Converting Your Ionic Framework 1 Application To Ionic 2

Ionic Framework has been around for a few years now and has completely changed the way people develop hybrid mobile applications. With Angular out and Ionic 2 nearing stable release, the Ionic 1 and AngularJS predecessor will be a thing of the past and forgotten. What if you’ve gone all in with the first version of Ionic Framework, how do you convert to the latest and greatest?

We’re going to see how to take a simple Ionic Framework application and convert it to Ionic 2. While there will be similarities, the process is manual, but better in the long run.

Use Mozilla’s LocalForage For Key-Value Storage In Ionic 2

When it comes to saving data in an Ionic 2 mobile application, there are many ways to get the job done. You can use the classic HTML5 local storage, but run the risk of compatibility problems between all available devices. You can use SQLite, which is part of Ionic Native, but that will only work for Android and iOS and has more of a mobile API. You can also use SqlStorage, but that is a very proprietary solution. This brings us to localForage from Mozilla.

Mozilla advertises localForage as a wrapper to IndexedDB, WebSQL and localStorage which will offer maximum compatibility across the grid.

We’re going to see how to include localForage in our application which is a valid option for Ionic 2.

Using SqlStorage Instead Of SQLite In An Ionic 2 App

When it comes to Ionic 2 there are many ways that you can store your data. For example you could use HTML5 local storage, Mozilla’s localForage library, or Ionic’s SQLite extension that is part of Ionic Native. With these options available, I get a lot of requests for information on Ionic’s less advertised SqlStorage option.

We’re going to take a look at using SqlStorage in an Android and iOS application rather than the SQLite alternative.

Build A Password Manager For Android And iOS Using Ionic 2

Have you ever wanted to build your own password manager? Maybe you don’t trust the password management tools that already exist, or maybe you just want the experience. I personally use the tool 1Password, but many of my friends don’t trust the applications that exist on the market. It is a valid concern that they have. What if the password managers that exist are using an ancient or obsolete DES specification or similar, rather than the modern AES? What if the master passwords are not being hashed with a strong Bcrypt algorithm?

Not too long ago we created a password manager using the NativeScript framework, but what if we wanted to build one with a different technology.

We’re going to see how to build a password manager that makes use of the AES specification using Ionic 2 and Angular. This application will work for both Android and iOS and look great on both.

Build An RSS Reader Mobile App With NativeScript And Angular

Rich site summary (RSS) feeds are very common on blogs or sites that have a publication type feed. These feeds are in XML format and have information such as the publication title, a summary, or other bits of information that is rather useful. There are plenty of mobile applications on Google Play and iTunes that support the aggregation of RSS feeds, but have you ever wanted to build your own? Maybe you want to create your own news application based on your own algorithms, or maybe your company has a mobile application and you’d like to include a blog section to the mobile app. Whatever the need may be, doing so is not difficult.

We’re going to see how to use Angular, Yahoo’s YQL language, and NativeScript to build a fully native RSS feed reader for Android and iOS.

Using Local Notifications In Your Ionic 2 Mobile App

A little more than a year ago I wrote a tutorial regarding using local notifications in an Ionic Framework Android and iOS application, but Ionic Framework and AngularJS is rapidly becoming a thing of the past. Lately, anything Angular is all the rage and that includes frameworks that use it like Ionic 2. This inspired me to update my previous tutorial for the latest and greatest.

Let’s take a step back though. Why would one want to use local notifications in their mobile application? Well, one example might be in iBeacon detection. An iBeacon comes into range and a notification might show. That is just one of many examples. Let’s also not confuse local notifications with push notifications. Local notifications have no interaction with a service like Firebase Cloud Messaging (FCM) or Apple Push Notification Service (APNS).

We’re going to see how to schedule notifications and perform tasks based on various actions around the notifications.

Create Native iOS And Android Plugins With NativeScript

In my previous NativeScript tutorials I demonstrated how to access native platform APIs and features using JavaScript, but I never explained how to develop plugins that could accomplish this in a very maintainable fashion. By moving this native functionality to plugins, the application code remains a lot cleaner and is better for the long run.

For reference, you can see how to create Toast notifications in Android and determine the application version in Android and iOS using my previous tutorials.

This time we’re going to look at bundling that functionality into a plugin.