Manual upgrade of Apache Cordova for Android (2.9.0 to 3.7.0)

-
I hadn't upgraded Cordova for ages and was still on version 2.4.0 (now at 3.7.0 at the time of writing). so I was surprised, but mostly dismayed, that I now had to use the Cordova tools to create apps.  Maybe it is just me but I liked being able to copy the jar, javascript file and config into an Android app myself.  I did have a go at using the tool, but the npm still didn't create the jar I wanted and I'd be forever tied into using the tool.  So I spent some time working out how to upgrade manually, and this is how to do it.  

 This obviously relies on you having java and android installed, which I'd guess you have if you're upgrading an Android app

Step 1

Download the latest zip file from http://cordova.apache.org/ and unzip it.

Step 2 

Install android if necessary and add it to the OS path.  You need ANDROID_HOME set or the android executable on the path.  I added both.

Make sure you have Android version 19 installed from Android's SDK manager

Step 3

Install ant and add it to the OS path so that ant can be executed from the command line

Step 4

Using a command line tool (cmd or bash, or whatever) change directory (cd) to the where you unzipped the cordova zip and cd into the package/framework directory

Run the following command

ant jar

If you get the error message that you need to create 'local.properties' run the following command first (then run ant jar)

android update project -p .

 This will create the jar file called cordova-<version>.jar

Step 5

Copy these files from the unzipped cordova directory into your Android app directory structure:
  • the created .jar file to your /libs directory (will be in the framework directory where you created it)
  • cordova.js from the assets directory in the zip file to your app assets directory
That's all I needed to do.  The settings all worked as before and now I've upgraded.  I hope this helps someone and it isn't just me that doesn't want to have to use the Cordova tools :)




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Launch a website as a mobile app using PhoneGap/Apache Cordova

-
How to launch a website as a mobile app using PhoneGap/Apache Cordova I spent some time recently trying to find out how to launch my website as a mobile app.  The information was available around the internet but since it took me a while, I thought I'd collate it here in one simple post for anyone who wants to do the same I decided to use Apache Cordova since it gave me the framework for developing an HTML5 site as a mobile app already, meaning all I really needed to do was plug my website into it.  Their getting started guide has good information on how to create a Cordova project - I used Android but you can use whatever means you wish A basic Cordova app gives you a way to launch the app with an HTML page that you use to display your app contents.  The trick then is make the page load your website which you can do in one of 3 ways: 1. Package your site inside the app. This means it loads fast and without an internet connection.  The downside is you have to update and
Read more

Installing and using mobilize.js to transform a desktop site to a mobile site

-
Image
Installing and using mobilize.js to transform a desktop site to a mobile site mobilize.js offers a neat and simple method of creating a mobile optimised website with very little change to the main desktop site. With a few lines of javascript and some css you can create a mobile optimised site without having to maintain 2 different sets of content. However the instructions on the official site aren't the best. So with some digging I managed to transform - From this (Firefox on my laptop): To this (Android browser on my Samsung Galaxy Nexus): with no html changes other than adding some <script> tags to the <head> element.  Plus automatic browser detection to display either site depending on the browser used - mobile, or desktop Here are some step-by-step instructions on getting it working. Why would you want to? So going back to the beginning, these were my requirements:  I wanted to create a mobile optimised site but, as I already had a
Read more

How to manually add Cordova plugins to your app

-
I have recently been trying to add a plugin to an existing Cordova app (using Cordova 3.7.0).  Since I didn't create my app using the CLI I had 2 options: Create a new app using the CLI and copy my source files over Add the plugin files to my existing app For some reason I don't really like the idea of the CLI and wanted to do do this manually into an existing Android app, using Cordova, rather than use the CLI.  Don't ask me why, I just like doing things manually so I know what's going on under-the-hood I guess If you are like me and want to add a plugin manually, this is how to do it.  These instructions, though written for Android, will work for any any supported platform.  I will call out any differences between platforms that I know of Get the plugin source files You need the source code files for your platform (so .java for Android, .m .h for iPhone etc) as well as the plugin javascript files.  You might be able to get the source files from the inte
Read more