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Hydration

Hydration is a tool that has two main benefits for developers and testers:

1. Compilation times are improved significantly.
2. Updates are pushed directly to the application installed on a device.

PhoneGap accomplishes this by compiling a native binary that acts as a container for your mobile application. Once a developer uploads a new build the end user (eg. tester) of the application will be notified upon restart of the application. If the end user decides to run the new code base, the Hydrated app will automatically fetch and run the latest code base.

If you have any questions or you would like to provide some feedback to our team we use our community support channel{:target="_blank"} for most of our communication. Drop us a line!

Sections

1. Configuring A project to use Hydration
   1. Hydrate a New Application
   2. Hydrate an Existing Application
2. Building an application with Hydration
   1. Building an Application
   2. Installing the hydrated application
   3. Updating the application
   4. Disabling Hydration

Configuring A project to use Hydration

Hydration can be enabled and disabled for both new projects and existing projects, however it requires a project with the following PhoneGap versions

supported versions:  2.5.0 and above
supported platforms: iOS, Android

Hydrate a New Application

After logging in navigate to the apps page , and click the "+ new app" button.

Under the "SETTINGS" category select the option labeled "Hydrate Application", next configure the remaining options and hit "Create".

Until disabled, every build will produce a hydrated version of this app.

Hydrate an Existing Application

After logging in navigate to the apps page . Next, select your app by clicking its title or icon. On the app's detail page, open the "Settings" panel. Then, under the "Basic" header, enable the checkbox labelled "enable hydration".

Until disabled, every build will produce a hydrated version of this app.

Building an application with Hydration

Building an Application

Building an application with Hydration is as simple as building any other application with build. Once you've enabled Hydration simply hit the rebuild button and you've got a Hydrated build.

Build will generate a new binary if we detect a modification to the project's settings.

These settings include:

name, version, version code, icons, splash screens, preferences,
features, and access tags

Please note that the end user must update their binary everytime a native binary is generated.

Installing the hydrated application

The binary provided by build is exactly like its non-Hydrated binary equivalent. Simply install the application as you would a non-Hydrating version; this can be via the QR code or the platform's specific tool (eg: iTunes, adb).

Please note that any limitations on native binaries also apply to Hydration builds. For example, Adhoc distribution (IOS) builds can only be provisioned for one-hundred devices.

Updating the application

Once a developer has compiled a new build, the Hydrated application can be updated by the end user. This update proccess occurs on every restart of the application.

When the user restarts the application they will be prompted with a dialog requesting them to update the application.

If the user decides to update the application, the new build will be downloaded and executed.

If the user decides to skip the update they will remain frozen at the current build and will be prompted to update on the next restart.

If a non-Hydratable build is generated by the developer the user will need to obtain a new version of the compiled binary. The user can obtain the binary by downloading it, or by using one of our other methods.

Disabling Hydration

After logging in navigate to the apps page, and select your app by clicking its title or icon. On the app's detail page, open the "Settings" panel. Under the "Basic" header de-select the checkbox labeled "enable hydration", and finally hit save.

You've now successfully disabled Hydration.

Please note, that users will now need to download updates to your app manually again.

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