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Mendix PhoneGap Build App Template

Mendix apps can simply be viewed in mobile web browsers. However, some features of mobile devices cannot be accessed through HTML and JavaScript. Also, if you want to publish your app in the Apple App Store or Google Play Store, you have to wrap your app in a native shell. We use Cordova/PhoneGap to do this. PhoneGap creates a native wrapper around a web application and provides access to native functionality through a JavaScript API. These apps are called hybrid apps because they are a hybrid of a web and a native app.

This project contains the Mendix PhoneGap Build app template. You can use it to

• customize your mobile Mendix app: styling, icons, splash screens and code,
• open the platform specific code inside the appropriate IDEs,
• debug the app using emulators,
• build installable packages, either locally

Table of Contents

• Prerequisites
• Customize DTAP endpoint
• App signing
• Build and run locally
• Customizing your app
• Troubleshooting

Prerequisites

Make sure that the following is installed on your system:

• A clone of this repository or the customizable package for your app, available in the 'Deploy' section of the Mendix Portal. When starting from a customizable package, basic configuration for your app has already been done.
• Recent Node.js. This code was tested with version 20. You can check by running node -v.
  • Windows: install from nodejs.org
  • MacOS: use Brew to install Node.js: brew install node
  • Linux, BSD, etc: install using the available package manager, e.g. on Debian: sudo apt-get install node
• Java version 8

For building locally you also need a development environment for your target platform:

• Android
  • Android Studio by following the instructions
• iOS (only available for Apple computers, e.g. MacBook, iMac)
  • XCode
  • CocoaPods, e.g. by running sudo gem install cocoapods (see link for sudo-less install)

Make sure that the following changes are applied:

• To customize the runtime behavior, include the following configuration: Set com.mendix.core.SameSiteCookies to None in Studio Pro.
• Deploy and test the application using HTTPS.

Customize DTAP endpoint

Various environments can be set in the config/environments.json file. To target a specific DTAP endpoint with your app you can specify it as a parameter to npm run package or npm run package:x86, e.g:

$ npm run package -- --env.target=test  # target the test endpoint for ARM architecture

Possible targets are development, test, acceptance, production (default) and sandbox. For convencience you can shorten these to the first letter.

App signing

In case you want to deploy your app on a real device, you will likely need to sign your app. Please refer to the appropriate Cordova documentation for details:

• iOS
• Android

Build and run locally

If this is the initial build, first do some preparation:

$ npm install                       # install dependencies

$ npm run package                   # prepare `build` directory for all architectures, or
$ npm run package:x86               # prepare `build` directory for x86, or
$ npm run package:x86_64            # prepare `build` directory for x86_64, or
$ npm run package:arm               # prepare `build` directory for arm, or
$ npm run package:arm64             # prepare `build` directory for arm64

$ npm run platform:all              # setup for Android and iOS, or
$ npm run platform:android          # setup for Android, or
$ npm run platform:ios              # setup for iOS

If you cloned the repository or want to change some settings, edit the file config/parameters.json (create it if necessary). It should at least contain the following properties, with values appropriate for your app:

{
    "identifier": "io.mxapps.myapp",
    "name": "My App",
    "url": "https://myapp.mxapps.io"
}

For information on further customization, refer to Customizing your app.

Now, build and run the app:

$ npm run package                   # prepare `build` directory for all architectures, or
$ npm run package:x86               # prepare `build` directory for x86, or
$ npm run package:x86_64            # prepare `build` directory for x86_64, or
$ npm run package:arm               # prepare `build` directory for arm, or
$ npm run package:arm64             # prepare `build` directory for arm64

$ npm run platform:all              # setup for Android and iOS, or
$ npm run build               

Build will generate necessary Android and IOS files in order to run the project.

Make sure you checkout the Trouble Shooting Section

For best experience open each platform project on their native IDE (Android studio for android, Xcode for IOS):

IOS

• Open ./build/platforms/ios/yourAppName.xcworkspace from your Xcode
• In recent version of Xcode you might need to set the build system; File > Project Settings. Set the Shared or per-user project settings: the Build system to Legacy Build Systems.
• Run the app on desired simulator

Android

• Open ./build/platforms/android/ in Android Studio
• Run the app on desired simulator

Customizing your app

When you first download this project, it is mostly empty. All functionality and styling is by default implemented as part of one this project's dependencies, called mendix-hybrid-app-base.

