It is a common misconception that web-based mobile applications like those built with Ionic are not capable of creating performant animations. The fact that an application built with Ionic runs inside of a browser does make it harder to create performant animations, but if you are aware of some common pitfalls when it comes to […]
Setting up Custom Components in Ionic
It’s not immediately obvious how to go about setting up custom components that you have added to your Ionic application. In this video, we discuss a few different methods we can use to make our components available to use, and some of the pros and cons of each approach. Here’s the video: What to watch […]
Safely Modifying Elements with ElementRef & Renderer in Ionic
There often comes a time where we will need to modify the properties of an element in our application: its background color, or its position, or something else. By using ElementRef we are able to easily get a reference to an element and its properties, and although we can modify the element’s properties directly through […]
Dealing with Timing Issues in Ionic E2E Tests
When creating End-to-End (E2E) tests, we are basically programming the browser to behave like a human. We tell the browser what pages to go to, what input to send, what buttons to click, and so on. In a typical E2E test, we will send multiple commands to the browser. We might tell it to click […]
Uploading a Production PWA with Ionic
In a recent tutorial, I covered how to create a Progressive Web application with Ionic using the “bare minimum” steps. PWAs are an in-depth topic, but that tutorial covers the minimum steps required to create something that would be considered a PWA. In this video tutorial, I wanted to cover the steps you need to […]
What Does Lazy Loading Do in Ionic?
Lazy loading has been around for a while now, and it’s likely that you’ve had at least some experience with it if you have been building Ionic applications recently (the Ionic CLI page generator uses lazy loading by default). If you aren’t familiar with lazy loading, then you might be interested in checking out this […]
The Role of End-To-End (E2E) Tests in Ionic
End-To-End (E2E) testing involves creating automated tests that will test your application as a whole, rather than testing individual chunks of code in isolation (which is the purpose of a unit test). In this video tutorial, I walk through a real-world application that has some e2e tests implemented and discuss the purpose and value of […]
The Role of Unit Tests in Ionic
Unit testing is an intimidating task to get started with, and with no prior knowledge of creating automated tests, it can be hard to understand the how and why of unit testing. In this video, I walk through some unit tests I have set up for a real-world application I am working on, and we […]
Setting Up Unit and E2E Tests in Ionic
I’ve written many tutorials on adding automated tests to Ionic applications, but one of the trickiest parts of the whole process is just getting the testing environment configured. If you want to set up unit and end-to-end tests you will need to install Jasmine, Karma, Protractor, and an array of other packages that need to […]
[VIDEO] SVG Animations in Ionic
I recently wrote a blog post that introduced the concept of the SVG (Scalable Vector Graphic) format and how you might be able to use that in an Ionic application. You can read more about that here but the basic idea is that SVGs are vector graphics (so they can be scaled to any size […]
Extracting the Source Code of any Cordova Application
A common misconception when building Cordova applications (which is what we use to create native packages when using frameworks like Ionic), is that the source code for those applications are secure because they are bundled into a single .ipa or .apk file. However, it is quite easy to download any Cordova application from the app […]
Using a Canvas to Create a Drawing App in Ionic – Part 2
The HTML5 <canvas> element provides a space on the screen that we can “draw” on through using a Javascript API. We are able to do things like defining paths and shapes, and we can then trace those with various colours or just fill in entire shapes. There’s a lot of creative uses for the canvas […]
Using a Canvas to Create a Drawing App in Ionic – Part 1
The HTML5 <canvas> element provides a space on the screen that we can “draw” on through using a Javascript API. We are able to do things like defining paths and shapes, and we can then trace those with various colours or just fill in entire shapes. There’s a lot of creative uses for the canvas […]
Asynchronous vs Synchronous: Understanding the Difference
Understanding the difference between asynchronous and synchronous code, as well as its implications, is an important topic and I have covered it a couple of times previously. Recently, I wrote an article that discussed a common asynchronous situation in Ionic that can lead to confusion. Click here to watch the video on YouTube I thought […]
“Live” Coding a Speed Reading Application in Ionic – Part 2
This is the second (and last) part of another “live” coding screencast. In this video, I walk through building a speed reading application that will flash one word on the screen at a time, allow the user to control the speed of which those words appear on the screen, and allow the user to easily […]
“Live” Coding a Speed Reading Application in Ionic – Part 1
Time for another “live” coding video. In these screencasts, rather than having the specifics of the video planned out, I only have a vague idea of what I want to build and then I record the process of building it – including all of the mistakes. In this video, I walk through building a speed […]
What’s New in Ionic 3?
You’ve probably heard by now, but the 3.0.0 release of Ionic is now officially available. If you’re not sure what exactly that means in relation to Ionic 2, I’d recommend watching my last video on the topic. In short, Ionic 3 is just a major update to Ionic 2, it’s not a totally new framework. […]
Drab to Fab: Styling an Ionic Application – Part 1
I’ve spent the past few weeks creating a series of tutorials on using CouchDB and PouchDB in Ionic and in that series we’ve managed to build out quite a lot of functionality. There was absolutely zero thought of effort put into the design though, all the work was purely functional, so I thought it would […]
What Does Ionic 3 Mean for Ionic 2?
If you started out on Ionic 1, maybe you’re at the point now where you feel settled and comfortable after taking on the challenge of switching over to Ionic 2. If you don’t follow the particulars of versioning trends for frameworks, you might just about fall out of your seat when learning that Ionic 3 […]
[VIDEO] @ViewChildren vs @ContentChildren in Ionic
I recently release an article that explored The Difference Between @ViewChildren and @ContentChildren in the context of Ionic, but it is a subtle difference and I wanted to make sure I hit the point home. So, I’ve recorded a video where I discuss the difference in a little more detail and also walk through some […]
Mocking Plugins with Ionic Native
The Ionic Native 3.x update means that we can now mock native plugin functionality in the browser. This video tutorial walks through some of the changes in Ionic Native 3.x, as well as how you can create your own mocks for plugins. Here’s the video: What to watch next…
“Live” Coding an Expandable Header Component in Ionic 2 – Part 2
In this two part screencast, I walk through building this user interface in Ionic 2. The end result is a custom header component that expands and shrinks as the user controls, and any elements that no longer fit in the header as it shrinks will fade out. Here’s what it will look like when it’s […]
“Live” Coding an Expandable Header Component in Ionic 2 – Part 1
In this two part screencast, I walk through building this user interface in Ionic 2. The end result is a custom header component that expands and shrinks as the user controls, and any elements that no longer fit in the header as it shrinks will fade out. Here’s what it will look like when it’s […]
Getting Familiar with CouchDB and Futon
Over the past few weeks, I’ve been working on writing a series of tutorials on how to use CouchDB and PouchDB in Ionic 2. This video tutorial is sort of an aside to that – I wanted to create a demonstration of creating CouchDB databases and playing around with the data a bit, just to […]