I am starting with my first application development. So far I have worked only with Html, css, js, jquery etc..
I want to create an app like the desktop gmail notifier which pings the server at regular interval, look for any messages and notifies the user. I read that Adobe Air and flex are the tools that can be used for this. I have developed the basic prototype in adobe air by studying the tutorials in net.
But the problem is that, my client doesn't want the source code to be made available to users. With air, you can see the complete source code after installation/unzipping the .air app.
Is there any way I can protect the source code? Or should I use flex and convert it to a swf? Is the source codes are protected in flex? I am not familiar with the flash action scripting. Please advice.
I think you are confused as to what Flex is. It is an SDK that is a level below the AIR and Flash SDKs. Flex is a secondary structural language that is meant to be used in conjunction with AS3, while AIR is compile-type.
It doesn't matter how you compile this, the source code will be attainable if someone really wants to get it. If you compile as an AIR app, you can unzip and get the SWF file. If you compile as a SWF, you already have that SWF. The SWF can then be decompiled using various tools.
There is no real way to hide front end code from prying eyes. Flash is definitely harder to read than HTML or CSS or Javascript, but definitely not impossible to view regardless of how you compile. Your best bet is definitely to offload as much as possible to a server and possibly obfuscate your code.
I would definitely try to explain to your client that it is simply not possible to truly hide source code from individuals who would like to access it. If someone really wants to steal the code, they can and will.
Code cannot be hided in any front end technologies, Flash (SWF, Flex or AIR) or HTML (JavaScript).
Do all the business logic at server and authentic properly for securing your data.
And AIR and Flash Player are both runtimes which play applications written in Adobe Flash or Apache Flex.
You can use a client-server implementation to hide the logic from the user and flex would just render a UI based on the business logic from the server side code(php,java or .NET) that interacts with the gmail servers
If you want proper notifications, go with AIR - access to some system-level features like toast notifications. With Flex, you'll be limited to webpage content.
About code protection - you can develop app in ActionScript and then protect compiled SWF with obfuscator for some fair defense, although there's probably no good free obfuscators. I paid some bucks for secureSWF license and consider it a good investment. Of course, determined hacker would crack app anyway (in theory,) but I would'nt worry about this too much for a simple pinger app.
I need to create a touch version of the webstore with 3D elements. At the beginning I chose a WebGL technology because of the straightforward integration with databases (such interface will need to download thumbnails of products and basic information about it using MySQL).
Problem is the lack of simple tools to create such a project. Recently I became interested in Unity. I just don't know whether its capabilities allow me to do this. What do you think about Unity 3d? Is a good choice for such a task?
Unity3D web player needs a plugin installed at the user's browser. This plugin is not available for iPhone and AFAIK for Android neither. Thus it is not possible to create a pure browser based online store solution.
What you can do with Unity3D as a workaround: Do the project in Unity3D and export it once as web version for desktop clients and then export it as app (i.e. a fat client that needs to be installed) for iPhone and again for Android. But even then you will have a lot of work providing different layouts for all target devices.
Although I like Unity3D very much, I would not recommend it for development of an online store.
Redmond has a good idea occasionally:
The next-gen Windows will come with a new programming foundation, letting developers build native apps with the same techniques they use for Web applications. Microsoft calls this new variety "tailored apps."
There is always a steep learning curve for developing GUIs; each new toolkit you learn is different enough that it takes a lot of time and effort and frustration. Thus developing in HTML with CSS begins to look very appealing: it's much easier and much more portable; and with HTML 5 and CSS 3, it is very powerful.
Is there any support yet on Ubuntu (or even better, a cross-platform toolkit) for developing native applications that use HTML/CSS for the GUI? To minimize overhead, I do not want to start a full browser session. (That's not very good desktop integration.) I am particularly interested in answers for native JavaScript or Python 3, but any language would be alright (easier to learn a new language than a new GUI toolkit, in my book).
Edit: I have found this page, but have not had time to read it all or test it. It linked to Python XULRunner, but again I have no previous knowledge of it.
This was asked on Ask Ubuntu back in August of 2011.
In summary, the options are:
SeedKit
The JavaScript bindings for GNOME.
There are more options, but those are the two "big ones".
You can write native apps in HTML/CSS and Javascript using node-webkit, is an app runtime based on Chromium and node.js, you can use node.js modules into your apps. it's available on Linux, Mac OSX and Windows
I would like to add QtWebKit to the list. It's like SeedKit with better support.
I'm using it personally on a project where we have native (C++) code for the data layer, business logic and the presentation layer is done via HTML5 and heavy use of JavaScript. As far as I know Qt can be used with python as well so perhaps you could use it for all the business logic.
I have been given the task of creating an Autorun installer for a distributable CD, and thought I would challenge the task with Flash. In previous versions of flash it was possible to use fscommand and trickery to run other local exe files, but due to virus creators and what-not, this has been reworked and totally destroyed for others to use.
