(Open on your iPhone or iPad!)
jQuery Mobile is a great framework for building mobile web apps, and as the 1.0 release gets nearer it’s really starting to mature into a stable platform.
In my previous jQuery Mobile article, I gave a quick overview of jQuery Mobile’s headline features. In this tutorial you’ll delve deeper into jQuery Mobile. You’ll build a simple, nice-looking, easy-to-use iPhone Twitter app called “CloseFriends” that displays your closest Twitter friends’ latest tweets.
You’ll explore the following topics as you work through the tutorial:
- How to build a web app using just HTML, CSS and JavaScript (no server-side code).
- Making an app that can be installed and launched from the iPhone home screen.
- Creating rich mobile interfaces using jQuery Mobile, including page transitions, list views, buttons and dialogs.
- Using Scott Jehl’s excellent pagination plugin to create a sequence of draggable “latest tweet” pages, much like the native iOS Weather app.
- Tweaking the pagination plugin to create a nicer swipe experience.
- Working with the Twitter API using JavaScript.
- How to use HTML5 local storage to store data persistently in the browser.
- Creating your own jQuery Mobile swatches to theme your app.
- Working with jQuery Mobile events.
- Adapting to different device screen sizes and orientations.
- …and lots more!
You can try out the finished app on your iOS device by tapping the View Demo button above, and download the complete code and image files by clicking the Download Code button.
To get the most from this tutorial, it helps to have some familiarity with JavaScript, jQuery and jQuery Mobile. A great way to get up to speed quickly with jQuery Mobile is to read my comprehensive eBook, Master Mobile Web Apps with jQuery Mobile.
Ready to build the CloseFriends app? Let’s go!
[Read more…] about jQuery Mobile Masterclass: Build a Simple, Attractive Twitter App for iPhone