You can customize your hybrid app in several ways. All defaults from the base package can be overridden and/or extended, including the build process itself.

Folder structure

The project structure consists of the following elements:

• src/: this is where you place all customizations for your app
  • www/:
    • images: any images that you'd like to use on e.g. the login screen
    • styles: CSS files with styling for e.g. the login screen
    • scripts: JavaScript files that customize the behavior of your app
    • index.html.mustache: Mustache template file used to generate the index page
  • resources/: icons and splash screens
  • config.xml.mustache: template file that is used to generate the Phonegap configuration file
• config/: this is where external configuration files go; these files are optional, overriding the defaults. Example files containing the defaults are put here upon npm install. Possible configuration files are:
  • environments.json: a description of all available deployment environments for your app, including the app IDs and URLs
  • parameters.json: settings that influence some aspects of the build process and the resulting app, such as Android/iOS support, offline mode, and pin login
  • resources.json: descriptions of all resources, such as icons and splash screens, including their types and sizes
  • texts.json: translations/customizations for the static texts in the hybrid shell part of your app
• build/: (generated) contains all intermediate build files, such as the bundles javascript and css. The contents of this folder are overwritten every time you run a build
• dist/: (generated) the final build packages will end up here
• webpack.config.js: starting point for the build process

Basic app settings

Several simple app settings, such as the app name and identifier, can be set in config/parameters.json. If you've downloaded this project from the Mendix Portal, the file is already there. Otherwise, you can look at the config/parameters.json.example file.

Styling

To customize the styling of the login screen (including the pin screen), add a .css file to src/www/styles/. It will be automatically picked up by the build process.

Page structure

To change the structure and contents of the login screen (including the pin screen), you can adapt src/www/index.html.mustache.

Translations / custom text

All static text in the hybrid app can be customized and/or translated. To do so, create a file config/texts.json containing the original text as keys and the replacement text as values. You can take a look at config/texts.json.example to see which texts are available for translation.

Icons & Splash screens

Icons and splash screens are configured in two separate places. The image files themselves should be stored in src/resources/. The configuration of each icon and splash screen should be updated in config/resources.json. You can take a look at config/resources.json.example for an example.

In case you have downloaded this package through the Mendix Portal, all configured icons and splash screens have already been prepackaged and preconfigured.

Client behavior (advanced)

You can run custom code in two specific cases:

• on client configuration setup
• on Mendix client load

To implement custom behavior for these cases, edit src/www/scripts/entry.js.

Customizing the build process (advanced)

You can customize the build process by making changes to webpack.config.js in the root folder of this project. All Webpack configuration you add here will be merged with the default Webpack configuration. You can read more about this in the webpack-merge documentation.

Upgrading the base package

Default functionality and styling is implemented in the mendix-hybrid-app-base package. We will occasionally release updates to this package. You can upgrade the base package by running npm upgrade from the root of your project.

Troubleshooting

PIN feature on iOS simulator

When using the PIN feature while running your app on an iOS simulator, you experience an issue where the app will prompt you to setup a PIN every time app is launched. This is due to the underlying way Cordova access the Keychain. Either use a device, or enable Keychain Sharing in Capabilities of your project. See here for more information.

iPhone X support

Please see here for the steps to support iPhone X in your app.

Building the Android project locally

When building your hybrid app locally, the Android build might fail. This can have various reasons, but it generally boils down to version mismatches related to Gradle and/or the Android SDK in use.

Missing Gradle installation

Could not find an installed version of Gradle either in Android Studio,
or on your system to install the gradle wrapper. Please include gradle
in your path, or install Android Studio

Either

• open the Android project (located in build/platforms/android) in Android Studio and accept its suggestion to install the Gradle wrapper; or
• make sure that Gradle is available on your path, e.g. export PATH=$PATH:/Users/MyUser/.gradle/wrapper/dists/gradle-4.4-all/xxx/gradle-4.4/bin.

You can find installation instruction for Gradle on the Gradle website.

Minimum supported Gradle version is x.x.x. Current version is x.x.x. If using the gradle wrapper, try editing the distributionUrl

Make sure you are have CORDOVA_ANDROID_GRADLE_DISTRIBUTION_URL in your path or export it to particular terminal session with correct distribution enabled eg:

CORDOVA_ANDROID_GRADLE_DISTRIBUTION_URL=https://services.gradle.org/distributions/gradle-x.x.x-all.zip

Bear in mind that other Cordova projects would also be effected by this change.

