What is the correct way developing website applications in Cordova?

Question

I'm trying to do some simple website application for displaying my website and add some specific functionality to it.

My idea is to do something like Facebook app for mobile. Simply I need to display a website and replace File input - users should be able to capture a picture from camera or pick it from gallery (multiple select) and attach it to a post.

TL;DR;

Check images in the bottom.

What I have tried:

Using Cordova with Camera and Image picker plugin and displaying webpage in InnAppBrowser

Taking pictures with camera and picking pictures from gallery and then uploading them to server - there is a lot of examples of it.

What troubles I have found:

InnAppBrowser is forced fullscreen so I cannot resize it and place some buttons for picking pictures under it.

What do I need:

I just need to somehow attach images (from gallery or camera) to form file input or upload them to some kind of api instead - the api would process images on server and return some IDs which I can use instead of file input in the form on page to attach images to the post. Some hidden input where I would just insert IDs of uploaded images to be attached to the post (I'd write some if conditions into my PHP script).

I need my application to be multi-platform (Android, IOS, WP) so that is the reason I'm using Apache Cordova. I've tried lot of solutions and I've searched like for 5 hours. But I wasn't able to find anything useful.

Have somebody some experience in this way? Did somebody make some kind of that application?

If you can suggest any solution (it is not important to be a Cordova but it must be multiplatform) I'd be glad!

Thanks for your time!

Images

There is screen of desktop version with normal file input:

There is my vision of mobile application version with camera and image picker option right under web browser:

Answer 1

I guess I was not clear. The technical answer is Cordova/Phonegap are not for creating website applications. This means technically there is no "correct way" to do what you are asking.

• For a website applications, all the pages are rendered from the website and controlled from the webpage/webbrowser.
• For a mobile application, all the pages that the application can directly control are rendered on the mobile device. However, pages can be rendered (and/or created) from either the server or the mobile application, but the control of the page stays with the side that rendered (or created) the page. There is clear line between the two sides that can be moved, but at the *peril* of the programmer. (There are no points for being clever here, only added security issues.)

However, the Cordova and Phonegap do have plugins.The entire purpose is to use plugins to make certain task easier. However, there is a clear line between the phone and the website. To be clear on this last part, this means that all of the "plugin services" on the phone (accelerometer, contact list, etc.) are directly available to the application, and not the website. However, some of the "services" are also available as HTML5 APIs, such 'camera' and 'geolocation' – mixing the two is dangerous. The HTML5 APIs should remain on the webserver side, if used. The UX is different for HTML5. (I will not discuss HTML5 APIs any further, as they are beyond the scope of this discussion)

To make your idea work, you will need the following "core" (or equivalent third-party) plugins

• file-transfer
• camera (or equivalent)
• inappbrowser

On the file-transfer and camera, you can do everything from the webserver, if you want. Then the only task for the end-user is to select the appropriate folder and image. If you do this from the server-side, then you CANNOT use the plugins.

If you want to use the plugins, then you cannot use a server-side generated webpage. You must create the form on the mobile device. This means the page and the form reside on the mobile device. However, if you write your webpage correctly you can dynamically add or delete elements. This means on the mobile side you have control over every step of the user experience and can enhance that experience.

On the inappbrowser, a common trick is to put the website in an iframe. However, you have no direct control on the iframe. Another common trick is to submit to the server via an API – then have the visible webpage update separately. Another common trick is to have a webpage with a websocket that could handle the webpage update. However, this could also be done with a push to the webpage, or have the webpage do polling of the server. Again, the App has NO direct control of the webpage.

This entire thread makes the following assumptions.

• There is no "correct way" to do this task.
• The images (photos) are stored on a website, and are publicly available for viewing.
• It also assumes that no HTML5 APIs will be used.

Answer 2

If I interpreted your problem statement correctly, I believe what you are looking for is access to device native services - camera & gallery - from your mobile website.

A solution that fits your design requirements is for the browser to provide such services. Unfortunately WebKit and other browsers limit such support to things like Geoposition.

The way for Cordova to help you here is if your mobile website is an stand alone HTML5/CSS/JS application that can use CORS XHR or WebSockets to communicate with webindependent Web Services.

If you can bottle your website into a set of static html/js/css files that display content from dynamic web services then you are set. That same javascript can then call navigator.camera.getPicture(success, fail, options) and file-transfer the result to a waiting web service.

That camera api is not available to the InAppBrowser just as it is not available to WebKit Chrome/Safari/Edge. Trying to control the Mobile App via the InAppBrowser is most likely to fail due to security constraints.

What you might get away with is re-imaging your browser application as a series of discrete services that return raw html snippets suited for a new mobile app. Then write your Cordova app as the top level container that manages the navigation amongst the html snippets. This server-side rendering would be most useful if it was significantly challenging enough to overwhelm the mobile platform / web services pattern (think custom video server or expert system).

Answer 3

@Jakub, Cedric has essentially stated it plainly. I will restate. You understanding about Cordova/Phonegap is not correct.

From: Top Mistakes by Developers new to Cordova/Phonegap
You have hit issue #5.

I QUOTE:

From Phonegap FAQ

A PhoneGap application may only use HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. However, you can make use of network protocols (XmlHTTPRequest, Web Sockets, etc) to easily communicate with backend services written in any language. This allows your PhoneGap app to remotely access existing business processes while the device is connected to the Internet.

In addition, Apple frowns on using apps as wrappers for websites.

Quote Apple iTunes Guidelines - 2.12

Apps that are not very useful, unique, are simply web sites bundled as Apps, or do not provide any lasting entertainment value may be rejected

To be clear, your idea may be valid, but you will likely need to rethink your internal workflow. You likely want to keep the same UI and UX.