| page.title=Web Apps Overview |
| @jd:body |
| |
| <div class="figure" style="width:327px"> |
| <img src="{@docRoot}images/webapps/webapps.png" alt="" /> |
| <p class="img-caption"><strong>Figure 1.</strong> You can make your web content available to |
| users in two ways: in a traditional web browser and in an Android application, by |
| including a WebView in the layout.</p> |
| </div> |
| |
| <p>There are essentially two ways to deliver an application on Android: as a |
| client-side application (developed using the Android SDK and installed on user devices as an {@code |
| .apk}) or as a web application (developed using web standards and accessed through a web |
| browser—there's nothing to install on user devices).</p> |
| |
| <p>The approach you choose for your application could depend on several factors, but Android makes |
| the decision to develop a web application easier by providing:</p> |
| <ul> |
| <li>Support for viewport properties that allow you to properly size your web application |
| based on the screen size</li> |
| <li>CSS and JavaScript features that allow you to provide different styles and images |
| based on the screen's pixel density (screen resolution)</li> |
| </ul> |
| |
| <p>Thus, your decision to develop a web application for Android can exclude consideration for |
| screen support, because it's already easy to make your web pages look good on all types of screens |
| powered by Android.</p> |
| |
| <p>Another great feature of Android is that you don't have to build your application purely on |
| the client or purely on the web. You can mix the two together by developing a client-side Android |
| application that embeds some web pages (using a {@link android.webkit.WebView} in your Android |
| application layout). Figure 1 visualizes how you can provide access to your web pages from either |
| a web browser or your Android application. However, you shouldn't develop an Android |
| application simply as a means to launch your web site. Rather, the web pages you embed in your |
| Android application should be designed especially for that environment. You can even define an |
| interface between your Android application and your web pages that allows JavaScript in the web |
| pages to call upon APIs in your Android application—providing Android APIs to your web-based |
| application.</p> |
| |
| <p>Since Android 1.0, {@link android.webkit.WebView} has been available for Android |
| applications to embed web content in their layout and bind JavaScript to Android APIs. After |
| Android added support for more screen densities (adding support for high and low-density |
| screens), Android 2.0 added features to the WebKit framework to allow web pages to specify |
| viewport properties and query the screen density in order to modify styles |
| and image assets, as mentioned above. Because these features are a part of Android's WebKit |
| framework, both the Android Browser (the default web browser provided with the platform) and |
| {@link android.webkit.WebView} support the same viewport and screen density features.</p> |
| |
| <p>To develop a web application for Android-powered devices, you should read the |
| following documents:</p> |
| |
| <dl> |
| <dt><a href="{@docRoot}guide/webapps/targeting.html"><strong>Targeting Screens from Web |
| Apps</strong></a></dt> |
| <dd>How to properly size your web app on Android-powered devices and support |
| multiple screen densities. The information in this document is important if you're building a web |
| application that you at least expect to be available on Android-powered devices (which you should |
| assume for anything you publish on the web), but especially if you're targeting mobile devices |
| or using {@link android.webkit.WebView}.</dd> |
| <dt><a href="{@docRoot}guide/webapps/webview.html"><strong>Building Web Apps in |
| WebView</strong></a></dt> |
| <dd>How to embed web pages into your Android application using {@link android.webkit.WebView} and |
| bind JavaScript to Android APIs.</dd> |
| <dt><a href="{@docRoot}guide/webapps/debugging.html"><strong>Debugging Web Apps</strong></a></dt> |
| <dd>How to debug web apps using JavaScript Console APIs.</dd> |
| <dt><a href="{@docRoot}guide/webapps/best-practices.html"><strong>Best Practices for Web</strong> |
| Apps</a></dt> |
| <dd>A list of practices you should follow, in order to provide an effective web application on |
| Android-powered devices.</dd> |
| </dl> |
| |
