JET-CLI
provides a very easy way to build and package Android, iOS or Windows hybrid
apps. JET-CLI is a wrapper over Cordova-CLI to build and package hybrid apps.
Things that we will explain this section are:
-
How
to create a Self-Signed Certificate
- Build
configuration file
- How
to build and package an Android app
Self-Signed Certificate
An SSL certificate serves two essential purposes: distributing the public key and verifying the identity of the server. It can only properly verify the identity of the server when it is signed by a trusted third party. A self-signed certificate is a certificate that is signed by itself rather than a trusted authority.
Java Keytool tool provides a very easy was to generate your self-signed certificates. To use it, you just need to use the below command:
keytool -genkey -keyalg RSA -alias hybridAirport -keystore keystore.jks -storepass hybridapp -validity 360 -keysize 2048
This will create a keystore.jks file containing a private key and a self-signed certificate. Later this can be use to build and package our Android app.
Build configuration file
Since now we have the self-signed certificate, we can create a build configuration file which will be used to build and package our hybrid JET app.
We will create a buildConfig.json with the details of the self-signed certificate we created in the previous step. The content of it will be:
The above details contain the JKS file location, keystore password, alias and the password of the file. The “keystoreType” is by default JKS if left blank.
How to build and package an Android app
To build and package we will be using ojet-cli. It is the easiest way via command-line to generate an APK file.
In the application root directory, we can run “ojet build” with platform and build config parameters to build the app.
ojet build android --release --build-config=./buildConfig.json
In the above command:
- android: To define for which platform we are executing the build.
- --release: To define we are generating the APK for publishing it to a Google play or to install it directly on an Android device.
- --build-config: Defines where to find the self-signed certificate details.
After successful finish of the above command, you should be able to see an .APK file get generated inside “hybrid/platforms/android”.
There are other few useful parameters you can use with “ojet build” command:- device: To define you are executing this to generate an APK for device.
- emulator: To
define you are executing this to generate an APK for device.
- theme: To specify a theme to use to build the app, by default it uses Alta theme.
Debugging
JET-CLI gives you an option to test and debug your hybrid app locally in a browser. Normally, running an emulator or deploying to a device is memory intensive and most of all time consuming. You do need to test your app in a device but at the early stage of the development lifecycle you need to test your viewModels and it is quite helpful if it can be done easily.
ojet serve android –browser
The above command runs the hybrid Android version in your default browser.
This command will do a compile and load the application on by default on 8001 port and run the application as a web application.
This command will load the application with default “live-reload” as true, so any change you make it will be directly reflected on the browser.
Alternatively, you can also choose to test or debug your app, in an Emulator, for that you need use:
ojet serve android --emulator=emulator-name
To debug and test your app on a device, you can use:
ojet serve android --device
Comments
Post a Comment