Cordova Firebase Plugin2

This plugin brings push notifications, analytics, event tracking, crash reporting and more from Google Firebase to your Cordova project!

Table of Contents

• Prerequisites
  • For Android App
  • For iOS App
• Difference from the fork repository
• Confirm your Cordova environment versions
• Major Releases
  • v5.x
    • Supported Cordova Platforms
  • v4.x
    • Supported Cordova Platforms
  • v3.x
    • Supported Cordova Platforms
• Installation & Setup
  • Uninstall the original firebase plugin
  • Install this plugin
  • AndroidX
  • CocoaPods
  • Guides
  • Setup
  • Important Notes
  • PhoneGap Build
  • Google Play Services
• Docs
  • API Docs
  • Google Tag Manager
  • Configuring Notifications

Prerequisites

For Android App

1. Android Studio
2. Check more here at https://firebase.google.com/docs/android/setup#prerequisites

For iOS App

1. Xcode 10.1 or later.
2. CocoaPods 1.4.0 or later.
3. Check more here at https://firebase.google.com/docs/ios/setup#prerequisites

Difference from the fork repository

Maintained by Wiz Panda.

The author did a great job on the plugin. But seems not to be maintaining the changes. So we at Wiz Panda thought to maintain the repository with the latest changes & fixes so the others can take benefit of the Firebase in their cordova application. To see a full list of changes done after we started maintaining this fork, please see the Releases or read the CHANGELOG.md

Confirm your Cordova environment versions

Before you continue installing this plugin, please confirm your Cordova environment versions. You can either get everything by just running:

cordova info

Or grab it manually:

1. For cordova-cli & cordova-lib, run cordova -v. It should be something like: 9.0.0 ([email protected])
2. For cordova-android, check the version in your config.xml. It should be like: <engine name="android" spec="7.1.4" />
3. For cordova-ios, check the version in same config.xml. It should be like: <engine name="ios" spec="4.5.5" />

Major Releases

In the last week from Jun 17, 2019 to Jun 25, 2019, we released three major versions of this plugin so that developers across the globe, who are using different versions of cordova-lib, cordova-android & cordova-ios can use different version of this plugin without needing to upgrade these 3 dependencies immediately. So here are the three major releases of this plugin:

v5.x

1. CocoaPods is used to manage Firebase dependencies for iOS. We don't need cordova-plugin-cocoapod-support because cordova-cli 9.x has better support of handling CocoaPods dependencies.

Supported Cordova Platforms

• cordova-cli: >= 9.0.0
• cordova-lib: >= 9.0.0 (Will be used automatically by cordova-cli)
• cordova-android: >= 8.0.0
• cordova-ios: >= 5.0.1

v4.x

1. Minimum v8.0.0 of cordova-android is now required. View #13 for details.
2. Using latest versions of Firebase Android dependencies.

Supported Cordova Platforms

• cordova: >= 8.0.0
• cordova-lib: >= 8.0.0 (Will be used automatically by cordova-cli)
• cordova-android: >= 8.0.0
• cordova-ios: >= 4.5.5

v3.x

1. Using last released Firebase Android dependencies which was released before Jun 17, 2019.

Supported Cordova Platforms

• cordova: >= 7.0.0
• cordova-android: >= 7.0.0 (Might work on cordova-android 6.x versions)
• cordova-ios: >= 4.5.5 (Might work on old cordova-ios versions)

Installation & Setup

Uninstall the original firebase plugin

If you are using the original firebase plugin, remove it first:

rm -rf platforms/android
cordova plugin remove cordova-plugin-firebase

Install this plugin

For cordova-cli >= 9.x.x && (cordava-ios >= 5.0.1 || cordava-android >= 8.x.x)

Use the latest major releases just by running:

cordova plugin add cordova-plugin-firebase-lib

For cordova-cli <= 8.1.1 && (cordava-ios <= 4.5.5 || cordova-android >= 8.x.x)

Use the v4.x release by running:

cordova plugin add [email protected] --save

For cordova-cli <= 7.1.0 && (cordava-ios <= 4.5.5 || cordova-android <= 7.1.4)

Run the following in your terminal:

cordova plugin add [email protected] --save

AndroidX

Because of the major breaking release by Google Firebase on Jun 17, 2019 this plugin has been migrated to use AndroidX. AndroidX is a major improvement to the original Android Support Library.

If any of your Cordova app includes any plugin which is still using legacy Android Support Library, then installing this plugin might break your build. For that install the following plugins:

cordova plugin add cordova-plugin-androidx
cordova plugin add cordova-plugin-androidx-adapter

CocoaPods

This plugin uses CocoaPods to manage the iOS Firebase dependencies. So please note the following two points:

1. If you are building your app using Xcode, please open platform/ios/my-cordova-project.xcworkspace instead of platform/ios/my-cordova-project.xcodeproj so that the Xcode can load both Cordova app & the Pods.
2. Your repo needs to be up to date. To keep it up to date, run pod repo update anywhere in your terminal.

Guides

1. Great installation and setup guide https://medium.com/@felipepucinelli/how-to-add-push...

Setup

Download your Firebase configuration files:

• GoogleService-Info.plist for iOS and
• google-services.json for Android

And place them in the root folder of your Cordova app. Check out this firebase article for details on how to download the files.

- my-cordova-project/
    platforms/
    plugins/
    www/
    config.xml
    google-services.json       <--
    GoogleService-Info.plist   <--
    ...

Important Notes

• This plugin uses a hook (after_prepare) that copies the configuration files to the right place, namely platforms/ios/my-cordova-project/Resources for iOS and platforms/android for Android.
• Firebase SDK requires the configuration files to be present and valid, otherwise your app will crash on boot or build.

PhoneGap Build

Hooks do not work with PhoneGap Build. This means you will have to manually make sure the configuration files are included. One way to do that is to make a private fork of this plugin and replace the placeholder config files (see src/ios and src/android) with your actual ones, as well as hard coding your app id and api key in plugin.xml.

Google Play Services

Your build may fail if you are installing multiple plugins that use Google Play Services. This is caused by the plugins installing different versions of the Google Play Services library. This can be resolved by installing cordova-android-play-services-gradle-release.

If your build is still failing, you can try installing cordova-android-firebase-gradle-release. For more info, read the following comment about locking down the specific versions for play services and firebase. It is suggested to use + instead of 15.+ to ensure the correct versions are used.

Docs

API Docs

See the full API docs available for this plugin.

Google Tag Manager

Checkout our guide for info on setting up Google Tag Manager.

Configuring Notifications

Checkout our guide for info on configuring notification icons and colors.