So as a Flash developer I have hit a bit of a brick wall with this, and am asking out for any alternative ideas anybody may have? I am quite open with learning new languages/programs, and would like any expert advice from people in the know.
Just as a heads up for what features are required:
GUI with simple graphics/buttons
Ability to launch external exe/pdf files
must be able to be compiled to an exe, which can be launched by any windows machine without installing third party software eg Java.
The only simple solution I have thought of is making an html page, but using a browser is something I want to avoid doing!
Please Help :)
Christian
You can continue using flash freely if you want. There is a bunch of projector tools like northcode swf studion, Zink, mProjector and others. You can also create your own tool using any system programing language that produces windows executable - the only thing you will need - is to create an ActiveX instance of Flash Player and set up minimalistic API to allow Flash call required system functions.
We're building a web-based application that requires heavy image processing. We'd like this processing load to be on the client as much as possible and we'd like to support as much platforms (even mobiles) as much as possible.
Yeah, I know, wishful thinking
Here's the info:
Image processing is rasterization from some data. Think like creating a PNG image from a PDF file.
We don't have a lot of server power. So client-side processing is a bit of a must.
So, we're considering:
Flash - most widespread, but from what i read has lackluster development tools. (and no iPhone/iPad support for now).
Silverlight - allows us to use .NET CLR, so a big ++ (a lot of code is in .NET). But is not supported for most mobiles ( rumored android support in the future)
HTML5 + Javascript - probably the most "portable" option. The problem is having to rewrite all that image processing code in Javascript.
Any thoughts or architectures that might help?
Clarification: I don't need further ideas on what libraries are available for Silverlight and Javascript. My dilemma is
choosing Silverlight means no support for most mobiles
choosing Flash means we have to redevelop most of our code AND no iPhone/iPad support
HTML5 + Javascript we have to redevelop most of our code and not fully supported yet in all browsers
choosing two (Silverlight + Flash) will be too costly
Any out-of-the-box or bright ideas / alternatives I might be missing?
This is the sort of issue that software architects run up against all the time. As per usual, there is no ideal solution. You need to select which compromise is most acceptable to your business.
To summarise your problem, most of your image processing software is written in .NET. You'd like to run it client-side on mobile devices, but there is limited .NET penetration on mobiles. The alternatives with higher penetration (eg. Flash) would require you to re-write your code, which you can't afford to do. In addition, these alternatives are not supported on the iPhone/iPad.
What you ideally want is a way to run all your .NET code on most existing platforms, including iPhone/iPad. I can say with some confidence that no such solution currently exists - there is no "silver bullet" answer that you have overlooked.
So what will you need to compromise on? It seems to me that even if you redevelop in flash, you are still going to miss out on a major market (iPhone). And redeveloping software is extremely costly anyway.
Here is the best solution to your problem - you need to compromise on your "client side execution" constraint. If you execute server side, you get to keep your existing code, and also get to deploy to just about every mobile client, including the iPhone.
You said your server power is limited, but server processing power is cheap when compared to software development costs. Indeed, it is not all that expensive to outsource your server component and just pay for what you use. It's most likely that your application will only have low penetration to start off with. As the business grows, you will be able to afford to upgrade your server capacity.
I believe this is the best solution to your problem.
Host you image processing on Amazon E2C, Azure, or Google. IIRC E2C has many common image processing problems packaged and all ready to go.
Azure probably more familiar ground in term of sharing code as a web service
You just pay for CPU cycles and transfers/storage etc
I'm sure there will be Silverlight and JS people posting examples. Here are some image editors written in actionscript:
Phoenix
PhotoshopExpress
There is an ImageProcessing library to start with.
Plus PixelBender is available in Flash Player 10, it's fast, it runs in a separate thread
and people do some pretty mad things with it.
HTH
Some help for the Silverlight part:
There is an Silverlight image editor called Thumba.
And Nokola recently made one called EasyPainter and he will also provide the source code in the furure.
For the image conversion I would recommend the open source library ImageTools that also includes some basic effects.
Silverlight has a class for pixel manipulation of bitmaps called WriteableBitmap. The open source library WriteableBitmapEx is a collection of extension methods for Silverlight's WriteableBitmap. The WriteableBitmap API is very minimalistic and there's only the raw Pixels array for such operations. The WriteableBitmapEx library tries to compensate that with extensions methods that are easy to use like built in methods.
Pixel Shaders can also be used to make some fast and advanced effects. Although they are limited by Shader Model 2 shaders can be used for fast bluring, tinting and such things.
