We have monetizable Mobile Application Idea, and will be building our first mobile Hybrid application.
I looked into few things and figured out that to achieve my end-to-end goal I would need:
Front End UI Framework : possible options: Ionic / AngularGap [but documentation seems parse].
Then I think we need to wrap it up with PhoneGap for various platforms.
Have a BackEnd framework - Loopback / Parse
I have yet to look into specific documentations, but it would be very helpful to have a experienced suggestion if the path is right.
What I don't know right now:
A. What I am thinking is right and how I should proceed.
B. Ionic is an UI framework and how do I connect it with Phonegap, like how to access native features. I think I have to use angular to call Phonegap apis ?
C. If I get the front end part set, how do I call backend apis like that of loopback? through REST calls? or there are other more efficient ways to do that?
Are there simpler ways to achieve this?
I am also trying to study Ionic framework to use with an Android app. Ionic seems to be a very good framework, but the lack of documentation is blocking me from advancing.
From what I have seen so far, it looks like Ionic+Angular already integrates Cordova. So you don't need to create a Cordova app anymore, just create an Ionic app and it has Cordova underneath it:
Did it using Ionic CLI, which uses ionic-angular-cordova-seed
About the backend, Angular provides $http and $resource for AJAX requests, take a look at the Angular documentation, I assume Ionic didn't change the way Angular makes these calls.
My conclusion: I think when Ionic becomes a more mature framework (which won't take long) with better documentation, it will be the best UI framework. From what I have seem, it looks very native with very good performance. And I still plan to keep going with it for having no better option, although it is taking me some time because there are things I still can't understand.