diyDevApp - the alternative DevApp for (Ionic) devs - make you rown

This near-finished boilerplate allows you to run a devapp to test cordova web apps like Ionic's great framework on a physical device while runing a dev web server (like Ionic's ionic serve) and not needing to use a cable or live-reload.

Big difference with PhoneGaps's DevApp and Ionic's DevApp is that it doesn't have a fancy UI and and you can't tap three fingers to kill, but it does discovery, you can add your own plugins and you can do chrome developer inspections. Which I believe is more essential then anything else.

It remembers the last used servers, you can easily manually add servers yourself.

How to use:

git clone https://github.com/Tommertom/diyDevApp.git
cd diyDevApp
run npm i
change config.xml to change the package name (optional)
add the platform you want to use (ios/android)
add the plugins you want to use - (the cordova add plugin command should suffice, btw)
and install the custom diyDevApp build on the device (or multiple devices) using e.g. ionic cordova run android

If need to cordova plugins you want to use, just do the ionic cordova plugin add part to add it to the diyDevApp boilerplate. And of course, in the app you are developing you need to both ionic cordova plugin add and the npm install thing.

Security: this app uses cordova whitelist plugin v7 and allows you to access ANY webapp/website on the internet to be loaded in the webview container with the cordova plugins enabled. So basically extremely insecure if used improperly.

How does it work?

The app does its magic through the following components:

Use whitelist plugin to allow cross origin redirects. https://cordova.apache.org/docs/en/latest/reference/cordova-plugin-whitelist/
Use remote injection plugin to inject cordova.js asset (as ionic serve does not serve full cordova.js assets). https://github.com/TruckMovers/cordova-plugin-remote-injection
Use simple window.location to redirect
Use UDP to discover

That is all!

Want to try a client

Here is a test client, but maybe better to check your own project.

https://github.com/Tommertom/diyDevAppClient

WARNIG: Few plugins included and tested

I tested this against, flashlight, device and vibration. And it works.

Todo

Well, ideally, there would be a nice UI like Ionic's DevApp. Test a bit more plugins. Remove typos.

Tested under Android (I don't have xcode) and Samsung Tablet.

Tommertom / diyDevApp