Is there a difference between PhoneGap and Cordova commands?

Question

I just installed Phonegap for the first time and just browsed through the docs. What confuses me is the fact that some docs are using the command \"phonegap\" and some \"cor

Answer 1

From what I've read (and please correct me if Im wrong):

Phonegap claim that they started trying to make this but couldn't, so they passed it to the Apache Software Foundation.

Apache in their awesomeness (Long live Apache) fixed it, developed it, and made it supremely awesome.

Now Phonegap are trying to maintain and enhance a copy they took back, but keep stuffing it up.

So, by my thinking, I want a solid and trustworthy dev platform made by seasoned professionals that I can trust, rather than a patched upon sub-version of said. Therefore Id say I am a Cordova developer NOT a Phonegap developer.

Iv also read that in a second desperate attempt to gain popularity and control over the great works of Apache, Phonegap has now been sold under the Adobe flag. You know Adobe, they are the guys who do nothing for free and are so bad at maintaining software life-cycles that their apps need to perform updates every time you blink, and for some reason each of their apps are about 100 times the size you would expect.

I guess that is the summary of my research if I didn't read it wrongly.

And if true, then lets all drop this whole Phonegap nonsense and just stick with Cordova.

Answer 2

Above, Abhishek mentions the command line differences specified in two URLS:

1. PhoneGap: http://docs.phonegap.com/en/edge/guide_cli_index.md.html

2. Cordova: http://cordova.apache.org/docs/en/3.0.0/guide_cli_index.md.html#The%20Command-line%20Interface

One thing to point out is that, as of this post, the phonegap one looks to be almost the same as the cordova one, and is probably not an accurate image of the command line option differences. As such, I installed both on my system so I could look at the differences.

These are just a few of them. Hopefully they are brought more in sync sometime. If anyone has better information, please tell me.

1. Adding platforms seems to be done differently between the two commands ( phonegap uses "install" command, cordova uses "platform add" command )
2. Adding/creating projects seems to be the same between the two commands ( same command line options supported )
3. Obviously, as has been stated, phonegap can use PhoneGap Build, so it has the corresponding options to trigger that or local builds
4. Quite a few other significant command line differences, simply by running "cordova help" and "phonegap help" and comparing the two.

I guess my point is that the phonegap CLI documention mentioned quite often is not really for the phonegap CLI, but for the cordova CLI, at this time. Please tell me if I am missing something. Thanks.

Answer 3

I found this difference which forced me to use a mixed bag of phonegap and cordova cli commands when building my app:

'phonegap plugin add' couldn't handle command line parameters correctly, whereas 'cordova platform add' works flawlessly

The command I use is:

'cordova plugin add https://github.com/crittercism/PhoneGap.git --variable IOS_APP_ID="[my_license_key]"

Note I am using phonegap 3.5

Answer 4

Late answer but I think this might be useful.

There are differences between the two cli, phonegapis a command that encapsulates cordova. In the create case the only difference is an overriden default app

In some other cases the difference is much more significant. For instance phonegap build comes with a remote build functionality while cordova build only supports local builds.

A big limitation I found to PhoneGap is that, AFAIK, you can only build a release APK using the PhoneGap Build service. On Cordova you can build with cordova build android --release.