Cut Your PhoneGap Build App Size In Half With This One Weird Trick!

I’m in the midst of wrapping up my first Pluralsight course on PhoneGap Build Fundamentals and stumbled upon this today: if you include a special file into each icon and splash screen image directory, PhoneGap Build will only include the platform specific icon/splash files in each app binary created.

For years now (and I suspect I’m far from the only one), I’ve assumed that PG Build already does since, since we specify the image file paths in the config.xml file.  Nope!  All images are always included.  Include a PGB Omit file with no file extension (.pgbomit) into each icon/splash directory.  I tested it with the app I’m building for the course:

Excellence In All Things

(Dedicated to all the fathers out there who lead the way, especially my own, who inspired this post.  Happy Father’s Day!) 

It’s putting back the lone grocery cart that wasn’t yours in the parking lot before the wind blows it into someone’s car. 

It’s stopping to pick up the soda can in the woods instead of stepping over it.

It’s obeying the speed limit, even with miles of open farmland in front of you. 

“.NET Core Overview” Brown Bag

We’ve recently began a weekly development brown bag series at Slalom Seattle.  It’s a great way to share what we are learning with the larger group, especially since as consultants, we are all across Seattle, staffed at different client sites.

This was my first presentation, a follow-up to Microsoft’s 2016 Build conference, on .NET Core.  Core is a ground-up rewrite of the .NET framework.  Notably, it’s open source, cross-platform, and modular.

While not quite enterprise-ready yet (RC2 currently available and no v1.0 release date set as of June 2016), it’s an exciting move by Microsoft.  Here is the talk; note that the audio is a bit rough due to recording over GoToMeeting & I speak very informally, but I think you’ll enjoy it.