Getting Started
From WebOS101
Contents |
Getting Started
The good news about developing applications for webOS is that the barrier to entry is very low: you don't even need a webOS device. Practically anyone can begin developing apps very quickly. The Mojo SDK and Tools to develop apps are available on Windows, Mac and Linux. Even easier, you can get your feet wet developing apps with Palm's Web-based Ares development tool.
- Note that this article is significantly out of date, and needs significant work.
Requirements
Unless you will be testing app development on Ares and do not wish to install to an actually device or run in the emulator, you must first download and install the Mojo SDK. In order to download the SDK you must first visit the Palm developer portal and sign up for a developer account. In addition, the SDK has some prerequisites.
- Palm Mojo SDK
- Java Runtime Environment
- VirtualBox (3.0.4 or Newer)
- Any Modern Web Browser (Mozilla Firefox, Opera, Google Chrome, Camino, Safari, etc.)
For more information on installing for your specific platform click one of the platforms above.
Hello World
In order to make sure the SDK is properly installed and working we'll create our first application. Check out the Hello World example on the Palm Developer Portal.
There is also an example for the Enyo framework.
Next Steps
For games, checkout the canvas article or the PDK A To Z Tutorial Series. For applications that take advantage of Palm's UI/toolkit, take a look at the Mojo SDK. To understand the structure and concepts of webOS better, take a look at concepts.
Tutorials
Mobiletuts has a tutorial series on webOS SDK Development:
- Introduction to webOS SDK Development Introduction to Programming
- Introduction to webOS SDK Development: Part 2 Tutorial on Lists
- Introduction to webOS SDK Development: Part 3 Tutorial on dynamic list loading using AJAX and YQL.
- Introduction to webOS SDK Development: Part 4 Tutorial on WebView, List reordering, deleting and persistence with the help of Cookies
- Introduction to webOS SDK Development: Part 5 Tutorial on orientation, app menu and how to submit an app to the app catalog
The Pronounceable Password Generator Tutorial will take you through developing a complete App using Palm's Ares browser based IDE.
References
For anyone that is new to JavaScript programming, here are a couple of references to help you get started:
- O'Reilly Webcast - Palm webOS: Application Basics shows how to use lots of the webOS tools and explains the fundamentals of application development for WebOS
- JavaScript The Good Parts (link to amazon.com so you can read reviews) is a really good discussion of how to use JavaScript correctly and avoid the gotchas.
- The Prototype documentation is helpful to know since the WebOS framework uses it rather heavily (especially read the Function section about bind() and bindAsEventListener()).
- Basic CSS reference and Advanced WebKit-specific CSS
