Using PhoneGap locally

I might not be explaining myself clearly, but here goes :-)

According to the PhoneGap tutorial, I export to a ZIP and then upload to PhoneGap.

Is there a way however that I can do the PhoneGap compilation locally on my computer. I have installed PhoneGap on my PC using C:\> npm install -g phonegap, but from here I get lost.

You certainly can!

Hate to ask the obvious but is there a link that explains this to the layman? I can't get it right.