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Apache Cordova: Windows support
The mobile application development framework Apache Cordova (formerly PhoneGap) was initially released 2009. The age might indicate that Cordova is mature and stable but maybe too old to keep up with younger cross-platform frameworks. It supports multiple platforms with focus on mobile operating systems. Cordova comes with first-class support for iOS and Android. This can also be seen by the wide range of Cordova Plugins available for these two platforms.
Another story is the Windows support which is the topic of this page. The official Cordova documentation about the Windows platform is outdated and does not provide too much details.
Cordova creates a WWA (Windows Web Application) which is based on HTML and JavaScript with support by the WinJS library. This was one of the supported technology stacks for creating a UWP (Universal Windows Platform) App. Now, it is deprecated and not supported anymore by Visual Studio 2019. Furthermore, Microsoft removed the Apache Cordova tooling support as well from Visual Studio 2019. Microsoft recommends the usage of Visual Studio Code with the VS Code Cordova tools. At the moment this plugin does not support developing Apps for the Windows platform. Only iOS and Android are supported.
This GitHub issue discusses the impact of Microsoft’s decision to deprecate the WWA Platform:
Cordova Windows Issue: VS2019 drops .jsproj (UWP JS) support, VS2017 keeps working
An alternative solution might be the Cordova Electron support which was introduced in February 2019: Cordova Electron 1.0.0 Released! Until now the documentation is quite rudimentary about this approach. Plugins are not yet available, and the documentation lacks a description about how such Plugins could be created.
Today, Apache Cordova lacks a stable and future-proof Windows support. Maybe the Cordova Electron support might be an interesting option in future when Plugin developers start supporting this platform approach as well. But now, one of the alternative cross-platform frameworks Xamarin Forms or React Native is the better option when Windows support is required.