GettingStarted.md

These are legacy instructions for PhoneGap 2.9.

Cordova 3.0 is the recommended way to use phonegap-nfc, see Getting Started Cordova CLI.

Quickstart for PhoneGap NFC on Android

Follow these instructions to generate a default PhoneGap app and modify it to read NFC tags.

PhoneGap 2.9

PhoneGap NFC requires PhoneGap 2.9.x. Download from phonegap.com. Unzip the archive in /usr/local.

Plugman 0.10.0

Plugman is used to install the plugin into the PhoneGap project. Plugman requires node.js. Plugman 0.10.0 or greater is recommended. Install plugman globally.

$ npm install plugman -g

Generate a project

$ cd ~
$ /usr/local/phonegap-2.9.0/lib/android/bin/create foo com.example.foo Foo

Install the Plugin

$ plugman --platform android --project foo --plugin git://github.com/don/phonegap-nfc.git

Edit index.js

Edit index.js and modify onDeviceReady with the following code

onDeviceReady: function() {
    app.receivedEvent('deviceready');
    
    // Read NDEF formatted NFC Tags
    nfc.addAesNdefListener (
        function (nfcEvent) {
            var tag = nfcEvent.tag,
                ndefMessage = tag.ndefMessage;
        
            // dump the raw json of the message
            // note: real code will need to decode
            // the payload from each record
            alert(JSON.stringify(ndefMessage));

            // assuming the first record in the message has 
            // a payload that can be converted to a string.
            alert(nfc.bytesToString(ndefMessage[0].payload).substring(3));
        }, 
        function () { // success callback
            alert("Waiting for NDEF tag");
        },
        function (error) { // error callback
            alert("Error adding NDEF listener " + JSON.stringify(error));
        },
        "myEncryptionKey1"
    );
},

Run the code

Plug your phone into your computer.

Build and run the code

$ cd ~/foo
$ ./cordova/run

Scan a NDEF tag

Scan an NDEF tag with your phone. If you need to put data on a tag, try writing a plain text message to a tag with NXP Tag Writer.