Introduction to Frameworks

IMPORTANT NOTE
Developing mobile app is not simple, you need to have knowledges in HTML5, CSS3, TypeScript, Angular and Ionic Framework. If you do not know what they are, the learning curve might be steep, but please do take time and patience to learn them. DB AppMaker can quickly generate scripts for a mobile app, but it cannot prepare the develoment environment for you, it cannot compile the app without the required frameworks (see below), you still need the technical knowledge to further develop and customize the generated app to serve the purpose of your app. Please understand that you cannot make apps without learning the follows.

Ionic Framework

Apps generated by DB AppMaker are based on Ionic Framework which is an open source SDK that enables developers to build performant, high-quality mobile apps using familiar web technologies (HTML, CSS, and JavaScript). Ionic is focused mainly on the look and feel, or the UI interaction, of an app. DB AppMaker uses the Ionic Angular version. The Ionic command-line interface (CLI) is the go-to tool for developing Ionic apps, it is built with TypeScript and Node.js. To use DB AppMaker, you MUST install the CLI first. Read the following for details.

Documentation
Installing Ionic

Apache Cordova

Apache Cordova is an open source framework that enables web developers to use their HTML, CSS, and JavaScript content to create a native application for a variety of mobile platforms. Cordova is an integral part of Ionic Framework. While Cordova provides the solutions to use native mobile functionality and to create fully native applications, it doesn't include a UI SDK. With over 100 UI components, plus navigation and platform-specific styling, Ionic allows you to develop high performing, native-like apps.

Angular

Angular is an application design framework and development platform for creating efficient and sophisticated single-page apps. Ionic Angular combines the core Ionic experience with the tooling and APIs that are tailored to Angular Developers.

TypeScript

TypeScript is a primary language for Angular application development. It is a superset of JavaScript with design-time support for type safety and tooling. Browsers can't execute TypeScript directly. Typescript must be "transpiled" into JavaScript using the command-line TypeScript compiler which can be installed as a Node.js package.

Node.js and npm

Node.js is a JavaScript runtime built on Chrome's V8 JavaScript engine. Node.js is all about modularity, and with that comes the need for a quality package manager. For this purpose, npm was made. With npm comes the largest selection of community-created packages of any programming ecosystem, which makes building Node.js apps quick and easy. Both Ionic CLI and Angular CLI are built with Node.js. The DB AppMaker code generating engine is also built with Node.js.

Android Studio and SDK

Android Studio is the official Integrated Development Environment (IDE) for Android app development. With Android Studio you can keep the Android SDK tools up to date with automatic updates and the Android SDK Manager. See Update the IDE and SDK Tools. The SDK tools are required to build your app for Android devices.

Java SE Development Kit (JDK)

Native Android apps are compiled with the Java programming language. JDK 8 is required for Cordova. Cordova is not compatible with the latest version of Java.

Xcode

Xcode is a productive environment for building apps for iPhone, iPad, etc. If you want to build an iOS version of your app, you need a Mac computer with Xcode, there is no way to build an iOS app without one.