An introduction to plugins

When you develop and deploy a new simple hybrid application, the application might not be doing anything advanced. We know hybrid applications are developed using standard web technologies such as HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. We need some mechanism for the application to interact with various device-level features. To achieve this, we use plugins with PhoneGap/Cordova APIs. Since version 3.0, all the PhoneGap APIs have been converted to plugins, which means having a deep understanding of the plugins is now even more important for a PhoneGap developer.

A PhoneGap plugin is a bridge between the WebView and the native platform on which the app is running.

In order to be productive quickly with PhoneGap plugins, it's important to keep in mind how the framework works. A PhoneGap app consists of three main layers. They are as follows:

• The user interface, developed using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript
• The business logic, developed in JavaScript
• The PhoneGap framework, native...