Phone gap allows you to dev a simple HTML5/CSS/JS app and deploy the same webapp in a phone. The app runs as a WebView, but has access to underlying device api’s via plugins.

The trick is that you do your html5/JS app AND build the deployable which mixes in the platform specific plugins and libs that allow the magic to happen.

once done you can create a app like this:- $ cordova create hello com.example.hello HelloWorld

and add particular platforms like Ubuntu or Android or IOS. like this $ cordova platform add ios $ cordova platform add amazon-fireos $ cordova platform add android $ cordova platform add blackberry10 $ cordova platform add firefoxos

The thing that may mess you up is that you need to install the various platform SDK’s first, so to develop UBUNTU widgets:- on ubuntu do : this

For android install the Android SDK * download the adt zip file from here * unzip it somewhere eg $HOME/android-sdk * set up your PATH as described here - put this in your .bashrc file:- export PATH=${PATH}:/$HOME/android-sdk/sdk/platform-tools:/$HOME/android-sdk/adt-bundle/sdk/tools - source ~/.bashrc [robertk@Katana hello]$ cordova platform add android Creating android project…

/home/robertk/.cordova/lib/android/cordova/3.5.0/bin/node_modules/q/q.js:126
                    throw e;
                          ^
Error: Please install Android target 19 (the Android newest SDK). Make sure you have the latest Android tools installed as well. Run "android" from your command-line to install/update any missing SDKs or tools.
  at /home/robertk/.cordova/lib/android/cordova/3.5.0/bin/lib/check_reqs.js:80:29
  at _fulfilled (/home/robertk/.cordova/lib/android/cordova/3.5.0/bin/node_modules/q/q.js:798:54)
  at self.promiseDispatch.done (/home/robertk/.cordova/lib/android/cordova/3.5.0/bin/node_modules/q/q.js:827:30)
  at Promise.promise.promiseDispatch (/home/robertk/.cordova/lib/android/cordova/3.5.0/bin/node_modules/q/q.js:760:13)
  at /home/robertk/.cordova/lib/android/cordova/3.5.0/bin/node_modules/q/q.js:574:44
  at flush (/home/robertk/.cordova/lib/android/cordova/3.5.0/bin/node_modules/q/q.js:108:17)
  at process._tickCallback (node.js:415:13)
Error: /home/robertk/.cordova/lib/android/cordova/3.5.0/bin/create: Command failed with exit code 8
  at ChildProcess.whenDone (/usr/share/cordova-cli/_vendor/cordova-lib/0.21.3/src/cordova/superspawn.js:131:23)
  at ChildProcess.EventEmitter.emit (events.js:98:17)
  at maybeClose (child_process.js:743:16)
  at Process.ChildProcess._handle.onexit (child_process.js:810:5)

• This shows that we need android version 19

• Once youve installed the sdk running cordova platform add android will now work