Best way to call activity Method with Phonegap 3.0 from js

Question

I'm trying to make a phone call from my index.html in phonegap using a native method from MainActivity.

I'm using phonegap 3.0 and android 4.3 platform. I tried the second answer on this post but it is not working for this versions.

I would like to know what is the best approach to get through this?

Answer 1

You can create a custom plugin to call any method from the native side. Create a separate JavaScript file, say customplugin.js, and put this into it:

var CustomPlugin = {};

CustomPlugin.callNativeMethod = function() {
    cordova.exec(null, null, "CustomPlugin", "callNativeMethod", []);
};

Now on the native Java side, create a new class and name it CustomPlugin.java, then add this:

package com.yourpackage;

import org.apache.cordova.CordovaWebView;
import org.apache.cordova.api.CallbackContext;
import org.apache.cordova.api.CordovaInterface;
import org.apache.cordova.api.CordovaPlugin;

import com.yourpackage.MainActivity;

public class CustomPlugin extends CordovaPlugin
{
    private static final String TAG   = "CustomPlugin";

    private CallbackContext callbackContext = null;
    private MainActivity activity = null;

    /** 
     * Override the plugin initialise method and set the Activity as an 
     * instance variable.
     */
    @Override
    public void initialize(CordovaInterface cordova, CordovaWebView webView) 
    {
        super.initialize(cordova, webView);

        // Set the Activity.
        this.activity = (MainActivity) cordova.getActivity();
    }

    /**
     * Here you can delegate any JavaScript methods. The "action" argument will contain the
     * name of the delegated method and the "args" will contain any arguments passed from the
     * JavaScript method.
     */
    public boolean execute(String action, JSONArray args, CallbackContext callbackContext) throws JSONException 
    {
        this.callbackContext = callbackContext;

        Log.d(TAG, callbackContext.getCallbackId() + ": " + action);

        if (action.equals("callNativeMethod")) 
        {
            this.callNativeMethod();
        }
        else
        {
            return false;
        }

        return true;
    }

    private void callNativeMethod()
    {
        // Here we simply call the method from the Activity.
        this.activity.callActivityMethod();
    }
}

Make sure you map the plugins in the config.xml file by adding this line:

...
<feature name="CustomPlugin">
    <param name="android-package" value="com.yourpackage.CustomPlugin" />
</feature>
...

Now to call the plugin from your index.html you can simply call your JavaScript method:

CustomPlugin.callNativeMethod();

Using this method will allow you to set up many custom methods conveniently. For more information check the PhoneGap plugin development guide here.