Develop Reference

Cordova based apk installion & developed file location

I am now learning cordova and i wanna know something.
Example, I have index.html & index.js in my cordova project.
I will build app and install it in my phone.
So the question is those two files index.html & index.js will be in app package folder inside phone local storage?
Thanks

Yes, the files show up in a hidden area on Android and iOS. Anyone with a rooted phone can see them. Don't store security keys in your code.
All Cordova really is is on Android and iOS is a reference to the embedded browser available on both systems and hook to load whatever page you specify in the config.xml. You can even set the config.xml starting file to be your webpack dev server. Therefore your html and JS files have to exist somewhere for the web browser to open them.

App to access file system and run in browser

I am willing to make a portable app using HTML CSS JS and similar languages that doesn't need any installation and can be accessed via a browser.
The app should be able to access the file system and create, write and delete files.
The required files will be on the local machine.
I have tried
Applets but the performance is too inconsistent and depends on browsers.
I have also tried using electron but the end result needs installation (correct me if I am wrong)
I am open to all suggestions

Electron's apps can be portable. Copy the electron build resulted folder into a pendrive and execute the main .exe file from there. Everything should work

What possibilities are around to debug Cordova apps (with native plugins)?

I am trying to debug a Cordova app that makes use of native plugins (for authentication, API access etc.). Therefore the app does not run from the browser/Ripple.
I am using Visual Studio Tool for Apache Cordova (TACO) now to emulate and put breakpoints/watches and single step through the code to debug. I am wondering if there are any good alternatives to single step through the code for Cordova apps with platform specific plugins.
It would be nice if it was possible to debug without relying in Visual Studio while developing. Are there solutions for this that work with other IDEs?

If you are testing on android while you're device is connected through ADB you can go on chrome://inspect on a new tab in chrome. When cordova app is running you can select inspect and debug like a web page your running app.

You can debug Android native code in Android Studio, iOS code - in XCode (on OSX).
Windows plugins code is best to debug in Visual Studio.
Visual Studio Code editor is handy to debugging the app (js) code (it also supports livereload if you have Ionic installed).

If you want to debug platform specific Plugin code then you have to use Visual Studio, Android Studio for sure.. Don't know about iOS..

How to have Grunt launch a packaged Chrome App

I've used the [yeoman chromeapp generator][1] to scaffold out a Google Chrome Packaged App. The instructions for that generator say running the command grunt debug should launch the packaged app in the Chrome App container, but it doesn't. Instead it opens the packaged app as a regular hosted web app in a tab. Though I am a Grunt noob I'm looking at Gruntfile.js trying to figure out why it doesn't launch the app as a packaged app in the app container, but can't see where the problem is. What's the proper way to get Grunt to launch a Chrome App?

Had the same issue with the Yeoman live-reload—not great for testing actual apps with background js, native permissions, etc.
To manually launch a Chrome app from a folder, I've been using this idiom: ~/Applications/Google\ Chrome.app/Contents/MacOS/Google\ Chrome --load-and-launch-app=/path/to/chrome/app/"
There's also this project chrome-app-livereload (blog post) which supposedly swaps out livereload's standard reload with one suitable for inclusion in an app.

You have to go to chrome://extensions, check the box Developer Mode and then click Load Unpacked Extension and point it to your manifest file. This will load your app in a Chrome App Container.

How to create .XAP extension file for windows phone

I have created a new Windows 8 JavaScript project using phoneGap,
My question is
how can i get .XAP extension file in Bin folder
as this is mandatory to run my application on windows device.
And also tell me one thing there is any other solution to make this .XAP extension file.
Because of using javascript i am not getting .XAP extension file.

First of all you need to check that you are configured for windows 8 or windows phone 8.
If you compile it as Windows Phone Project then you can get XAP from your project. Bin>>Debug>>Your project.XAP

You must either compile it, as a Windows Phone project, using Visual Studio. Or alternatively use the Adobe PhoneGap Build service, which allows you to send your code to the 'cloud' as a zip file. It will them build your app, returning IPA, APK, XAP and other native bundles.