Re: starting point: manifests, configs, and the such

On 24 Nov 2011, at 21:33, Filip Maj wrote:

> 
>> 
>> I see, but why is this not done with HTML? Is there performance issues or
>> something?  
>>> Again, RIM addressed this problem
>>> in their Web-based SDK as well [3].
>> 
>> Seems like they are defining a mini-layout and styling language. If that
>> grows, then you just end up at HTML again, no? :(
> 
> 
> Yeah, performance. The webview doesn't instantiate fast enough by the time
> the JS runtime is ready and your app is ready to go. So we have to dive
> into native and
> 
> A) set up an overlay with a gif or image of your splash screen
> B) go through set up ceremony in phonegap
> C) fire an event ('deviceready') that phonegap users attach to to start
> running their own app init / checks / etc.
> 
> Otherwise you basically see a black or white screen (depending on
> platform) for a while, even if in the background some baseline JS is
> executing to set up your app.
> 
> Presumably this may not be a problem down the road... But reality has
> always taken a precedent in PhoneGap so we try to just make shit work :P

Yep I've seen this with some widgets I've used PhoneGap for converting to Android apps - even where the app is really simple HTML, it still takes the device a while to load the webview. So having a splash image makes sense. As with icon, we could have a convention that files in the package named "splash.png/gif/jpg" can be used for this.