The other day I was attempting to build and test a simple example Phonegap application for Android on my Windows box. Unfortunately, I was unable to successfully execute the “droidgap” call using ruby and Git Bash.
It would kinda build out a structure and then would bomb when attempting to build out the .jar file.
Thankfully, Stack Overflow to the rescue (again)!
phonegap android sample project not building – Stack Overflow
The important point is that, evidently, the droidgap build script needed to call “ant.bat” on Windows (as opposed to just “ant”). This was even with the path to ant set in my PATH environment variable.
Thanks again, Stack Overflow.
No, the Tools are Not Free.
Just as a commentary, the hurdles to get to point zero with building an Android application – and by extension Phonegap – is just a bit ridiculous. I’m dreading the thought of having to do updates as well, but hopefully some time will pass before that’s necessary. “But they’re free!” some will say. Actually, it’s not really true. When you consider the amount of time it took to download all the various-and-sundry parts of the environment and get them all installed and (hopefully) working, it’s at least a few hundred dollars worth of time spent on what should be a one-or-two step installation process.
Seriously, doing the same process for iPhone is much simpler, and I’ll be interested to see how things pan out for Windows Phone 7 development.