Two Ways to Share Apps
It is fun to share apps you create with others. To make your work available to others, you have the following options:
Put your HTML and JavaScript files on a web server and run the app from the Evothings Client app (estimated time 15 minutes).
Build a native app with Apache Cordova (estimated time 2 - 8 hours), and publish on the app stores (estimated time 4 - 16 hours depending on which app stores you target).
Run Your App From Evothings Client
To run your app from Evothings Client, do as follows:
Upload your HTML, CSS, JavaScript and media files (images) to a web server. Note that you don't need to include any Cordova JavaScript files. The file cordova.js and Cordova plugin files are bundled with the Evothings Client app.
Install and run the Evothings Client app on your mobile device.
Enter the url to the main HTML file on the web server in the address field, and press the Connect button. For example if you have index.html in the folder "demo", you can enter a url like this (just as with a web page!): http://evothings.com/demo
You can also make a menu page with links to all of your apps, and open that page in Evothings client.
The drawback is you must be online to run your apps.
The positive thing is that it is very quick and easy to share apps with others. Just ask them to install the Evothings Client app and supply a url to your app or start page.
To make sharing of apps even easier, you can create links using the evothings: URL scheme. Evothings links can be shared by email or on any website, e.g. on Twitter, on a blog or on an intranet page. The user just selects the link, and the Evothings Client app launches with the app pointed to by the link.
Here is an example:
evothings://mysite.com/demo/myapp.html
That URL will launch the Evothings Client app and open:
http://mysite.com/demo/myapp.html
Build a Native App With Cordova
Apache Cordova is a build system for creating native apps with bundled HTML and JavaScript content. Apps built with Cordova are native apps that can be published on the app stores.
The Native App Build Overview shows how to build apps with Cordova.
Summary and Advice
Start out easy and deploy your app on a web server, then run it from the Evothings Client app.
If you have several apps you wish to share, make an index page that acts like a menu or gallery you can use as a launchpad (just put links to your apps on the menu page, as you would for any web page).
When you are ready for app store publication, learn how to build native apps with Cordova.
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