cli are the same cordova-plugin-facebook4,
but at the time I developing,
it does has differences as your installation method is different.

Furthermore,
if you already have cordova-plugin-facebook4 saved into config.xml,
running cordova plugin add cordova-plugin-facebook4 (with variables) again will update itself into a different version plugin.

my case:
    <plugin name="cordova-plugin-facebook4" spec="~1.3.0-0">
        <variable name="APP_ID" value="FB_APP_ID" />
        <variable name="APP_NAME" value="FB_APP_NAME" />
    </plugin>

run cordova plugin add cordova-plugin-facebook4 --save (with variables) again, will become:
    <plugin name="cordova-plugin-facebook4" spec="~1.1.0">
        <variable name="APP_ID" value="FB_APP_ID" />
        <variable name="APP_NAME" value="FB_APP_NAME" />
    </plugin>

Use ngCordova inAppBrowser executeScript interacting with remote WebView content

Even the idea/solution very straight forward, but still, I learned ngCordova's inAppBrowser the hard way.

I am using cordovaInAppBrowser to handle my remote content in mobile's WebView.
Tutorials accessible out there mostly give you the idea of how it works in direct content display, like:

// insert Javascript via code / file
$cordovaInAppBrowser.executeScript({
  code: 'alert("some text in the webview");'
});

Yes, it does tell the code is working in the webview,
but my problem is how can the value be manipulated and pass back to our cordova app?
So what we need is more than pop up alert box in webview.

As I learned,

1. executeScript code WOULD JUST work when we have target as "_blank"
   
   

   // executeScript must has "_blank" as target
   $cordovaInAppBrowser.open(YOUR_URL, '_blank');
   

   
   
2. the executeScript code would just run once as inAppBrowser page load/refresh depend on the events triggered:

• $cordovaInAppBrowser:exit
• $cordovaInAppBrowser:loaderror
• $cordovaInAppBrowser:loadstop
• $cordovaInAppBrowser:loadstart

So what you can do with this executeScript feature is to 'grab' your expected variable.

$rootScope.$on('$cordovaInAppBrowser:loadstop', function(e, event){
  $cordovaInAppBrowser.executeScript({
    code: "var executable = function(data) { return data; }; executable(yourJsVariable || null);"
  }).then(function(data) {
    // Do something here with your obtained value
    if (angular.isObject(data)) {
      console.log(data);
    }
  });
});

In my case above, my detection of yourJsVariable starts as the page load of the inAppBrowser stops.

Reference: Issue injecting external script with executeScript method in Cordova
(The reference above is the best working example code I found so far.)

Cordova Development - iOS iTunesArtwork in ad hoc distribution

As how everyone explained around the internet, you need files named "iTunesArtwork" (512px X 512px) & "iTunesArtwork@2x" (1024px X 1024px).

iTunesArtwork - 512 x 512
iTunesArtwork@2x - 1024 x 1024

And they must be filename without extension.
If your image file is iTunesArtwork.png then name it to iTunesArtwork (without the ".png").

---

Once you have your artwork ready, rebuild your iOS Cordova build.

cordova run ios 

After then, the generated app (applicaiton) file:

generated-app.app (in /mobile_app_root/platforms/ios/build/device/generated-app.app directory)

---

right click on the generated-app.app and select "Show Package Contents"

---

After you click [Show Package Contents], it will direct you into a new directory.
This is the directory where you should place your iTunesArtwork & iTunesArtwork@2x files.

In root folder, is where you place your  iTunesArtwork & iTunesArtwork@2x files.

using the manual way, compress method to get your ipa build.

Try it in iTunes app, you'll see the result.


References:
Customizing the App
iTunesArtwork And Xcode

Cordova Development - How to release an iOS build from app bundle generated from "Cordova run ios"

By running, cordova command, cordova run ios will generated an iOS application bundle in

cordova-project-directory/platforms/ios/build/device/app-name.app

 Using manual way to distribute testing build, you'll need to:

1. Create a folder named "Payload" (only 'Payload' name would work)
2. Paste your app-name.app into the Payload folder created in 1st step
3. zip/compress the Payload folder
4. once compressed, the Payload folder become Payload.zip, rename the 'Payload.zip' to app-name.ipa
5. Place it into iTunes, and start install with it.

Building Cordova iOS app with xcode7 run into "Build failed with Ld build/Debug-iphoneos/ normal armv7" problem

This problem occur because of the enable_bitcode feature of xcode7, and I suspect this occur is because some cordova plugin we're using does not contain bitcode.

In order to solve this problem:
As default value is a "Yes" for iOS, you'll need to disable it on your own.

To do: Disable "Enable Bitcode" setting inside Build Settings.

1. select targeted app
2. select "Build Settings" tab
3. at the search bar under the tabs, search for the keyword "bitcode" (or find it under Build Options)
4. change Enable Bitcode to "No".

Enable Bitcode

Try to Build your app again.

References:
What does enable bitcode do in xcode 7

URL Scheme for Android in Cordova

My project's spec:
- Onsen UI
- Cordova

Simply following the step in Custom URL scheme PhoneGap Plugin would get your android or ios app ready with custom URL scheme.

But testing it the wrong way cause my hours to figure what is wrong with my configuration.

So, in the end, I found out testing URL scheme in android is different with how we test in ios.

In ios device,  ipod as example,
we just simply use browser with "myapp://" would do all job.

Which it is different in android,
so you'll have to utilise easyhyperlinks.com to initiate the scheme correctly,
because in android, it automatically prefix url with "http://" in browsers.

You can refer to this Using Custom URL Schemes In Your Ionic Framework App and see how he tested the scheme in the easy way.

Reference:
github repo: Custom URL scheme PhoneGap Plugin
video tutorial: Using Custom URL Schemes In Your Ionic Framework App
testing tool for android: easyhyperlinks.com

Cordova, store image from data URL or base64

In order to get image resized and store the image right away, we need some workaround to achieve this result.

First, resize the image into thumbnail-like size
2nd, store the image into targeted directory

This is achievable with Phonegap-image-resizer

$window.imageResizer.resizeImage(function(resizedImage) {

  // Store image into local
  $window.imageResizer.storeImage(function(response) { // cache
    var filePath = response.filename,
        pathOnly = filePath.substring(0, sourceFile.lastIndexOf('/')) + '/',
        filename = filePath.split('/').pop().replace(/\#(.*?)$/, '').replace(/\?(.*?)$/, '');


    // store file into targeted location here with 
    // cordova official File plugin
    $cordovaFile.moveFile(pathOnly, filename, cordova.file.dataDirectory).then(function(success) {
      console.log(success);
    }, function(error) {
      console.log(errir);
    });


  }, function(error) {
    return error;

  }, resizedImage.imageData, {
    imageDataType: ImageResizer.IMAGE_DATA_TYPE_BASE64,
    format: 'jpg',
    filename: // new name,
    directory: // location to store,
    quality: 80
  });

}, function(error) {
  return error;

}, photo.url, 0.2, 0.2, {
  imageDataType: ImageResizer.IMAGE_DATA_TYPE_URL,
  resizeType: ImageResizer.RESIZE_TYPE_FACTOR,
  format: 'jpg'
});

Two parts here:


TL;DR

1st step, $window.imageResizer.resizeImage will resize the image
2nd step, $window.imageResizer.storeImage store image

Cursory go through resizeImage.js to better understand how to utilise the code.

Reference: Converting Large Images to Base64Strings in Ionic Framework