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About to embark on a potentially large Ionic project. What were some of the issues that you had?

WayneBro 10y ago
I am about to release my largest Ionic project to date. It is a highly dynamic data entry and reporting system for field workers. My client is able to create and publish new data entry forms and reports from the private back and angular web app that I built for them. The lack of any kind of commercial support is real and frankly that is the largest issue that you will have to deal with. I have searched high and low for any kind of commercial support that I can offer my customer. I am it. Or somebody like me. However, I will say that in two years of using Ionic I have never had to modify one Cordova plug-in or any native code in order to release my apps. I do mess around with the native code sometimes but usually on an exploratory mission. Other than that, my biggest issue so far has been with how quickly ionic and Cordova get updated and how quickly my code gets out of date because of that. Then when I have to update I have to make sure that nothing breaks by writing all sorts of tests or doing manual testing yada yada yada. Also getting answers from support or anybody qualified is sometimes difficult and you have to wait days or just figure out your own work around.
MaxLegroom 10y ago
To be specific--and maybe this only pertains to version 1.x--I found managing navigation state in our largest app to be quite clumsy and at times, downright perplexing. In Swift, managing navigation state is relatively easy to reason about, though it is a bit more laborious to implement. The bigger issues were things like having access to leveraging background processes via Cordova. At last check, there was a plugin for backgrounding the app, but it came with a big, red warning that it may cause issues with Apple's App Store approval process. Another issue was the dismal state of background geolocation. There is a commercial plugin; however, I found the maintenance schedule to be quite lacking. As well, the maintainer of the plugin was quite abrasive and impolite toward users raising valid issues.

I am about to release my largest Ionic project to date. It is a highly dynamic data entry and reporting system for field workers. My client is able to create and publish new data entry forms and reports from the private back and angular web app that I built for them. The lack of any kind of commercial support is real and frankly that is the largest issue that you will have to deal with. I have searched high and low for any kind of commercial support that I can offer my customer. I am it. Or somebody like me. However, I will say that in two years of using Ionic I have never had to modify one Cordova plug-in or any native code in order to release my apps. I do mess around with the native code sometimes but usually on an exploratory mission. Other than that, my biggest issue so far has been with how quickly ionic and Cordova get updated and how quickly my code gets out of date because of that. Then when I have to update I have to make sure that nothing breaks by writing all sorts of tests or doing manual testing yada yada yada. Also getting answers from support or anybody qualified is sometimes difficult and you have to wait days or just figure out your own work around.

MaxLegroom 10y ago

To be specific--and maybe this only pertains to version 1.x--I found managing navigation state in our largest app to be quite clumsy and at times, downright perplexing. In Swift, managing navigation state is relatively easy to reason about, though it is a bit more laborious to implement. The bigger issues were things like having access to leveraging background processes via Cordova. At last check, there was a plugin for backgrounding the app, but it came with a big, red warning that it may cause issues with Apple's App Store approval process. Another issue was the dismal state of background geolocation. There is a commercial plugin; however, I found the maintenance schedule to be quite lacking. As well, the maintainer of the plugin was quite abrasive and impolite toward users raising valid issues.