Building your first Phonegap android application with HTML and JavaScript


Hello folks!

After days of research, I have been able to find the optimum method to build an android application using Phonegap. At first, I had my doubts regarding Phonegap for developing native android applications. But after research and having developed a massive project in this platform, I decided to document the steps.

I have tried and simplified the process for developing an android Phonegap application. At the end of this tutorial, you will have yourself an android application designed in Phonegap.


To kick-off you have to install 4 files in your system. I have described them in the following steps.

Step 1

Install JDK

Step 2

Install the Android SDK
Make sure you install the necessary packages in the android sdk manager.

Step 3

Install node.js

Step 4

Install Git

Step 5

Make sure you restart your computer after installing the packages.
Run command prompt in your windows machine
You can do so by typing in 'cmd' in run.

Once you launch the command prompt, navigate to the C drive or the drive you have installed the above packages.

After navigating to the C drive, type in "npm install -g cordova".
Now your command prompt will look something like this.


Now you have successfully installed Cordova in your drive.

Step 6

Now it is time to create our first application folder.
Type in the command prompt "cordova create MyFirstApp com.example.myfirstapp MyFirstApp



After creating the application, navigate to the app folder. Type in the command prompt "cd myfirstapp"



Step 7

We will now need to declare the android target platform. Type in command prompt "cordova platform add android"


You can check your installed platforms by the following code:
  • C:\CameraApp>cordova platforms ls

You can remove android by the following code:
  • C:\CameraApp>cordova platform rm android


Step 8

Now, build your application.
C:\CameraApp>cordova build android

Step 9

After you build your application, follow the folder structure mentioned in the command prompt and find the APK file.

There you go! You have successfully built your first APK file using Phonegap. You can transfer this file to your phone and install it.


Check out my next tutorial to build an application which can access the phones’s native camera.

Peace and cheers!

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