The best place to start with Ionic is our documentation page.
Ionic currently best supports iOS 7+ and Android 4.1+.
What is Ionic?
Ionic is the open source HTML5 Mobile Framework for building amazing, cross-platform hybrid native apps with HTML, JavaScript, and CSS.
We built Ionic because we wanted a framework that focused on building hybrid native apps, rather than mobile websites. We wanted this framework to be obsessive about great design and performance. A framework that left the past behind and focused on the future where mobile devices could make HTML5 feel native.
It's important to realize that Ionic is not a replacement for frameworks used for building mobile web apps. There are a lot of great solutions that work well for websites, like jQuery Mobile.
Ionic is also not a good solution if you need to support older generation devices. Our compatibility starts at iOS 6 and Android 4.1. We will never support versions earlier than those. This is a framework for the future. Learn more: Where does the Ionic Framework fit in?
Quick Start
To start using ionic, you have two options: copy over the built JS and CSS files, or
use the ionic
tool (ionic-cli) which can be installed through npm: (You may need to prefix the command with sudo
depending on your OS and setup.)
$ npm install -g ionic
Then, you can start a new ionic project by running:
$ ionic start myproject
Manual Start
- Download the latest stable release from:
- The
release
folder of this repository - Ionic CDN: Latest Release
- Using bower:
bower install ionic
- The
- Download the bleeding edge just-from-master release from:
- Ionic CDN: Nightly Build
- Using bower:
bower install driftyco/ionic-bower#master
Once you have a release, use js/ionic.js
, js/ionic-angular.js
, and css/ionic.css
.
For most cases, you'll need AngularJS as well. This is bundled in js/angular/
and js/angular-ui-router/
.
Demos
Community
- Follow @ionicframework on Twitter
- Subscribe to the Ionic Newsletter
- Have a question that's not a feature request or bug report? Discuss on the Ionic Forum
- Read our Blog
- Have a feature request or find a bug? Submit an issue
Authors
Originally created by Adam Bradley, Ben Sperry, and Max Lynch, Ionic has seen hundreds of great contributors from around the world, including Ionic Team Members Perry Govier, Mike Hartington, and Tim Lancina.
Development
npm install && npm install -g gulp protractor
to setup- (if you wish to run end-to-end tests):
webdriver-manager update --chrome
to install the webdriver. gulp
orgulp build
to buildgulp docs
to generate docs (read Documentation below for how to test docs locally).gulp build --release
to build with minification & strip debugsgulp watch
to watch and rebuild on changegulp karma
to test one-timegulp karma-watch
to test and re-run on source changegulp snapshot
to test e2e tests locally (rungulp demos
first to generate e2e tests). Be sure to run./node_modules/.bin/webdriver-manager update --chrome
to first install the chrome webdriver dependency.
Documentation
- Documentation is generated into
dist/ionic-site
. To test documentation properly, follow these steps:- Clone ionic-site into
./dist/ionic-site
git clone [email protected]:driftyco/ionic-site dist/ionic-site
- Start jekyll, telling it to rebuild whenever the site changes
cd dist/ionic-site && jekyll serve -w
- Go back to project root and build the docs
gulp docs [--doc-version=(versionName|nightly)]
- Open localhost:4000 and see your changes! Re-run
gulp docs
again whenever you change something, and jekyll will update the site
- Clone ionic-site into
Demos / Kitchen Sink
- The demo site is generated into
dist/ionic-demo
. To test the demos, follow these steps:- Run
gulp demos [--demo-version=(versionName|nightly)]
- Start an http server from
dist/ionic-demo
:
cd dist/ionic-demo && python -m SimpleHTTPServer
- Navigate to
http://localhost:8000/{versionName|nightly}
and use the demos - Run
gulp demos
again whenever you change the demos
- Run
Commit Conventions
- Uses these commit conventions
Pushing New Release of Ionic
- Almost all of the logic for releasing Ionic is done on the Travis server
- To push a new release:
- Update package.json version to new version
- Generate changelog with
gulp changelog
- Go through the changelog, and fix any mistakes or clarify any unclear commit messages
- Commit package.json and CHANGELOG.md and push to master
- Travis will detect that this commit changed the version in package.json and push out all necessary for this new release (tags, release files, site config, ...)
LICENSE
Ionic is licensed under the MIT Open Source license. For more information, see the LICENSE file in this repository.