When I started creating an app as anybody starting I had to decide on a framework. I discovered Apache Cordova (or also named PhoneGap) which is a platform that just embeds a web-browser and you create your application as an 'single-page' html website.
Interaction with native phone features is then done via an special java-script-based extensions. For the app I intended on developing this matched good with my goals; It was actually so easy just after single-day of playing around with the framework I already had a prototype ready. Just like that I had my app working on my telephone - awesome!
And of course every great phone application also needs it's own website. I made a django based project. It makes making custom websites very trivial. With a few days time I had my first database definitions with django's orm. I made some views and started to focus on the workflow of the website.
Most of what I started out with was a free administrative template. To decently integrate it you need to take out the folders and place it how it makes sense on your django side. Making a page in django is as simple as defining a view and defining the urls.
def docs_terms_of_cookies(request):
assert isinstance(request, HttpRequest)
return render(
request,
'app/terms-of-cookies.html',
{
'title':'Terms of Service',
'year':datetime.now().year,
}
)
urlpatterns += i18n_patterns(
url(r'^terms/$', app.views.docs_terms_of_service, name='terms of service'),
url(r'^terms/cookies$', app.views.docs_terms_of_cookies, name='terms of cookies'),
url(r'^terms/payment$', app.views.docs_terms_of_payment, name='terms of payment'),
url(r'^terms/privacy$', app.views.docs_terms_of_privacy, name='terms of privacy'),
)
After that for a long time I had to iterate and iterate until it received the workflow that I liked. I had to go through many review cycles with my friends. While in django you do get certain built-in's like logins; everything else you need to make yourself. I decided to use a mix of web 2.0 and web 1.0 style nagivation (KISS - Keep It Simple System).
Then I had to learn about front-end. Bootstrap is the defacto standard for frameworks these days so let's just use that. Actually to make websites responsive the grid-model bootstrap has is really nice. You can just say col-lg-2, col-md-4 and depending on the screen resolution one of the styles are in effect. Once I figured that out; it was a breeze to make my own responsive website.
I learned that you can use bower to download most of the javascript based dependecies; bower install jquery and voilla jquery is there. And with grunt I made a file that copied the files from bower into django's static folders. Now I only have to run 'grunt'.
9/10 would recommend to give this book a read if you are more interested in developing apps. The Apache Cordova Cookbook
And of course every great phone application also needs it's own website. I made a django based project. It makes making custom websites very trivial. With a few days time I had my first database definitions with django's orm. I made some views and started to focus on the workflow of the website.
Most of what I started out with was a free administrative template. To decently integrate it you need to take out the folders and place it how it makes sense on your django side. Making a page in django is as simple as defining a view and defining the urls.
def docs_terms_of_cookies(request):
assert isinstance(request, HttpRequest)
return render(
request,
'app/terms-of-cookies.html',
{
'title':'Terms of Service',
'year':datetime.now().year,
}
)
urlpatterns += i18n_patterns(
url(r'^terms/$', app.views.docs_terms_of_service, name='terms of service'),
url(r'^terms/cookies$', app.views.docs_terms_of_cookies, name='terms of cookies'),
url(r'^terms/payment$', app.views.docs_terms_of_payment, name='terms of payment'),
url(r'^terms/privacy$', app.views.docs_terms_of_privacy, name='terms of privacy'),
)
After that for a long time I had to iterate and iterate until it received the workflow that I liked. I had to go through many review cycles with my friends. While in django you do get certain built-in's like logins; everything else you need to make yourself. I decided to use a mix of web 2.0 and web 1.0 style nagivation (KISS - Keep It Simple System).
Then I had to learn about front-end. Bootstrap is the defacto standard for frameworks these days so let's just use that. Actually to make websites responsive the grid-model bootstrap has is really nice. You can just say col-lg-2, col-md-4 and depending on the screen resolution one of the styles are in effect. Once I figured that out; it was a breeze to make my own responsive website.
I learned that you can use bower to download most of the javascript based dependecies; bower install jquery and voilla jquery is there. And with grunt I made a file that copied the files from bower into django's static folders. Now I only have to run 'grunt'.
9/10 would recommend to give this book a read if you are more interested in developing apps. The Apache Cordova Cookbook
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