The config.xml File

Many aspects of an app's behavior can be controlled with a global configuration file, config.xml. This platform-agnostic XML file is arranged based on the W3C's Packaged Web Apps (Widgets) specification, and extended to specify core Cordova API features, plugins, and platform-specific settings.

For projects created with the Cordova CLI (described in The Command-Line Interface), this file can be found in the top-level directory:

    app/config.xml

Note that before version 3.3.1-0.2.0, the file existed at app/www/config.xml, and that having it here is still supported.

When using the CLI to build a project, versions of this file are passively copied into various platforms/ subdirectories, for example:

    app/platforms/ios/AppName/config.xml
    app/platforms/blackberry10/www/config.xml
    app/platforms/android/res/xml/config.xml

This section details global and cross-platform configuration options. See the following sections for platform-specific options:

• iOS Configuration
• Android Configuration
• BlackBerry 10 Configuration

In addition to the various configuration options detailed below, you can also configure an application's core set of images for each target platform. See Icons and Splash Screens for more information.

Core Configuration Elements

This example shows the default config.xml generated by the CLI's create command, described in The Command-Line Interface:

    <widget id="com.example.hello" version="0.0.1">
        <name>HelloWorld</name>
        <description>
            A sample Apache Cordova application that responds to the deviceready event.
        </description>
        <author email="[email protected]" href="http://cordova.io">
            Apache Cordova Team
        </author>
        <content src="index.html" />
        <access origin="*" />
    </widget>

The following configuration elements appear in the top-level config.xml file, and are supported across all supported Cordova platforms:

• The <widget> element's id attribute provides the app's reverse-domain identifier, and the version its full version number expressed in major/minor/patch notation.

  The widget tag can also have attributes that specify alternative versions, namely versionCode for Android and CFBundleVersion for iOS. See the Additional Versioning section below for details.

• The <name> element specifies the app's formal name, as it appears on the device's home screen and within app-store interfaces.

• The <description> and <author> elements specify metadata and contact information that may appear within app-store listings.

• The optional <content> element defines the app's starting page in the top-level web assets directory. The default value is index.html, which customarily appears in a project's top-level www directory.

• <access> elements define the set of external domains the app is allowed to communicate with. The default value shown above allows it to access any server. See the Domain Whitelist Guide for details.

• The <preference> tag sets various options as pairs of name/value attributes. Each preference's name is case-insensitive. Many preferences are unique to specific platforms, as listed at the top of this page. The following sections detail preferences that apply to more than one platform.

Additional Versioning

Both, Android and iOS support a second version string (or number) in addition to the one visible in app stores, versionCode for Android and CFBundleVersion for iOS. Below is an example that explicitly sets versionCode and CFBundleVersion

    <widget id="io.cordova.hellocordova"
      version="0.0.1"
      android-versionCode="7"
      ios-CFBundleVersion="3.3.3">

If alternative version is not specified, the following defaults will be used:

    // assuming version = MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH-whatever
    versionCode = PATCH + MINOR * 100 + MAJOR * 10000
    CFBundleVersion = "MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH"

Global Preferences

The following global preferences apply to all platforms:

• Fullscreen allows you to hide the status bar at the top of the screen. The default value is false. Example:

    <preference name="Fullscreen" value="true" />
  

• Orientation allows you to lock orientation and prevent the interface from rotating in response to changes in orientation. Possible values are default, landscape, or portrait. Example:

    <preference name="Orientation" value="landscape" />
  

  NOTE: The default value means both landscape and portrait orientations are enabled. If you want to use each platform's default settings (usually portrait-only), leave this tag out of the config.xml file.

Multi-Platform Preferences

The following preferences apply to more than one platform, but not to all of them:

• DisallowOverscroll (boolean, defaults to false): set to true if you don't want the interface to display any feedback when users scroll past the beginning or end of content.

    <preference name="DisallowOverscroll" value="true"/>
  

  Applies to Android and iOS. On iOS, overscroll gestures cause content to bounce back to its original position. On Android, they produce a more subtle glowing effect along the top or bottom edge of the content.

• BackgroundColor: Set the app's background color. Supports a four-byte hex value, with the first byte representing the alpha channel, and standard RGB values for the following three bytes. This example specifies blue:

    <preference name="BackgroundColor" value="0xff0000ff"/>
  

  Applies to Android and BlackBerry. Overrides CSS otherwise available across all platforms, for example: body{background-color:blue}.

• HideKeyboardFormAccessoryBar (boolean, defaults to false): set to true to hide the additional toolbar that appears above the keyboard, helping users navigate from one form input to another.

    <preference name="HideKeyboardFormAccessoryBar" value="true"/>
  

  Applies to iOS and BlackBerry.

The feature Element

If you use the CLI to build applications, you use the plugin command to enable device APIs. This does not modify the top-level config.xml file, so the <feature> element does not apply to your workflow. If you work directly in an SDK and using the platform-specific config.xml file as source, you use the <feature> tag to enable device-level APIs and external plugins. They often appear with custom values in platform-specific config.xml files. For example, here is how to specify the Device API for Android projects:

    <feature name="Device">
        <param name="android-package" value="org.apache.cordova.device.Device" />
    </feature>

Here is how the element appears for iOS projects:

    <feature name="Device">
        <param name="ios-package" value="CDVDevice" />
    </feature>

See the API Reference for details on how to specify each feature. See the Plugin Development Guide for more information on plugins.

The platform Element

When using the CLI to build applications, it is sometimes necessary to specify preferences or other elements specific to a particular platform. Use the <platform> element to specify configuration that should only appear in a single platform-specific config.xml file. For example, here is how to specify that only android should use the Fullscreen preference:

    <platform name="android">
        <preference name="Fullscreen" value="true" />
    </platform>