Author: Nic Raboy

Use The Android And iOS Camera With Ionic Framework

September 30, 2014 Nic Raboy

Most smart phones on the market have at least one camera if not two. You may want to leverage these cameras to make the next Instagram or SnapChat type application. Lucky for us, the native Android and iOS camera can be easily accessed using Ionic Framework and the AngularJS extension set, ngCordova.

The following will help you add camera functionality into your latest creation.

Securing Your Apache phpMyAdmin Installation

September 27, 2014 Nic Raboy

If you’re using a LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) stack, chances are you’re going to be using phpMyAdmin. By default, your phpMyAdmin installation is not very secure and chances are your MySQL database has a treasure trove of excellent information for a malicious user.

By following these steps, you can make it significantly tougher for your phpMyAdmin installation to be exploited.

Show Native Toast Notifications Using Ionic Framework

September 24, 2014 Nic Raboy

There are often times where you need to display messages to your users inside your Ionic Framework Android and iOS application. If you’ve been using Ionic for a while, you’re already familiar with the $ionicPopup feature, but what happens if you don’t want to bother the user with interaction?

Using the Toast plugin by Eddy Verbruggen for Apache Cordova, we are able to create native Toast notifications for both iOS and Android that require no user interaction to close.

Signing An Apache Cordova 4.x Android App For Release

September 22, 2014 Nic Raboy

Preparing an Apache Cordova Android project for release can seem like a difficult task. The documentation for completing such a task is definitely more than it needs to be.

Install Android, Cordova, And Ionic Framework In Ubuntu

September 21, 2014 Nic Raboy

After recognizing that I develop almost entirely on Ubuntu Linux, a subscriber of mine asked me how to properly set up an Ubuntu machine for Ionic Framework Android development. Now there are a ton of options to handle this task, but not many bare bones solutions. Most solutions on the internet explain how to use an IDE, or fail to elaborate a complete installation.

If you’re not interested in learning how to accomplish the task of installing NPM, Android, Apache Cordova, and Ionic Framework, you can just download a convenient shell script that I made. If you want to know how this shell script works and would like to get the most out of it, continue reading the article.

Implement A Barcode Scanner Using Ionic Framework

September 20, 2014 Nic Raboy

I recently found myself needing to scan barcodes in one of my apps. More specifically I needed to scan quick response (QR) codes. After doing some searching I found that ngCordova had an extension for the Apache Cordova plugin BarcodeScanner which has the ability to scan barcodes in the following formats:

• QR Code
• Data Matrix
• UPC E
• UPC A
• EAN 8
• EAN 13
• Code 128
• Code 39
• ITF

Pretty much all the formats anyone would ever need. The plugin itself makes use of the very popular ZXing library.

Create An Android App Start To Finish

September 18, 2014 Nic Raboy

It was recently requested that I show how to create an Android app from start to finish using a text editor and command line. Although the process isn’t difficult, it might not be so straight forward for a first time developer. The scope of this article should cover the following:

• How to create a new Android project using a terminal window
• Creating a signing keystore for deployment to the app store
• How to submit to the app store and be successful