I want to start to work with Ionic 4. I already know how to code with the android studio but I want to start to learn cross-platform.
I install Node.js and npm and I download Ionic4.
Do I need to download angular 7 (or other versions) to use Ionic 4?
What the difference between Cordova and capacitor? Which one do you recommend? Are they necessary? For the IDE I maybe will use Visual studio code. Do you have the other free more recommended? if no how can I open the ionic project in vs code?
I hope you can help me.
No, Angular is automatically included as part of scaffolding an Ionic project.
Cordova is the original, established solution. You should use this while you are starting out.
Capacitor is made by Ionic and replaces the features that Cordova provides, plus expands its support to additional platforms such as the web and desktop (electron) apps. It's got a v1 release but it's still early to adopt it. In time this will become the default but at the moment the community hasn't had the time to build up the vast catalogue of plugins that Cordova has.
Use VS Code, yes. It's what almost everyone uses.
You just open the folder like any other project.
To run the app you use the command line such as ionic serve.
You should review the Ionic Framework - Ionic Documentation website in detail. It has a ton of valuable information about getting setup and beginning development.
As of Ionic 4, you also need to decide which front end framework you will use. It supports Angular, Reach and Vue, plus no framework at all. If you don't know any of these then use Angular. It has the most tutorials available and is battle tested. The others are in beta releases at the moment.