Cordova is an open source mobile app development framework which helps build cross-platform mobile applications that are highly scalable and agile. The use of common scripting languages such as CSS, HTML and JavaScript assists in developing a simple and organized Cordova framework, which makes it a popular framework among app developers.
Advantages
Let’s have a look at some of the advantages of creating apps on Cordova :
It is a hybrid script framework which uses standard web API’s for all well known operating platforms.
The Cordova application developers only need to know web development using HTML5, CSS3 and JavaScript.Cordova takes over the rest of the work to be done.
Using Cordova, a developer can create applications for operating systems like iOS, Android, BlackBerry and Windows Phone. The Cordova developer need not be an expert of either of the above mentioned operating system.
Cordova has edge over the others simply due to the coverage of the framework.
The Cordova project consists of three main things—a command line tool, access to hardware features, and the ability to support future features.
Need for Cordova plugin in pCloudy
pCloudy being a unified mobile app testing platform is used both by developers and testers. pCloudy offers DeviceTunnel feature for developers to connect to a real device on cloud and use the device as if it’s connected to their local USB. Currently the DeviceTunnel is possible through Android Studio/Eclipse and XCode plugins. Although developers could create builds perfectly using any of the IDEs on the platform, Cordova developers looked for a seamless way of creating apps on a command line tool.
As mentioned earlier, Cordova is a popular open source app development framework among developers and there was a need of command line DeviceTunnel Interface to pCloudy so that developers could build their Android or iOS apps and put it to test on a real device on pCloudy. Now, pCloudy real devices on cloud can be accessed by running few commands on the command line interface.
Let’s see how this works with Cordova.
Note: pCloudy command Line DeviceTunnel Interface is only available for Android devices on Public cloud. It is available for both Android and iOS on private and on-premise cloud.
pCloudy is a unified mobile app testing platform which is trusted by its users for its excellent performance. We have more than 30,000 users across the globe, and we have received an overwhelming response for our platform. From bot testing to crowd testing, pCloudy has always been a front runner in the market. And with the launch of pCloudy 5.0, we are up for the challenge once again. It is a re-imagined and re-worked upon platform created in-line with intelligence to meet the market demands and accelerate delivery.
a) iOS Connect: One of the very powerful features that we added is the iOS Connect. The major challenge iOS developers had been facing was the debugging of their iOS apps because of the difficult Apple guidelines regarding building any utility . We are proud to say that we have been successful in cracking that.
With iOS Connect, you can connect to an iOS Device which is present remotely and access the device as if the device is connected to your computer. With iOS Connect we are bridging the gap for the iOS development life cycle.
b) Automation Studio: It is another promising feature that can revolutionize mobile app automation. We now have an in-built automation studio in pCloudy platform where you can access the devices to record your test scripts and execute it in parallel on multiple devices without writing any code.
There’s something more to it! If you already have your projects on Appium you can record your new workflows and export it to Appium Java format. This new integration would not only enable every user to start creating Automation scripts but it will also help Appium users to speed up their Automation. This makes pCloudy truly a Unified app testing platform.
c) Follow me: It is again one of the ‘wow’ features of pCloudy 5.0. This feature can speed up your App Testing exponentially. Follow me allows you to test your apps on 3 unique device while performing your test on only 1 device, thus saving your testing time multi-folds.
Re-Imagined UI
It has been designed to give a leaner, simpler and faster user experience. The look and feel of the pCloudy platform has been transformed keeping in mind the requirements, usability and ease of our users. All the pages have been made more intuitive. To simplify, we have grouped the actions together to save your time in figuring out the next step.
a) True Collaboration: We have introduced a powerful feature on our revamped Device Interaction page. Now, you can take the screenshot of the action you are performing and see the screenshot next to the device. But, the icing on the cake is that you can edit the screenshot, save it and log a bug directly to the JIRA enabling true collaboration between the developers and testers.
b) Global File Storage: Heeding to the demands of our users we have reduced the clicks to perform any action on the File browsing /storage page. The file uploaded once will be available across all the different locations we have. It will also allow sharing of files across teams.
c) Comprehensive reports at a single stop: Now, to make the user experience simpler and faster, we have placed all your reports at single stop be it manual or automation across all locations. Not just that, you can see all reports in the same format with much detailed information. Raising bugs after analyzing reports is also possible from here.
d) Test Scheduler: We have re-designed this page based on a Guided interface where the interactions are more thoughtful, straightforward, and guide you to the next step. It needs zero learning to run automation scripts on multiple devices.
pCloudy 5.0 is another breakthrough for us. After launching pCloudy 5.0, it is time to get feedback on a larger scale. We’re going to continue improving the UI, the navigation, and add some futuristic features to make your app testing simpler and faster. While we do that, we’d love to continue getting feedback.
