How to Use the Paypal Phonegap Plugin for Android

Update- The PhoneGap Plugin is now deprecated

Here’s a quick tutorial on what I did to accept paypal payments on android with the PayPal Android SDK PhoneGap Plug-in. These instructions are out there, but you kinda have to dig around a little to piece it all together.

1. Download the PayPal Android SDK.
2. Put everything in the libs folder into platforms/android/libs
3. Ensure your minimum SDK level is 8 or above. You should have an element like this in your AndroidManifest.xml inside the manifest tag:

   <uses-sdk android:minSdkVersion="8" android:targetSdkVersion="17" />

4. Request the required permissions, also inside the manifest tag:

   <!-- for card.io card scanning -->
   <uses-permission android:name="android.permission.CAMERA" />
   <uses-permission android:name="android.permission.VIBRATE" />
   
   <!-- for most things, including card.io and paypal -->
   <uses-permission android:name="android.permission.ACCESS_NETWORK_STATE" />
   <uses-permission android:name="android.permission.ACCESS_WIFI_STATE" />
   <uses-permission android:name="android.permission.INTERNET" />
   
   <!-- Camera features -->
   <uses-feature android:name="android.hardware.camera" android:required="false" />
   <uses-feature android:name="android.hardware.camera.autofocus" android:required="false" />
   <uses-feature android:name="android.hardware.camera.flash" android:required="false" />

5. Add the SDK’s service and activities to the application tag:

   <service android:name="com.paypal.android.sdk.payments.PayPalService" android:exported="false" />
   <activity android:name="com.paypal.android.sdk.payments.PaymentActivity" />
   <activity android:name="com.paypal.android.sdk.payments.LoginActivity" />
   <activity android:name="com.paypal.android.sdk.payments.PaymentMethodActivity" />
   <activity android:name="com.paypal.android.sdk.payments.PaymentConfirmActivity" />
   
   <activity android:name="io.card.payment.CardIOActivity" android:configChanges="keyboardHidden|orientation" />
   <activity android:name="io.card.payment.DataEntryActivity" />

6. Download the java file and the js file from the Paypal Phonegap plugin. Put the java file in platforms/android/src/com/paypal/android/sdk/phonegap. Put the js file in www/js.
7. Add the following to platforms/android/res/xml/config.xml

   <feature name="PayPalMobile">
     <param name="android-package" value="com.paypal.android.sdk.phonegap.PayPalMobilePGPlugin" />
   </feature>

8. Then some sample code might be something like this. Put this in your index.html.

   <button id="buyButton">Buy Now!</button>

9. And put this in your javascript:

   var buyButton = document.getElementById("buyButton");
   buyButton.onclick = function(e) {
   
     // See PayPalMobilePGPlugin.js for full documentation
     // set environment you want to use
     window.plugins.PayPalMobile.setEnvironment("PayPalEnvironmentNoNetwork");
   
     // create a PayPalPayment object, usually you would pass parameters dynamically
     var payment = new PayPalPayment("1.99", "USD", "Awesome saws");
   
     // define a callback when payment has been completed
     var completionCallback = function(proofOfPayment) {
   // TODO: Send this result to the server for verification;
   // see https://developer.paypal.com/webapps/developer/docs/integration/mobile/verify-mobile-payment/ for details.
   console.log("Proof of payment: " + JSON.stringify(proofOfPayment));
     }
   
     // define a callback if payment has been canceled
     var cancelCallback = function(reason) {
   console.log("Payment cancelled: " + reason);
     }
   
     // launch UI, the PayPal UI will be present on screen until user cancels it or payment completed
     window.plugins.PayPalMobile.presentPaymentUI("YOUR_CLIENT_ID", "YOUR_PAYPAL_EMAIL_ADDRESS", "someuser@somedomain.com", payment, completionCallback, cancelCallback);
   }

And that’s it. Build your app and when you click the button it should open up a screen like this: