Starter Ionic Application Template with Parse Integration

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Update April 15th 2016

Parse is going away so there is a new project repo here using Firebase, specifically AngularFire with Ionic2. Checkout the starter project and share your thoughts. https://github.com/aaronksaunders/ionic2-angularfire-sample

Update Feb 16th 2016

The hosted version of Parse will shutdown on January 28, 2017 according to this blog post. You may use the open source version of Parse Server or use Kinvey which has alot of the same features of Parse. There is a new starter project for Kinvey. Checkout and share your thoughts. https://github.com/aaronksaunders/kinvey-starter-ionic/blob/master/README.md

Update July 26th 2015

Added the whitelist plugin to project to address issues running on device. You can use the ionic state restore command to get the project in the right state or manually install the plugin.

ionic plugin add https://github.com/apache/cordova-plugin-whitelist.git

then update the confix.xml file

<allow-navigation href="*" />

Ionic Video Series - Subscribe on YouTube Channel

Overview

This sample application is provided as a starter to get your Ionic Framework and Parse Application up and running easily. Most of the fuss in these applications is figuring out login and account creation... This template solves that for you with a pattern that then can be utilized for a full-blown application; this is not a throw-away tutorial.

We have seperated out the templates, controllers, and services into a format that will be sustainable for your final solution.

Setting Up Ionic Project

ionic start my-app-name https://github.com/aaronksaunders/parse-starter-ionic

Setting Up Parse Configuration in the Starter App

See the Parse.com website for Getting Started.

The critical information needed after configuring your application is the applicationId and the javascriptKey which are needed for the configuration section of the ionic application

Parse Configuration Screen for Application


Using the values from the Parse Console, set the properties in the app.js file section shown below

    .value('ParseConfiguration', {
        applicationId: "SET-THIS-USING-PARSE-APPLICATION-ID",
        javascriptKey: "SET-THIS-USING-PARSE-JAVASCRIPT-KEY"
    })
}

Starter App Project Structure

The starter app is a Two-Tab based app with a Login Screen and an Account Creation Screen. The application will create Parse Users for you after it is configured properly.

The first Tab is setup as a list view that when a used clicks on an item in the list a detail screen is rendered. The ui-router routes are already configured for this application behavior.

List View


Detail View


The second Tab in this setup as a "Settings Screen" that will pass in the User Object from Parse when the user selects the Tab.

Application Settings View


The file structure is such that all of the user specific functionality is www/js/user/controllers.js for controllers and www/js/user/services.js for services & factories. The associated views are in www/templates/user/login.html and www/templates/user/signup.html .

UI-Router and Resolve

The simple way that we ensure the user is logged into the application is by using the abstract state tab, this state uses resolvefunctionality from ui-router to determine if the Parse User Object is available by calling UserService.init(). If the promise is resolved successfully, then we have a User object and the application can move forward.

Click here for More information on ui-router, resolve and abstract states

// setup an abstract state for the tabs directive, check for a user
// object here is the resolve, if there is no user then redirect the
// user back to login state on the changeStateError
.state('tab', {
    url: "/tab",
    abstract: true,
    templateUrl: "templates/tabs.html",
    resolve: {
        user: function (UserService) {
            var value = UserService.init();
            return value;
        }
    }
})

If the UserService.init() function cannot resolve successfully, it returns the error noUser. Whenever the ui-router fails to route properly, an error is generated noUser.

We listen for the $stateChangeError and if it is in fact the noUser error then we route to the Login Screen using the app-login state of the ui-router.

Since the tab state is abstract all child states of must also have successfully resolved the parent state, this ensures the user in logged in before executing any state of the application

$rootScope.$on('$stateChangeError',
   function (event, toState, toParams, fromState, fromParams, error) {

     var errorMsg = error && (error.debug || error.message || error);
     console.log('$stateChangeError ' + errorMsg);

     // if the error is "noUser" the go to login state
     if (error && error.error === "noUser") {
        $state.go('app-login', {});
     }
});

Parse Service in Ionic Framework

It was important to me to not include the Parse functionality directly in the controller like so many of the other tutorials out there since in is not a best practice. But once you get into the service, you will see that the service is simply a wrapper around the specific Parse Javascript API calls.

/**
 * www/js/user/services.js
 *
 * Create a user in Parse, returns Promise
 *
 * @param _userParams
 * @returns {Promise}
 */
createUser: function (_userParams) {
    var user = new Parse.User();
    user.set("username", _userParams.email);
    user.set("password", _userParams.password);
    user.set("email", _userParams.email);
    user.set("first_name", _userParams.first_name);
    user.set("last_name", _userParams.last_name);

    // should return a promise
    return user.signUp(null, {});
},

Logging in a user is even more straight forward

/**
 * www/js/user/services.js
 * 
 * @param _user
 * @param _password
 * @returns {Promise}
 */
login: function (_user, _password) {
    return Parse.User.logIn(_user, _password);
},

Using Parse Service in Ionic Framework to Query Data

var TutorSession = Parse.Object.extend("TutorSession");
var query = new Parse.Query(TutorSession);
// get all related objects
query.include(["user","place","tutor"]);
query.find({
  	success: function(_response) {
    	//console.log("myTutorSession.query: " + JSON.stringify(_response,null,2));
    	for (var i = 0; i < _response.length; i++) {
    	  var session = _response[i];
    	  console.log("user name: " + session.get("user").get("first_name"));
    	  console.log("location name: " + session.get("place").get("Location"));    
    	  console.log("tutor name: " + session.get("tutor").get("first_name"));      
	    }
  	}
});

based off of the Parse objects created here:

Screenshot of Users Objects

Screenshot of Places Objects

Screenshot of Tutor Sessions Objects

Links

• Complete Source Code For Downloading
• Parse Getting Started
• Ionic Framework Getting Started