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An intro to the Ionic Framework

The Ionic Framework is the new gold standard in hybrid mobile app development.

It is a front-end framework that provides bootstrap-like app UI components as well as AngularJS based structure. This includes animations like page transitions, modals, and more.

Ionic has a lot of great code examples on Codepen, so you can easily adapt them to your project. Here’s an example of their side menu navigation.

See the Pen Side Menu and Navigation: Nightly by Ionic (@ionic) on CodePen.

Here’s an example of an app intro/walkthrough.

See the Pen App Intro Walkthrough: 1.0.0-beta.12 by Ionic (@ionic) on CodePen.

Here’s a nice modal window (click the pencil icon at the top right).

See the Pen Modal: 1.0.0-beta.12 by Ionic (@ionic) on CodePen.

Here’s an example of pull to refresh.

See the Pen Pull To Refresh: 1.0.0-beta.12 by Ionic (@ionic) on CodePen.

The performance of apps built on Ionic is incredible, and as you can see the UI components feel very native. (They work even better on a device).

So what should we do with it?

Ionic + WordPress

The real magic happens when we integrate the Ionic framework with the new WordPress REST API.

We’ve talked about the REST API in other posts, so I won’t go into technical details here. Basically we pull in data like posts and pages from WordPress, and display them in the app using Ionic.

So what does an app built with Ionic + WordPress look like? It looks awesome, check out List25 for an example.

Ionic provides native-like mobile app UI and animations, and super fast performance. We can use any data that is available in the WP API, and even cache it for offline use.

The WP API works differently than “normal” WordPress, for example things like shortcodes don’t always work. However, we can still do lots of cool stuff like use geolocation, push notifications, and much more.

How to build an app with Ionic + WordPress

Using Ionic with WordPress requires knowledge of Angularjs, the REST API, and more. I’ll have to save the technical details for another post. However, there is an easier way…

screenshot-apppreview

The Ionic Framework works so well with the WordPress REST API that we built an entire app builder around it. It’s called Reactor, and it allows you to easily build mobile apps using your WordPress content, and even custom non-WordPress content.

We’ve used other hybrid app development frameworks, and I can confidently say Ionic is the best. If you have a custom project (even non-WordPress related) I’d highly recommend giving it a try.

8 Comments

  1. Bill Kuper (@DigitalFarm) on November 6, 2014 at 12:02 pm

    Hi Scott,
    So what happens if we use a theme or plugins that utilize short codes? Is there a workaround? And what might make some short codes work but not others?
    Bill

    • Scott Bolinger on November 6, 2014 at 10:43 pm

      Hi Bill, Reactor doesn’t work like that, it only uses data from your site. You won’t see your theme at all in the app. Shortcodes don’t usually work, but there are workarounds for many WordPress features. I’ll make a video soon to help explain how it all works 🙂

      • sopheakpeas on November 11, 2014 at 10:43 pm

        I feel so hungry to watch your demo soon



  2. normannnn on November 18, 2014 at 11:55 am

    Hi, I experienced an error while trying to:

    Get the free AppPresser Developer Handbook!

    The error message was:

    There was an error saving the data to Mailchimp. MMERGE1 must be provided – Please enter a value

    • Scott Bolinger on November 18, 2014 at 12:50 pm

      Hi, I’m sorry about that. It should be fixed now, can you refresh and try again? Let me know if you have any trouble. Thanks!

  3. WPGG on January 31, 2015 at 6:51 pm

    I am a newbie who knows wordpress and have installed few themes and custom plugins. Also have learnt little basic about ionic and have created custom apps using this. How do I get started with reactor?

  4. Jinnie Femme on December 17, 2016 at 8:25 am

    Hi guys, this seems very interesting. Can we make use of our apppresser subscription for the reactor products?

    Thanks!

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Scott Bolinger