Lately we have had a number of projects that require the development of cross-platform mobile applications, and I figured this would be a good time to introduce you to a framework that has greatly sped up our development timeline, and created more cost-effective budgets for our clients.

A few years ago we began playing around with PhoneGap - a cross-platform development framework for Mobile Applications backed by Adobe. At the time, we weren't impressed and continued developing our applications natively - having separate code-bases for say iOs, Android, and the Web version of an application. This led to difficultly managing changes across revisions, submitting updates, and organizing the projects overall. Enter Apache Cordova...

 Cordova - the open source engine behind the original PhoneGap framework was donated to the Apache foundation back in 2011 - and has been continually polished by the open source community ever since. The Apache Cordova framework is a essentially a Javascript API layer used to interface with the native code on various operating systems. (At the time of writing this Cordova supports 8 operating systems: iOs, Android, Blackberry, Windows, Unbutu, FirefoxOs, LGWebOs, and FireOs.) With Cordova you can author a project in only HTML, CSS, and JS and deploy it across all platforms. There are essentially no limitations, as you can easily create OS-specific modules that can be integrated via the JS API for any functionality not covered by the extensive list of open source plugins.

The workflow for Cordova typically follows this general outline:

1. Create your project in HTML/CSS/JS, using the browser
2. Compile your project for your required platforms utilizing Cordova
3. Open your compiled projects in their respective IDE
4. Publish your project to the various App Stores

 There are numerous plugins available for interfacing with native functionality (https://cordova.apache.org/plugins/) such as cameras, gyro censors, etc. And you can always create your own system-specific plugins to achieve something not already included in the various plugins.

If you're looking to develop a cross-platform application, we highly recommend giving Cordova a once-over to see if it would fit your needs. In the meantime, here are some resources to get you started:

• Cordova Home Page
• Plugin Search
• Tutorials
• Tuts+ Tutorials
• Hello Word Example App

We were fortunate enough to snag some Web Design Day tickets again this year and make it to the conference on Friday. It was a great day full of new takes on common problems and many familiar faces. The talk by Eric Meyer (http://webdesignday.com/eric-meyer.html) had some great insight on developing CSS that falls back gracefully and also gave some insight on some new features in CSS4; and we also enjoyed Smitha Prasadh's (http://webdesignday.com/smitha-prasadh.html) talk on drawing correlations between classical music and web development.

Afternoon break

Javascript? Socks? Caitlin Steinert Presenting

 

Here at O2 Digital Creative Agency we're always looking for better ways to reach out and help our customers, lend advice to fellow developers, and give inspiration to designers - thus the creation of the O₂ Blog "Pure Oxygen". Here we will routinely post helpful articles on a wide range of topics that we encounter in every day life: musings on design and development methodology, detailed explanations of common misconceptions, and occasionally a funny video. Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments of any post, and share with your friends on Facebook or Twitter if you find something particularly interesting or helpful to others.

For our first post let's introduce ourselves, and give you a little more insight on who we are.

Our original Mt. Washington office before moving in

Setting up our desks

O2 Digital Creative Agency was started in 2011 with the humble intent of creating e-commerce and marketing websites for local businesses. It wasn't more than a year before we realized that the local market needed more than a simple development shop, it needed a well-rounded agency that could service a project from inception to completion, educate a client on a variety of new technologies, and provide ongoing maintenance for any number of needs post-project. In 2012 we began expanding O2's team to include a full-time designer, a team manager, and more developers.

Our Mt. Washington office after we sanded and painted (inside and out)

Before long we had outgrown the initial space that was more-than-enough for the two of us when we started. In 2014 we relocated to our new offices at 100 Ross Street in downtown Pittsburgh. It was a needed breath of fresh air for the team to have enough room to spread out (as well as a working A/C system!) and it opened us up to new possibilities. We've since begun to focus on larger business development, e-commerce, B2B and CRM projects. We still thoroughly enjoy making websites (such as the recent website we created for Rico's), but never turn down a new online store, mobile app, or custom business platform.

New office in downtown

New office in downtown

We also recently expanded our service line to include a full suite of SEO and Marketing services: product marketing for online stores, Google Adwords management and campaign design, our new O2 Insights Program, and more. There is no telling what the future holds, but 2016 has already been full of new opportunities, and self-improvement for us here - I hope we can use some of what we know to help you in one way another!

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