Testing a Mobile Web App can get knotty, especially when there are issues like obfuscated HTML/CSS/javascript code, improperly implemented HTTPS, browser inconsistencies, page load performance and so on. Moreover, few things like can be extremely agonizing while striving to support as wide a range of mobile devices as possible. So how do you overcome these issues? Using a Web Developer Tools or debugging extensions make debugging your web application easier. Here we’ll talk about the most popular one – the open source Google Chrome Developer Tools.
The Google Chrome Developer Tools is a consolidated environment built into Google Chrome Browser. It is used for web authoring, debugging, monitoring, optimizing, and understanding web applications or websites. (Sourced from Google Chrome DevTools)
Here are some of the key Chrome DevTools features
Inspect and edit the DOM and CSS of your website in real-time
Run code snippets from any page
Debug Obfuscated code
Set advanced breakpoints and debug JavaScript using graphical debugger
Troubleshoot Security issues
Analyze run-time and page performance to improve the speed of your app
Trace reflows and repaints as your app loads
The Chrome DevTools provides almost all the gears required to inspect, debug and monitor the performance of a Web App/mobile web. It also provides additional capabilities to simulate Mobile Devices to test and build mobile-first, responsive web sites. You can even debug web content on a real Android Device from a development machine. But, is it enough to test your Web App on just one or two devices?
Remote debugging using Chrome DevTools in integration with pCloudy’s Mobile Device Lab
Device fragmentation is a very real problem when testing Web apps on real devices, particularly for UI and functional tests. The number of devices with unique specifications and proprietary build variations has increased. At an advanced level, to fully test your Web App’s responsiveness and performance on real devices you will need to experiment your site on various platforms, across a number of device form factors. pCloudy’s Mobile Device Lab offers complete integration with Chrome DevTools to test your apps on real devices. This integration allows you to test Web Apps on a myriad of android devices with different sizes and configurations.
Here’s how most App developers test their Web Apps
Inspect and live edit your site’s design and content
Test and edit your site in live mode by inspecting all the HTML and CSS in your page. In the Elements Panel, you can live-edit a DOM node by simply double-clicking a selected element and making changes.
You can even live-edit style property names and values in the Styles pane. Examine and edit box model parameters.
It is also possible to edit the current element’s box model parameters by making changes to top, bottom, left, right values for the current element’s padding, border, and margin properties using the Computed pane.
Remote Debugging on real devices to fix errors in the code
Debugging Obfuscated Code: Make your code readable and easy to debug even after you’ve combined, minified or compiled it. You can easily change the formatting of your minimized code by clicking on { }.
Test the and optimize the performance of the Web App
The Network Panel allows you to see how your page renders, and time taken to render from start to end. To do this click into the “Network” panel, click on the camera icon and refresh the page on the device.
The Timeline panel helps you to record and analyze all the activities in your application as it runs. It’s the best place to start investigating perceived performance issues in your application.
To make a recording of a page load, open the Timeline panel, open the page that you want to record, and then reload the page. The Timeline panel automatically records the page reload. You can also record page interactions on the page and view the performance details through the recorded timeline.
Here are some more details you can view using the Record Timeline
Record the Timeline to analyze every event that occurred after a page load or a user interaction
View FPS, CPU, and network requests in the Overview pane
Click on an event within the Flame Chart to view details about it
Zoom in on a section of a recording to make analysis easier
Conclusion
“Using the right tools for the right job” is an old aphorism that applies to all domains including Software Development. As we’ve seen, Chrome Developer Tools has several features that helps you develop better, debug faster, and measure efficiently the performance of your website or application. The features discussed here are some of the most common ones used by developers, designers and testers to write, debug, monitor and optimize Websites and Web Apps. Using these features in integration with Mobile Device Lab like pCloudy can transmogrify the entire process of creating, testing and launching Websites and Web Apps.
