Develop Reference

Still able to publish Phonegap Build app at the App Store / Google Play

I am currently investigating the possible to build a html webpage connecting cgi. Then, I use Phonegap to render the html pages into native apps. A few years ago, someone can release the app on the App market.
I have seen that app with pages including Webview cannot be published. So I would like to ask this possibility.
Of course any information about that would be very helpful!
Thanks for your help!

Your question is interesting because it is a problem that hybrid developers regularly face.
Normally on the side of Google there is no problem because the GooglePlayStore imposes very little, so it's fine for mobile applications.
On the Apple side it's more complicated because the concerns come from a series of points in the apple guidline.
https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/
The first point was added in 2009 and is still relevant:
Your app should include features, content, and UI that elevate it
beyond a repackaged website. [ … ]
This is understood as follows: Your application must not be a simple website but must have a minimum of functionality requiring the native, such as gps or photo taking.
Then in 2014
there was the integration into the iOS SDK of Webkit and the end of UIWebView which was used by Cordova.
In apps that run in iOS 8 and later, use the WKWebView class instead
of using UIWebView. Additionally, consider setting the WKPreferences
property javaScriptEnabled to false if you render files that are not
supposed to run JavaScript.
Cordova has made the necessary changes to continue to operate.
But the biggest problem is that the day Apple says stop, Webview is over, cordova can't do anything about it.
To sum up, today no worries on Google and Apple but the future is uncertain so if you are thinking about what technology it used, considered the native.
(I'm telling you this but I have more than 15 cordova applications in production on Google store and Apple store...)

Does a WebView app have access to Android features?

I am sorry if this is not the correct place to ask these questions but I cannot find the answer anywhere. I have built/building an app that basically displays a leaflet map and tracks users in real time with node and socket.io It has various functions but everything is contained either on or over the map. What I need to know is.
Will this run properly in a WebView app?
Can it run when the app is on but in the background (This has to run to keep the connection open and update location with the watch.position function)?
Can it access the HTML5 location features?
Can I access things like if I want to send a SMS from it via a button on the webapp?
Can I access the camera?
Whats the quickest software to use to develop this and could a similar app be made for iOS?
Sorry if a lot of questions but from what I have read WebView should be good enough as most of the work is back-end and map/browser based anyway. Or should I go down the native route?

I have done a couple of cross platform apps for iOS and Android with Cordova. To answer your questions: In a nutshell, I think you can do most of what you are trying to do with a framework like Cordova.
No.
Not with the webview, but maybe with Cordova (there is a plugin for background services).
Not with the webview, but yes with Cordova.
Not with the webview, but yes with Cordova.
Not with the webview, but yes with Cordova.
I am now a native developer for both iOS and Android. I would probably not do an app cross platform again unless it was really simple. I was always able to make things work in Cordova, but with a lot of hacking involved. Since you are familiar with javascript/html Corodova or Phonegap would probably be fastest in terms of development time for you.

Easiest way to simulate Cordova plugins?

I'm a relative PHP newbie (10 months) and Javascript absolute novice, so please go easy on me.
I've just started playing with Cordova and have a couple of small apps for use internally within our small business that I could really do with, but testing my code is causing me grief. I've been using Intel XDK with the built in simulator, but it can't simulate SQLite or the FileTransfer plugin.
At the moment, the only way I can see of doing this in XDK would be to compile the app and transfer it to my Samsung mobile for testing, but this seems very cumbersome and will lead to everything taking much longer. I've just found Apache Ripple, but didn't want to spend a day looking into it to find there's a better tool.
Is anybody able to point me at a tutorial page that gives the easiest method for testing a Cordova app with plugin support, please? I tend to work from about 4 different computers, so something web-based that means I can pull the latest version of my code from Google Drive and start working with no setup hassle would be excellent, if it exists.
Cheers
Andy

The Ripple Emulator has similar coverage as the Cordova Simulator. Unlike Ripple, the Simulator can be extended to support specific plugins, but it will require writing simulation code to make that happen. See the cordova-simulate project for details on how to do that.
Otherwise, the next best option (and the most accurate) is to build the app and use remote Chrome DevTools to debug the app (see this XDK doc page for some help with setting that up). It is not necessary to rebuild your app to make this work. If you structure your code so that you can redefine key functions using the JavaScript console, you can actually debug quite a bit without performing a rebuild and reinstall.
Use the interactive JavaScript console to redefine functions within your app and then run those redefined functions directly from the console or restart your app, in situ, using the window.location.reload() function. An example of using this technique can be seen in this video, starting at about 18:30. The video is demonstrating the use of the weinre debugger, but the debugging technique can also be applied to remote CDT when debugging a built app.

Building a hybrid app, where to start?

