Ionic

Ionic Framework is an open-source UI toolkit for building performant, high-quality mobile and desktop apps using web technologies (HTML, CSS, JavaScript) with integrations for Angular, React, and Vue.

When to Use

• Web developers (Angular/React/Vue) wanting to build mobile apps.
• Building a Progressive Web App (PWA) and mobile app from the exact same codebase.
• Apps with heavy data entry forms or standard UI patterns (lists, tabs).
• Enterprise apps requiring write-once-deploy-everywhere.

Quick Start

# Install CLI
npm install -g @ionic/cli

# Start a React app with tabs
ionic start myApp tabs --type=react --capacitor
cd myApp
ionic serve

// src/pages/Home.tsx (Ionic React)
import {
  IonContent,
  IonHeader,
  IonPage,
  IonTitle,
  IonToolbar,
  IonButton,
  IonIcon,
  IonList,
  IonItem,
  IonLabel,
} from "@ionic/react";
import { camera } from "ionicons/icons";
import { Camera, CameraResultType } from "@capacitor/camera";

const Home: React.FC = () => {
  const takePhoto = async () => {
    const image = await Camera.getPhoto({
      quality: 90,
      allowEditing: false,
      resultType: CameraResultType.Uri,
    });
    console.log("Photo URI", image.webPath);
  };

  return (
    <IonPage>
      <IonHeader>
        <IonToolbar>
          <IonTitle>Ionic Camera</IonTitle>
        </IonToolbar>
      </IonHeader>
      <IonContent fullscreen>
        <div style={{ padding: 20 }}>
          <IonButton expand="block" onClick={takePhoto}>
            <IonIcon slot="start" icon={camera} />
            Take Photo
          </IonButton>
        </div>
      </IonContent>
    </IonPage>
  );
};
export default Home;

Core Concepts

Web Components

Ionic components (<ion-button>, <ion-card>) are Web Components. They work in any framework (or no framework) and encapsulate their styles and behavior (Shadow DOM).

Adaptive Styling

Ionic automatically adapts the look and feel based on the platform.

• iOS: Uses Cupertino design standards.
• Android: Uses Material Design.
• No code change required.

Capacitor Integration

Ionic uses Capacitor as the native bridge. It provides a Native Runtime for the web app and exposes native APIs (Camera, Geolocation, Haptics) via JavaScript plugins.

Common Patterns

Lazy Loading

Crucial for startup performance.

• Angular: Use loadChildren in Router.
• React: Use React.lazy and Suspense.

Overlay Components

Modals, Alerts, and Action Sheets are handled via controllers or hooks (useIonModal), ensuring they render outside the regular DOM flow for proper z-indexing.

Best Practices

Do:

• Use Capacitor instead of Cordova for new projects.
• Use Virtual Scroll (or framework equivalents) for long lists.
• Test on real devices early (Web view behavior can differ from Chrome Desktop).
• Use ion-img instead of img for efficient lazy loading within ion-content.

Don’t:

• Don’t block the UI thread with synchronous heavy logic (use Web Workers).
• Don’t use arbitrary CSS z-index to fix layering (use Ionic utilities/slots).
• Don’t forget to handle the Hardware Back Button on Android.

Troubleshooting

References

• Ionic Framework Docs
• Capacitor Documentation
• Ionic UI Components