Preface

Introduction

Whether we like it or not, the world is moving toward different development schemes in ways that technically differ from one team to another or even from one developer to another. As a backend developer, I understand the hustle, from having a really dependable database to implementing an effective authentication system that can be relied on to keep things secure, without forgetting about the authorization part, where you simply manage the part of who has access to what.

Such a hustle is not even the beginning; in a mobile-first world, improving your users' mobile application functionalities is a critical task because you will always need to improve your application security, maintain a notification system that scales, and have a great user interface and experience, but even with all this, you will the analytics, revenue generation part which is still essential, because you simply want to listen to your users' needs and breaking point within your application in easy seamless way without too much pain.

Firebase provides all of that and much more in a set of interconnected products that simply lets your application have everything that Firebase has to offer. This book will go through each topic over the 13 chapters divided into problem/solution recipes. All the points covered here come from real-world scenarios that each and every new or old application might have faced or will face within its development workflow.

What this book covers

Chapter 1, Firebase - Getting Started, begins with the process of integrating Firebase and its services into different platforms and environments, from frontend and backend projects to Android/iOS projects.

Chapter 2, Firebase Real-Time Database, introduces one of the most used features of Firebase—Firebase Real Time. It covers how to implement the daily input entering and retrieval and update of your data; it also covers how we can structure our data better and finishes by enabling all these features and enabling them offline.

Chapter 3, File Management with Firebase Storage, explains how we can upload, download, and manage files within our Firebase Storage.

Chapter 4, Firebase Authentication, presents the different ways in which you can authenticate your users using Firebase, from traditional authentication to an OAuth-based login process that is different from Facebook, Google, and Twitter.

Chapter 5, Securing Application Flow with Firebase Rules, explains how to secure Firebase Database and Firebase Storage using the powerful Firebase authorization rules.

Chapter 6, Progressive Applications Powered by Firebase, shows how to turn a boring application with old features into a progressive one using service workers and Firebase.

Chapter 7, Firebase Admin SDK, describes how we can create a basic dashboard and interact with other Firebase functionalities from the diverse set with more authorization and a more powerful API to manage users and notifications.

Chapter 8, Extend Firebase with Cloud Functions, covers how we can use Firebase Cloud Functions and integrate it and interact with different Firebase products to extend its functionalities and go literally serverless ending up with deployment interactivity within the Firebase console.

Chapter 9, We're Done, Let's Deploy, is about deploying your code to the Firebase Static hosting and making some config-based customizations to the user experience.

Chapter 10, Integrating Firebase with NativeScript, shows the proper way to use Firebase within the NativeScript a lot of platforms applications.

Chapter 11, Integrating Firebase with Android/iOS Natively, is all about implementing Firebase features from Interacting with the Realtime Database to authentication in native context for Android and iOS applications.

Chapter 12, Hack Application's Growth, dives into the little functionalities that simply generate more leads and improve the application's user experience, covering app invites and topic-based notifications.

Chapter 13, Adding Analytics and Maximizing Earnings, shows how you can integrate analytics and incorporate AdMob so that you can generate revenue from different ad types.

Appendix, Firebase Cloud FireStore, talks about the power points of Firebase Cloud Firestore and its differences from earlier model.

What you need for this book

The content requirements are fairly easy for the first 10 chapters; no matter what your operating system or your code editor is, you're always covered.

However, in Chapter 11, Integrating Firebase with Android/iOS Natively, we'll start developing for mobile, so while you will be perfectly fine with any operating system (macOs, Linux, or Windows) when developing for Android, we will definitely need a macOS-based computer in order to follow along with iOS-based recipes.

Who this book is for

This book is for anyone who wants to use Firebase for their personal/professional projects. As this book covers multiple platforms and different development environments, there's everything for everyone.

The need for this book will simply come from the willingness to know the interesting parts that makes Firebase an interconnected set of tools that simply makes developers' lives much easier by demystifying the hustle that developers usually come across while creating projects from scratch or just implementing new features. So technically, like I mentioned, there's everything for everyone.

Conventions

In this book, you will find a number of text styles that distinguish between different kinds of information. Here are some examples of these styles and an explanation of their meaning.

Code words in text, database table names, folder names, filenames, file extensions, path names, dummy URLs, user input, and Twitter handles are shown as follows: "Finally, we will need to implement the put() method."

A block of code is set as follows:

     //Getting the file reference.
      var rootRef = firebase.storage().ref();
      var imageRef = rootRef.child('images/<image-name>.
        <image-ext>');

New terms and important words are shown in bold. Words that you see on the screen, for example, in menus or dialog boxes, appear in the text like this: "We clicked on the Upload to Firebase button."

Warnings or important notes appear in a box like this.

Tips and tricks appear like this.

Reader feedback

Feedback from our readers is always welcome. Let us know what you think about this book-what you liked or disliked. Reader feedback is important for us as it helps us develop titles that you will really get the most out of.

To send us general feedback, simply e-mail [e-mail], and mention the book's title on the subject of your message.

If there is a topic that you have expertise in and you are interested in either writing or contributing to a book, see our author guide at www.packtpub.com/authors.

Customer support

Now that you are the proud owner of a Packt book, we have a number of things to help you to get the most from your purchase.

Downloading the example code

You can download the example code files for this book from your account at http://www.packtpub.com. If you purchased this book elsewhere, you can visit http://www.packtpub.com/support and register to have the files emailed directly to you.

You can download the code files by following these steps:

1. Log in or register to our website using your email address and password.
2. Hover the mouse pointer on the SUPPORT tab at the top.
3. Click on Code Downloads & Errata.
4. Enter the name of the book in the Search box.
5. Select the book for which you're looking to download the code files.

6. Choose from the drop-down menu where you purchased this book from.
7. Click on Code Download.

Once the file is downloaded, please make sure that you unzip or extract the folder using the latest version of:

• WinRAR / 7-Zip for Windows
• Zipeg / iZip / UnRarX for Mac
• 7-Zip / PeaZip for Linux

The code bundle for the book is also hosted on GitHub at https://github.com/PacktPublishing/Firebase-Cookbook. We also have other code bundles from our rich catalog of books and videos available at https://github.com/PacktPublishing/. Check them out!

Downloading the color images of this book

We also provide you with a PDF file that has color images of the screenshots/diagrams used in this book. The color images will help you better understand the changes in the output. You can download this file from https://www.packtpub.com/sites/default/files/downloads/FirebaseCookbook_ColorImages.pdf.

Errata

Although we have taken every care to ensure the accuracy of our content, mistakes do happen. If you find a mistake in one of our books-maybe a mistake in the text or the code we would be grateful if you could report this to us. By doing so, you can save other readers from frustration and help us improve subsequent versions of this book. If you find any errata, please report them by visiting http://www.packtpub.com/submit-errata, selecting your book, clicking on the Errata Submission Form link, and entering the details of your errata. Once your errata are verified, your submission will be accepted and the errata will be uploaded to our website or added to any list of existing errata under the Errata section of that title.

To view the previously submitted errata, go to https://www.packtpub.com/books/content/support and enter the name of the book in the search field. The required information will appear under the Errata section.

Piracy

Piracy of copyrighted material on the Internet is an ongoing problem across all media. At Packt, we take the protection of our copyright and licenses very seriously. If you come across any illegal copies of our works in any form on the Internet, please provide us with the location address or website name immediately so that we can pursue a remedy.

Please contact us at [e-mail] with a link to the suspected pirated material.

We appreciate your help in protecting our authors and our ability to bring you valuable content.

Questions

If you have a problem with any aspect of this book, you can contact us at [e-mail], and we will do our best to address the problem.