Android – Deploying Phonegap / Cordova app for Android

androidbuildcommand-line-interfacecordovadeployment

I've got a Phonegap/Cordova 3.0 app that I am testing on Android.

Since version 2.x, Cordova relies heavily on the command-line terminal. I've done all the setup stuff and I can build the app. But two things are troubling me.

First of all, an Android project has two www folders. One is [myproject]/www. The other is [myproject]/platforms/android/assets/www. I'm not sure which of these folders to edit when I am fixing bugs.

If I am correct, the first one is where you place your app files before using the command-line "cordova build" to create the app. The second one should then be only a copy that's used after building, before deploying.

Now my question is, when I make a change to my app and I want to test on device, do I have to use the command line to (re)build the app every time?

Best Answer

[myproject]/www is the directory in which you should put your source files. When you build your app these files are copied in to [myproject]/platforms/[platform]/assets/www. In addition to this, files in [myproject]/platforms/[platform] are also copied to [myproject]/platforms/[platform]/assets/www, which allows you to create per-platform overrides to your files.

Note that you should never edit files in [myproject]/platforms/[platform]/assets/www directly, as they will be deleted next time you build your project.

To run your project on your device use cordova run [platform], or to run it on an emulator use cordova emulate [platform].

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Android – How to close/hide the Android soft keyboard programmatically

You can force Android to hide the virtual keyboard using the InputMethodManager, calling hideSoftInputFromWindow, passing in the token of the window containing your focused view.

// Check if no view has focus:
View view = this.getCurrentFocus();
if (view != null) {  
    InputMethodManager imm = (InputMethodManager)getSystemService(Context.INPUT_METHOD_SERVICE);
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This will force the keyboard to be hidden in all situations. In some cases, you will want to pass in InputMethodManager.HIDE_IMPLICIT_ONLY as the second parameter to ensure you only hide the keyboard when the user didn't explicitly force it to appear (by holding down the menu).

Note: If you want to do this in Kotlin, use: context?.getSystemService(Context.INPUT_METHOD_SERVICE) as InputMethodManager

Kotlin Syntax

// Only runs if there is a view that is currently focused
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Android – How to stop EditText from gaining focus at Activity startup in Android

Excellent answers from Luc and Mark. However, a good code sample is missing. Adding the tags android:focusableInTouchMode="true" and android:focusable="true" to the parent layout (e.g. LinearLayout or ConstraintLayout) like in the following example, will fix the problem.

<!-- Dummy item to prevent AutoCompleteTextView from receiving focus -->
<LinearLayout
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<!-- :nextFocusUp and :nextFocusLeft have been set to the id of this component
to prevent the dummy from receiving focus again -->
<AutoCompleteTextView android:id="@+id/autotext"
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Best Answer

Related Solutions

Android – How to close/hide the Android soft keyboard programmatically

Android – How to stop EditText from gaining focus at Activity startup in Android

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