I know it's kind of an 'open' question to ask but I simply don't know where to start. Let me first tell you a bit of my experience/background so you know the level I'm at:
Build cd-roms with Lingo back in the days
Started web/front end development in the HTML3.2 era and kinda left off when XHTML was hot
Worked with Javascript 1.2 up till around 1.6 and later started working with Jquery
Actionscript up to 2.0, building websites and games
Did quite a bit of PHP/mySQL development. Build custom CMS' and later Drupal module development
All this was during internships or as a freelancer, everthing self thought by the help of books and such
So now I'm stuck with this idea to build myself an app. I've decided it should be an hybrid app as my target audience is very small but 60% is iOS and I don't want to leave out Android. Also I've been getting familiar with HTML5/CSS3 and started working on components for my app.
The basic concept for the app is that it's a layer on top of Google functionality: profile, calendar, circles and hangouts. Users will (eventually I hope) be able to create events for other users to rsvp to, they will be able to add eachother as buddies and chat about the events. A small step functionality wise but a huge step for me :)
I'm thinking of using the Crosswalk project for the Android version to counter the biggest issues around hybrid app development.
I've been reading up for the last months in preparation and the more I read the less I seem to know. Here's the stuff I think I should know more about;
Node.js
Gulp.js
Dev environment to work in (I once worked in Homesite, later Dreamweaver - don't laugh)
Packaging tools, etc etc.
Crosswalk project
Now I am not looking for some drag and drop software package to build an app in 3 days. I don't want to take the easy route per se, I don't mind a bit of a learning curve. I work on a Win8 machine, I know this isn't optimal but I can't change this.
Now where should I start? I was thinking NPM myself but you guys might think otherwise. Any good books on the stuff you think I need to learn to get me going?
Thanx for the advice!

I can share my experience with Cordova.
I work like full-stack developer and i'm quite expert to build responsive website, so the natural step to approach mobile dev was try Cordova.
First You can start to build HTML document totally responsive and try as webpage on your target devices.
A cool stuff, targeting mobile devices, is that You can use new CSS3 directive, without worry for compatibility with old browser.
First I installed Cordova following this tutorial.
https://ccoenraets.github.io/cordova-tutorial/create-cordova-project.html
Opening the folder /www on your project you can edit your app like a website, and you can also debug with the browser like a normal site.
To enhance the feature you will find a lot of plugins ready on github to extends the native functionality at the Cordova/phonegap project.
I suggest you also to build using onsen http://onsen.io/ a framework that let you use mobile UI easily.
Last tip that i can give you, if you target Android is try your apps on virtual machine, i use Genymotion https://www.genymotion.com/ that is much more fast then SD<
Good luck with your first app!

As you can imagine, there are a lot of framework where you can start.
Looking on your skills, maybe is better to use JS/HTML/css stack, but in this case, you will create an hybrid app in a webview.
In my opinion, webview applications quality it's only acceptable, but because of his productivity, in some cases could be the best decision.
Another good alternative is react-native. This framework allows to create a native application using javascript. React has his own markup language, is very similar to html. JS code is executed on native device using an embedder javascript engine, instead of webview, so, performances and experience can be compared to native applications.
And, at the end, my alternative, a framework I've made to write native UI and share business logic for each platforms. You can take a look on aj-framework https://github.com/bfortunato/aj-framework

Android: PhoneGap vs Webview

I have been researching PhoneGap and I'm now at an impasse and need some advice. I know that PhoneGap essentially 'converts' html5,css,JS sites to 'apps' for distribution, which leads me to my question:
Why wouldn't one simply utilize a webview within an activity to do the same thing and keep the app native?

The advantage of PhoneGap is that it provides APIs that enable your HTML/javascript to interact with the phone (e.g. camera, accelerometer, media etc.)
These APIs are standard across multiple devices (iOS, Android, WinPhone, Blackberry etc.). So you can write one set of HTML/javascript and deploy to multiple platforms.
If you just created a WebView you would not have the PhoneGap APIs and you would need to build containers on each platform you were interested in.

Good question I have searched me too, because we went in Phonegap solution and I think it is a wrong way for us.
The long story:
That is very true if you write once a UI with web developer skills than not needed to know native language and it compile, and ready for testing.
Web developers are more so higher the demand => developer price even cheaper.
When the client want a Milestone 1 for his great idea it will ask a few company, freelancers about development price and time. If is a very basic application version with Phonegap you will have the less development cost( off if your web dev skills are the same laver as platform dev skills) with webView at second place and last one the native.
The client is satisfied with app result buit with Phonegap and want to get more investors so it will make a presentation, where they are asking more features.
At Milestone 2 you will add a few features. Some are easy command line install and you get it, some aren't. Maybe you will be unlucky as you want a combination of 2 existing plugin with a few extras. The conclusion will be: you have to develop a plugin. At this point is already a very big sign of interrogation which is cheaper: the Phonegap + Phonegap plugin or a WebView. If you need 5 existing plugin and your has a little modification, than still Phonegap. But if you need only 1 plugin, only yours, than the web view is the proper way. There are also cases which makes the Phonegap stucture useless. Also there is a problem with version control system under Phonegap if you develop web files, and native code too: some are regenerating at each build time some not. Still is expensiver the native platform. Now the required features are developed. The client will make a demo for investors, where will be visible execution speed with this new features. Or here they will require optimisation, runtime speed-up or after publish to market they will see some are running with low end phones and not the ultimate, which ws used at demos and they will decide to go to Milestone 3 : speed up.
At optimisation, speed up (Milestone 3) you will decide as you need native GUI. After all GUI developed with web now you will need to throw out at fence and implement the side, maybe some parts need even NDK to speed up. No way to be good here with Phonegap. But you have hired web developers, or contracted that company. Now go back to that company , developers which can make native code. They will not start from 0, so they need to analyse the code, refactor and your development price will go up at least with 50% as you would start it from 0 with native.

Good Question, you still could use webview for that but you won't be able to access native functions like ringtone, camera, and all that, however, the app done that way will be regarded as a native app.