20 recipes for programming Phone Gap by Jamie Munro.

Disclaimer: I got this book as part of the bloggers review program at O’Reilly.

<img class=“img-float-right” src=”/images/posts/20_recipes_for_programming_phonegap.gif” border=“0″ alt=“20 recipes for programming phonegap – book cover”/>The book doesn’t waste any time and after a brief introduction and some setup instructions, it gets right into it.

Jamie Munro not only uses Phone Gap but JQuery mobile to build the UI. So, the book serves as a good beginner reference for that library as well.

It’s very well organized and each recipe builds on the previous one while keeping them fairly independent at the same time.
I will recommend you read the book in order the first time. It will give you a good idea of the capabilities and how some of the features and code builds on the previous chapter.
When using it as a reference you should have no problems going to a particular chapter.

You will learn how to detect if the device is ready, how to get information about the handset, creating menus, how to work with the network, sand boxing your application.

GPS and maps, compass and use the accelerometer are also covered in the first section.

There are several recipes that show how to interact with the device contacts and display tabular data.

Working with the camera and pictures are covered in a short recipe, while capturing audio and video share another one.

Notifications (alerts, vibrate and confirms) are shown near the end of the book.

Another set of recipes deal with storing and retrieving data from the device.

The last recipe teaches you how to create and extend plug-ins for Phone Gap

It’s a good resource to get you up and running immediately with Phone Gap. It covers some of the most common tasks you will have to deal with when creating a mobile application. Good reference to keep close by.