Apache Cordova gets a new look

The developers of Apache Cordova, the cross platform mobile application toolkit formerly known as PhoneGap (and Apache Callback), have a new look web site. Whilst the project is in incubation, Apache's process for bringing projects into compliance with the "Apache Way", the Cordova community decided that the project needed a web site with a complete overview of the project. The new site now clearly lists the supported platforms (Android, Bada, Blackberry, iOS, Mac OS X, Windows Phone) and associated git repositories, along with the documentation and code for the Weinre (Web Inspector Remote) tool.

Cordova will, as did PhoneGap, act as a platform for developers to build native mobile applications using only HTML, CSS and JavaScript. The site also contains details on how to contribute, where to find issue trackers and the workflow that is being employed by the project. The latter is notable because Cordova is one of the few Apache projects pioneering the use of Git. Downloads are currently not available from the site, but are planned in the near future.

In September 2011, PhoneGap's creator, Nitobi, announced it was going to contribute the platform to the Apache project; it would also look for a new name for the product due to "some litigious posturing over the PhoneGap Trademark". A few days later, it was announced that Adobe had acquired Nitobi. Adobe supported the plan to contribute the project to Apache, so the process continued. Since then, PhoneGap has been adopted into the Apache Incubator, had its name first changed to Callback, and then to Cordova. Development has continued though; in December, PhoneGap 1.3 was released with Windows Phone support and in January, PhoneGap 1.4 brought many bug fixes to the platform. The Nitobi developers have also continued developing and running their PhoneGap Build service which can automatically build PhoneGap apps for multiple platforms.

(djwm)