Ionic Native

Ionic Native is a curated set of wrappers for Cordova plugins that make adding any native functionality you need to your Ionic mobile app easy.

Ionic Native wraps plugin callbacks in a Promise or Observable, providing a common interface for all plugins and making it easy to use plugins with Angular change detection.

Ionic Native is available in two versions:

1. Ionic Native Community Edition, featuring open source, community-maintained Cordova and Capacitor plugins and APIs.
2. Ionic Native Enterprise Edition, featuring a library of Premier plugins and solutions that are fully supported and maintained by the Ionic team, with access to Ionic experts and a guaranteed response SLA to mission-critical app development.

Capacitor Support

In addition to Cordova, Ionic Native also works with Capacitor, Ionic's official native runtime. Basic usage below. For complete details, see the Capacitor documentation.

Installation

Run following command to install Ionic Native in your project.

npm install @ionic-native/core --save

You also need to install the Ionic Native package for each plugin you want to add. Please see the Ionic Native documentation for complete instructions on how to add and use the plugins.

Documentation

For the full Ionic Native documentation, please visit https://ionicframework.com/docs/native/.

Basic Usage

Ionic/Angular apps

To use a plugin, import and add the plugin provider to your @NgModule, and then inject it where you wish to use it. Make sure to import the injectable class from the /ngx directory as shown in the following examples:

// app.module.ts
import { Camera } from '@ionic-native/camera/ngx';

...

@NgModule({
  ...

  providers: [
    ...
    Camera
    ...
  ]
  ...
})
export class AppModule { }

import { Geolocation } from '@ionic-native/geolocation/ngx';
import { Platform } from 'ionic-angular';

@Component({ ... })
export class MyComponent {

  constructor(private geolocation: Geolocation, private platform: Platform) {

    this.platform.ready().then(() => {

      // get position
      this.geolocation.getCurrentPosition().then(pos => {
        console.log(`lat: ${pos.coords.latitude}, lon: ${pos.coords.longitude}`)
      });


      // watch position
      const watch = geolocation.watchPosition().subscribe(pos => {
        console.log(`lat: ${pos.coords.latitude}, lon: ${pos.coords.longitude}`)
      });

      // to stop watching
      watch.unsubscribe();
    });

  }

}

Ionic/React apps

React apps must use Capacitor to build native mobile apps. However, Ionic Native (and therefore, Cordova plugins) can still be used.

# Install Core library (once per project)
npm install @ionic-native/core

# Install Ionic Native TypeScript wrapper
npm install @ionic-native/barcode-scanner

# Install Cordova plugin
npm install phonegap-plugin-barcodescanner

# Update native platform project(s) to include newly added plugin
ionic cap sync

Import the plugin object then use its static methods:

import { BarcodeScanner } from '@ionic-native/barcode-scanner';

const Tab1: React.FC = () => {
  const openScanner = async () => {
    const data = await BarcodeScanner.scan();
    console.log(`Barcode data: ${data.text}`);
  };
  return (
    <IonPage>
      <IonHeader>
        <IonToolbar>
          <IonTitle>Tab 1</IonTitle>
        </IonToolbar>
      </IonHeader>
      <IonContent>
        <IonButton onClick={openScanner}>Scan barcode</IonButton>
      </IonContent>
    </IonPage>
  );
};

ES2015+/TypeScript

These modules can work in any ES2015+/TypeScript app (including Angular/Ionic apps). To use any plugin, import the class from the appropriate package, and use it's static methods.

import { Camera } from '@ionic-native/camera';

document.addEventListener('deviceready', () => {
  Camera.getPicture()
    .then(data => console.log('Took a picture!', data))
    .catch(e => console.log('Error occurred while taking a picture', e));
});

AngularJS

Ionic Native generates an AngularJS module in runtime and prepares a service for each plugin. To use the plugins in your AngularJS app:

1. Download the latest bundle from the Github releases page.
2. Include it in index.html before your app's code.
3. Inject ionic.native module in your app.
4. Inject any plugin you would like to use with a $cordova prefix.

angular.module('myApp', ['ionic.native']).controller('MyPageController', function ($cordovaCamera) {
  $cordovaCamera.getPicture().then(
    function (data) {
      console.log('Took a picture!', data);
    },
    function (err) {
      console.log('Error occurred while taking a picture', err);
    }
  );
});

Vanilla JS

To use Ionic Native in any other setup:

1. Download the latest bundle from the Github releases page.
2. Include it in index.html before your app's code.
3. Access any plugin using the global IonicNative variable.

document.addEventListener('deviceready', function () {
  IonicNative.Camera.getPicture().then(
    function (data) {
      console.log('Took a picture!', data);
    },
    function (err) {
      console.log('Error occurred while taking a picture', err);
    }
  );
});

Mocking and Browser Development (Ionic/Angular apps only)

Ionic Native makes it possible to mock plugins and develop nearly the entirety of your app in the browser or in ionic serve.

To do this, you need to provide a mock implementation of the plugins you wish to use. Here's an example of mocking the Camera plugin to return a stock image while in development:

First import the Camera class in your src/app/app.module.ts file:

import { Camera } from '@ionic-native/camera/ngx';

Then create a new class that extends the Camera class with a mock implementation:

class CameraMock extends Camera {
  getPicture(options) {
    return new Promise((resolve, reject) => {
      resolve('BASE_64_ENCODED_DATA_GOES_HERE');
    });
  }
}

Finally, override the previous Camera class in your providers for this module:

providers: [{ provide: Camera, useClass: CameraMock }];

Here's the full example:

import { ErrorHandler, NgModule } from '@angular/core';
import { BrowserModule } from '@angular/platform-browser';
import { IonicApp, IonicModule, IonicErrorHandler } from 'ionic-angular';
import { MyApp } from './app.component';
import { HomePage } from '../pages/home/home';

import { Camera } from '@ionic-native/camera/ngx';

import { HomePage } from '../pages/home/home';
import { MyApp } from './app.component';

class CameraMock extends Camera {
  getPicture(options) {
    return new Promise((resolve, reject) => {
      resolve('BASE_64_ENCODED_DATA_GOES_HERE');
    });
  }
}

@NgModule({
  declarations: [MyApp, HomePage],
  imports: [BrowserModule, IonicModule.forRoot(MyApp)],
  bootstrap: [IonicApp],
  entryComponents: [MyApp, HomePage],
  providers: [
    { provide: ErrorHandler, useClass: IonicErrorHandler },
    { provide: Camera, useClass: CameraMock },
  ],
})
export class AppModule {}

Runtime Diagnostics

Spent way too long diagnosing an issue only to realize a plugin wasn't firing or installed? Ionic Native lets you know what the issue is and how you can resolve it.

Plugin Missing?

Let us know or submit a PR! Take a look at the Developer Guide for more on how to contribute. ❤️

Credits

Ibby Hadeed - @ihadeed

Daniel Sogl - @sogldaniel

Tim Lancina - @timlancina

Mike Hartington - @mhartington

Max Lynch - @maxlynch

Rob Wormald - @robwormald