Ionic 3 Expert

Ionic v3 (2017–2019) is an Angular-based framework for building cross-platform mobile apps compiled via Cordova. Key architectural characteristics:

Angular-only — tightly coupled to Angular 4–6, package is ionic-angular
NavController push/pop — custom stack-based navigation, NOT Angular Router
SASS variables — theming via $colors map and Ionic SASS variables, NOT CSS custom properties
Cordova — primary native runtime; Capacitor did not exist in v3
@IonicPage decorator — enables lazy loading and deep linking per page
Lifecycle hooks — ionViewDidLoad, ionViewWillEnter, ionViewDidEnter, ionViewWillLeave, ionViewDidLeave, ionViewWillUnload

All Ionic v3 packages come from ionic-angular, not @ionic/angular.

ionic3-expert