Creating a cordova 3 android project on eclipse

In the earlier blog of this blogpost series we have installed the necessary tools to build a cross platform mobile application in java. In this blogpost, we will create a cordova android project and configure it in eclipse.

Earlier Cordova library by default has all the APIs supported by Cordova even if they are not used in your project.  This resulted in unnecessary upgrades; huge file downloads to client etc. The recent release of Cordova addresses these issues.

Now Cordova 3 introduces a new unified project structure and ships with a very limited core API. You need to import the API’s that are required for your applications. So the Cordova library used in your application is light weight and improves performance .Also,the size of the javascript libraries is less, and there won’t be any unwanted upgrades unless the API you are using is changed.

This release provides 2 new tools, Cordova and plugman. Both of these are implemented using NodeJs and so are distributed via npm. The Cordova command line tool unifies all platforms supported by Cordova into a single project structure. And plugman provides automated discovery, installation, and removal of core plugins provided in Cordova itself in previous releases and also custom plugins from git.

 Follow the below steps to create a Cordova-Android project.

Installing NodeJs

• Install nodejs from the below link, if it is not already installed on your system.

                            http://nodejs.org/

• Download the installer, and double click on the installer. The installer provides guidance on the next steps to install.
• Once the installation of nodejs is completed, open command prompt and type the below command to check the installation.

                            npm –version

• It should show some version number like 1.3.8, if nodejs is installed correctly.
• If nodejs is installed, run the below command to install cordova.

                   npm install -g cordova

• Also install the plugman tool running the below command:

        npm install -g plugman.

• It will take some time to download the required packages and complete the process.

                    Cordova create AndroidTest

           

            Where

            AndroidTest is the name of my project

• Then change to the working directory to the project directory.

Cd AndroidTest

• Run the below command in the command prompt

       cordova -d platform add android

• So I have created a cordova project for Android.

• After adding the android platform, Run the below command to build the App.

         cordova build

• Launch the eclipse IDE and select New Project.

• Select Androidà Android Project from Existing Code in the ‘New project’ window and click on Next.

• After importing the project, you may see some compilation errors like the below ones.

      error: Error: String types not allowed (at 'configChanges' with value 'orientation|keyboardHidden|keyboard|screenSize|locale').

                   error: No resource identifier found for attribute 'hardwareAccelerated' in package 'android'

• The following compilation errors are observed intermittently.

             DroidGap cannot be resolved to a type

             Config cannot be resolved

             The import org.apache.cordova cannot be resolved

             The method onCreate(Bundle) of type HelloCordova must override or implement a supertype method

• Ideally the project should compile without any issues. But looks like, there are some issues with the latest version of cordova.
• If you don’t see the below compilation errors, just ignore the below steps and continue.
• If you also observe the compilation errors like me, follow the below work around and vote to prioritize this issue fix to higher.

                      https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/CB-4660

• Right click on the project, select properties à Android and select the latest Android API version.

• This will resolve the following compilation errors

      error: Error: String types not allowed (at 'configChanges' with value 'orientation|keyboardHidden|keyboard|screenSize|locale').

                   error: No resource identifier found for attribute 'hardwareAccelerated' in package 'android'

• If you project has the below compilation errors, then please follow the below steps to resolve them are skip the below steps and launch the project.

              DroidGap cannot be resolved to a type

             Config cannot be resolved

             The import org.apache.cordova cannot be resolved             

             The method onCreate(Bundle) of type HelloCordova must override or implement a supertype method

• These errors are seen if cordova-3.0.0.jar is not available in libs folder of the project. If the jar is already available, then these error wont occur.

• You need to download Cordova Android code from the below link.

                   https://github.com/apache/cordova-android

• Then run these commands to build cordova-dev.jar.

                  android update project -p . -t android-17
                  ant jar

• This will create cordova-dev.jar.
• Alternatively you can download the jar from the below link.

                https://www.dropbox.com/sh/zb0ep22huu9x2dc/5MUT8BqD6b

• Copy cordova-dev.jar to libs folder in the Android project in eclipse and add it to the project classpath.
• Now all the compilation errors will be resolved, and the project will compile successfully.

• Now we will create an Android emulator. Run AVD Manager from programs.
• If there are no Android emulators configured, the AVD Manager screen will look similar.

• Click on New to set up a new Android emulator.

• Select the Android version you want to use and provide a name for this Android emulator and click on 'Create AVD'.
• This will create an Android virtual device.

• Once a virtual device is added, you can see it in AVD Manager.

• Now we will launch the Cordova Android project we created from eclipse. 
• Right click on the project in eclipse--> and select Run as --> Android Application

• The Android emulator we have created will be launched by eclipse.

• Then the eclipse installs the application created using cordova in the emulator and launches the application.
• If the application launches successfully without any issues, then the android emulator should show similar screen.
• Since we haven't really coded any thing and the application deployed is just a blank project, cordova screen is displayed. We can later modify this with our code.