Developer tools company appMobi announced availability of its PhoneGap Mobile App XDK, which it described as “the only integrated development environment (IDE) that fully integrates the open-source PhoneGap platform, offering a suite of desktop tools for creating mobile, HTML5 and PhoneGap-based apps.”

In a statement, the company noted that Facebook has recently recommended PhoneGap as the preferred way to create mobile apps for the Facebook platform.

Sam Abadir, CTO of appMobi, said: “PhoneGap has developed into a wonderful set of APIs, but a matching IDE has really been missing.”

The PhoneGap Mobile App XDK supports desktop debugging of mobile apps, emulation of mobile devices, hardware emulation of GPS, camera, contacts, and accelerometer inputs, remote testing using a free “test container” app.

The XDK is also said to enable developers to add features which are not supported by PhoneGap but which are important for commercial apps, including in-app payments, push messaging, user analytics and live app updates.

appMobi also said that although it is offering a full IDE with a built-in editor, it can also integrate with Adobe DreamWeaver 5.5, NotePad++, or “any other popular programming editor,” to reduce the learning curve before creating apps.

The XDK runs on Mac, PC or Linux platforms, and is available free of charge.