Before I download this

[Phil_P___Pete_]

I've developed a few projects in phonegap/cordova and its very M.E.S.S.Y.

So, before I download yet another tool that promises an integrated environment but requires you to have nodejs, npm, the ADK etc installed I want to ask a few questions:

1. Is this truly an integrated environment or a trick like Android Developer Studio that really can't do cordova projects?
2. What things do I need to have preinstalled to get this to work?
3. Where is the build done? Locally or in the cloud?
4. How much space does this take? (eclipse + nodejs + npm + grunt + adk + sdk 21-23 takes over 30GB)
5. Is there a way to import existing cordova projects? What about PGB projects?

Has anyone else on here made the move over to XDK and if so, was it A) worth it? B) what are some of the tips/tricks?

Thanks!

[Mark_E_2]

Hi Phil,

You ask a lot of good questions.  I recently wrote a blog post that, I think, addresses many of your concerns:

http://logixware.blogspot.com/2015/09/hybrid-mobile-app-development-with...

Bottom-line, the tool is not perfect, but I have been happy with my decision to use Intel XDK.

-Mark

[Phil_P___Pete_]

Thanks, I'll read it...

I'd still like more comments because, as anyone knows, downloading, installing, configuring, battling with switching environments etc. is extremely painful and since I'm just returning to cordova/phonegap there have been a lot of changes and new requirements that have wasted a whole lot of my time. (read frustrated the pants off me!)

[Dale_S_Intel]

I can answer a few of these questions.  Disclaimer - I work here (on the XDK team).

1 - I'm not 100% sure what you mean, but I think it's safe to say that Intel XDK is an integrated environment.  It contains all you need for Creating and Editing files, managing Cordova plugins and other build settings, several different ways of testing and debugging your app, some profiling and finally building.  Things that are not currently integrated would include stuff like git for project management and bower for package management, but those are not required to make an app (though they might be handy).

2 - I don't think you need anything pre-installed.

3 - The build is done in the cloud, your project is copied up onto our build servers where the build is done for either Android, iOS or Windows.  This is probably part of the reason it's quite a bit smaller than some alternatives.  Aspects of testing and debugging also require internet access to connect to our cloud such as App Preview for testing, or the built in usb Debugging, which can build a custom container for testing your app with third party plugins.

4 - It looks like the latest download is 173M, and when it's installed on my Mac it's about 432M.

5 - There is a way to import existing HTML5 apps, and to indicate whether you want the imported app to be a Cordova app.  I don't think it will automatically import your plugins, so you'll have to add them manually.  There may be some other manual steps, but I'm not 100% sure.

[Phil_P___Pete_]

If it wasn't so sad, this would just be plain funny...

After asking the above questions, doing some research, reading the forums, watching some videos I finally decided to download and install the XDK for windows.

So I downloaded this file: File: xdk_web_win_master_2727.exe.

And guess what happened... I got an error on install...

Package Signature Verification Failed

See attached image...

I downloaded it twice in each of Chrome and Firefox... Firefox wouldn't even save the file.

[PaulF_IntelCorp]

Are you trying to install on Windows XP? The XDK requires Windows 7 or higher (it is built on top of node-webkit, which requires at least Windows 7 to work properly). Please see this forum note: https://software.intel.com/en-us/forums/intel-xdk/topic/598065

[Dale_S_Intel]

By any chance is your machine Running Windows XP?  XDK needs Windows 7 or later.

I know that error message is not particularly helpful, We'll work on making it more meaningful.

Dale