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A Ionic 2 plugin !

Hi Wikitude Team and Community.


Ionic 2 becomes an increasingly popular framework for hybrid app development. I can see a lot of demand on this forum about how to integrate Ionic 2 with Wikitude. Also I let you check the google trend below.


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In my company, we are currently redeveloping our app based on Ionic 2 and typescript. We are quite happy with this solution as it allows better quality and modularity in our code. However when it comes to integrate Ionic 2 with Wikitude, things becomes complicated. 


As you may now, the Wikitude Cordova plugin works this way : a first « Cordova Webview » is used to instantiate an « AR Webview » where augmented reality magic happens. To create an app, you then have then to compose with these two different and rather separated context. In particular the AR web view does not have direct access to Cordova’s module and plugins.


To integrate Ionic 2, a first approach, followed by Schneeweis Technology in their Ionic2+Wikitude starter app, is to have Ionic 2 running in the initial Cordova webview. The problem is that we can’t have any Ionic Component in the AR view.


Another approach is to instantiate Ionic 2 in the AR View, but then we can’t use any of the native Ionic 2 plugins from there. Also I guess it may cause some problems with performance (?).


With the development of a proper Ionic 2 plugin, Wikitude could maybe review their Cordova architecture to unify the 2 webviews (Cordova + AR Webview).  The AR View will therefore become a proper Ionic 2 Component, in an unified programmatic context. 


This is just an idea, and I can easily imagine that some technical constraints make it quite complicated to develop. However, given the popularity of Ionic 2, in particular on this forum, it would be great if Wikitude would consider such a development !   





4 people like this idea

4 months with no reply from the Wikitude team...

Wikitude, do you plan to implement something like this in the near future? Or even Angular 2 / Typescript support?


1 person likes this
Hello Shane,

We already have Ionic 2 support in our feature list but I cannot give you any specific timeline when it will be implemented. However, there is a Wikitude Ionic 2 Starter App in the Ionic Market that you can use (https://market.ionic.io/starters/wikitude-ionic-2-starter-app), but we do not offer any official support yet.

Regarding Angular 2 and Typescript, I do not think that they are associated with whether we offer support for Ionic 2 or not. Nonetheless, you can implement Angular 2 with our Wikitude SDK and the same applies for Typescript. You can use Wikitude in a TypeScript project, but you need a type definitions file.

Thanks
Eva


 


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