Ionic Framework As Choice for Building a Magento 2 Mobile App

There has been a sharp rise in the no. of web developers entering mobile development ever since Hybrid mobile technologies came into existence. They enable the web developer to build mobile apps for multiple platforms via a single development kit without the need of learning a dedicated platform language for individual platforms utilizing their existing skills thus empowering them immensely. PhoneGap and Titanium are examples of hybrid mobile technologies.

 Ionic is one of the newer hybrid mobile technologies. It is an openly sourced front-end framework that can be used to create stunning mobile applications via HTML5. It is a quite advanced Hybrid mobile framework based on HTML5. Cordova, is the base of Ionic apps, therefore Cordova features can be used to test, build or deploy apps. At present Ionic uses AngularJS to create beautiful front-ends as look and feel of the apps is Ionic’s primary focus.

There are 3 principle components of the Ionic Framework:

1. A framework optimized for mobile UIs which is based off of SASS.
2. For building scalable and fast applications it has an AngularJS front-end JavaScript framework
3. Also has a compiler like Phonegap or Cordova in addition to HTML, JavaScript and CSS for native mobile application.

A lot of really handy CSS components come with the Ionic framework ‘factory supplied’ is also packed 

 How To Build A Magento 2 App Using Ionic framework

Image Source: suyati.com/

 Below we describe how to build a Magento 2 mobile app using the ionic framework. In the following description the app being built will have the following functionality.

• User signup
• User Login
• Listing of products from Magento2 website.

1. In your template folder create an .html file for Login. Then as per your necessity define the view in the layout. Your view files go into the templates. Despite having a main index.html file in its www directory the app will also most probably contain additional template views that have been added dynamically. You don’t have to mention your template files in the index.html file as you do in your CSS and JS files.
2. Go to app.js file and define the state of your app screen.
3. Now for the state define a controller. The logic of how to control the state of your app is to be defined here.
4. Also don’t forget to define a service file services.js.  it consists of the custom Angular services your app might use, for instance the one that reaches out to a 3rd party API for acquiring the information your app uses
5. Finally, update your index.html file with all the js and CSS file you created in your app.

Summary

Ionic like its contemporaries has made mobile app building far more easy and accessible. There is no more the need to learn native platform language to develop for a particular platform. The existing skill set can be used most effectively for development of app for multiple platforms via a single app building framework. You can very conveniently build beautiful looking magento 2 app interfaces which are also interactive without any tedious sweat breaking.

Read More About Magento Mobile App Extension

1. What is the best Magento 2 marketplace extension and mobile app  builder 2. How do I install  Mobile app extensions in magento 2 3. Magento mobile app feature for Build iOS & Android apps? 4. Can I create magento mobile app with phonegap and AngularJs?