No toolchains found in the NDK toolchains folder for ABI with prefix: mips64el-linux-android

In build/platforms/android/build.gradle, replace

classpath 'com.android.tools.build:gradle:3.0.1' with classpath 'com.android.tools.build:gradle:3.1.2'

and perform a Gradle sync.

Execution failed for task ':app:processX86DebugResources' (or similar)

AGPBI: {"kind":"error","text":"error: resource android:attr/fontVariationSettings not found.","sources":[{"file":"/Users/UserName/.gradle/caches/transforms-1/files-1.1/support-compat-28.0.0.aar/4abf4d56829ea1da7befcfae3c8fd6c7/res/values/values.xml","position":{"startLine":132,"startColumn":4,"startOffset":7725,"endColumn":69,"endOffset":7790}}],"original":"","tool":"AAPT"}
AGPBI: {"kind":"error","text":"error: resource android:attr/ttcIndex not found.","sources":[{"file":"/Users/UserName/.gradle/caches/transforms-1/files-1.1/support-compat-28.0.0.aar/4abf4d56829ea1da7befcfae3c8fd6c7/res/values/values.xml","position":{"startLine":132,"startColumn":4,"startOffset":7725,"endColumn":69,"endOffset":7790}}],"original":"","tool":"AAPT"}

In build/platforms/android/project.properties, replace

target=android-27 with target=android-28

and perform a Gradle sync.

Localhost

In case you build against localhost your app might not able to run, and throw an error: Failed to load resource: net::ERR_CLEARTEXT_NOT_PERMITTED.

You might have to add this element:

<edit-config file="app/src/main/AndroidManifest.xml" mode="merge" target="/manifest/application">
  <application android:usesCleartextTraffic="true" />
</edit-config>

inside of <platform name="android">

in src/config.xml.mustache

Bear in mind that this config allows http requests and it shouldn't be in your production build.

No installed build tools found. Install the Android build tools version 19.1.0 or higher.

Even when Android Studio is installed, you might need to install to build tools separately

1. Launch Android Studio. Then go to Preferences -> Appearance & Behavior -> System SEttings -> Android SDK. You will find Android SDK Location. For example /Users/${user_name}/Library/Android/sdk.

2. Go to SDK tools tab and check show package details. Android SDK build tools will be there. Please make sure Android SDK build tools 19.1.0 or higher is installed.

3. For MacOS: Edit ~/.bash_profile, and set ANDROID_HOME as "Android SDK Location" which you found in the Android Studio.

   export ANDROID_HOME=/Users/${user_name}/Library/Android/sdk
   export PATH=${PATH}:$ANDROID_HOME/tools:$ANDROID_HOME/platform-tools
   

   For Windows: Edit Environment Variables, Add entries for the relevant locations to the PATH. For example (substitute the paths with your local Android SDK installation's location):

   C:\Users\[your user]\AppData\Local\Android\Sdk\platform-tools
   C:\Users\[your user]\AppData\Local\Android\Sdk\tools
   

See Cordova guide: Android or iOS

Adding iOS platform fails

When building your app locally, you should add the platforms of your choosing by running:

$ npm run platform:all              # setup for Android and iOS, or
$ npm run platform:android          # setup for Android, or
$ npm run platform:ios              # setup for iOS

When Android is your only target, you can choose the second option. Unfortunately, this does not work in the case of iOS, because some plugins require the android platform to be present. To work around this, you should make sure that the Android platform was added before running npm run package:ios, either by running npm run platform:all, or by running npm run platform:android beforehand.

If required, you can later remove the android platform by running npm run platform -- remove android.

Menu bar is cut off at the bottom (e.g. on iPhone X)

On recent iOS devices, the menu bar (Simple Menu Widget) is not always fully visible. To solve this, make the following changes in your styling:

In your app styling:

html, body {
    height: 100vh; height: 100vh;
}

In your hybrid app styling:

.mx-hybridapp #content > .mx-page {
    padding-bottom: env(safe-area-inset-bottom); min-height: 100vh;
}

Failed iOS build with Missing or Invalid 'Team' configuration

This can be circumvented by opening the .xcworkspace project located in the build/platforms/ios directory with XCode and configuring the Development team in the project settings.