DISCLAIMER: I consider myself as an advocate of the Flash platform. I admire Silverlights huge potential as a technology to deploy almost any .NET content through the browser, but it has low penetration, is horribly marketed and -although perceived as such by many (mostly people who don't know either Flash or Silverlight)- is no competitor of Flash, as much as Flash is no competitor of Sliverlight. The idealist in me loves the idea of doing everything in HTML+JS using a standard, instead of relying on 3rd party proprietary software. But the truth is, JS is slow and the API is limited, and implementations of JS, HTML and CSS are terribly inconsistent accross browsers.
If you really wanna stick to .NET and are so interested in targeting the iPhone and its siblings, then you might wanna check out MonoTouch.
Still, even though this may surprise you, I am going to tell you to use Flash. :)
Why? The image processing bit is the smallest part of your application. Whatever it is you are writing, I am very sure of that. I don't know about Silverlight, but in Flash the filters used by "Thumba" and "EasyPainter" can be created within a day, most of them simply using ConvolutionFilter, ColorMatrixFilter, DisplacementMapFilter and BitmapData::paletteMap or even simply by applying one of the other filters Flash offers out of the box. Any additional things can be created using PixelBender, which was pointed out by George. The kernel language is a subset of C, so porting classic filters shouldn't be too time consuming. Also alchemy (an LLVM backend targeting Flash Player 10) would be an option worth investigating, although it's not very stable yet.
The biggest part of your app will be a lot of GUI design, GUI implementation, Business Logics etc. Flash is really great when it comes to simple, yet reasonably fast image manipulation and with the Flex framework and MXML you have a powerful tool to productively create the GUI of your app, that can interoperate very well with a multitude of server solutions for virtually any platform.
Also, Flash has a great and active community, offering tons of tutorials, code snippets, libraries and frameworks, and a big ecosystem, with cross-compilation tools to deliver flash content to other platforms (including the upcoming Flash CS5, or the mentioned Elips). I don't understand, where you got the impression, that the Flash platform lacks developement tools. The difference to the .NET suite is that they are provided by a multitude of vendors. The upcoming Flash Player 10.1 was already pointed out by George, but never the less, I wanted to stress, that this makes many of the cross-plattform considerations obsolete.
Last but not least, I'd like to point out Haxe. It allows compiling to SWF, but also to C++, using the very same API provided by NME, to target the iPhone. Also there's work in progress on an android backend. If you're aren't playing to launch within the next 4-5 months, then this is definitely an option.
Your issue is a perfect target for the Haxe programming language. Haxe is written for the web and can compile to JavaScript, Flash and Objective-C (possibly Java/.NET soon).
So you do not choose which platform you are going to invest in but in which language. Haxe is easily adoptable for an AcitonScript programmer.
It makes no sense to run your imageprocessing algorithms in a JavaScript sandbox when Flash is available because it will be much faster. It makes also no sense to run heavy image processing algorithms on a mobile device like the iPhone with JavaScript. I would only support JavaScript as the worst fallback solution.
If you do not like to use Haxe I would go with Flash. You can deploy your Flash application for the iPhone aswell if that is your problem. This is also very great because you get native ARM code. There are actually great tools for professional Flash development available. FDT and IntelliJ IDEA are two of them. The best Haxe IDE is probably FlashDevelop at the moment of writing.
So I would definitly not use JavaScript as the only solution. Haxe is perfect for what you try to achieve. If you do not trust or do not want to invest in Haxe you can use Flash because of the iPhone/iPad export.
Depending on your usecase I would also encourage you to look at cloud hosting like Amazon EC2 and Google AppEngine for instance. Hosting costs are cheap and scaling will be easy for your task. The experience will be much better when it comes to complex operations that can take even a lot of time on a desktop system.
In addition to other answers, another option may be a hybrid solution. For example, use Flash/Silverlight for the majority of your target audience and use server-side processing for those that don't support it (or you could create a native app for iP[hone|ad])
You may have to do something like this anyway as the mobiles you are targetting may have insufficient processing power depending how complex your image processing gets.
Of course you still have the option of upgrading your server which, although you've currently discounted, is probably far cheaper than spending development time creating/deploying/testing a client-side solution.
You can use Silverlight for all Silverlight enabled clients and for non Silverlight clients, do the image processing server side. Since the Silverlight code is C#, you can double compile it to make (mostly)the same code work as Silverlight and non-Silverlight (i.e. server). This gets you the best of both worlds.
You don't say what language "all that code" you'd have to rewrite is in. Might a semiautomated translation to Javascript be practical?
Perhaps you could start out server-side, as CraigS suggests, and then move functions into the client over time instead of rewriting all at once.
Have you checked the editor of Pixlr.com ?
Take a look at their API as well..
The best solution is to use silverlight (so you already have the code ready). If the client can't run it (mobile phones, etc) then process it server-side.
It's the best compromise.
Depends on the type of image processing and the end user experience you are targeting.
As you are looking to target mobile phones your image processing will need to take into consideration the type of handset the user or the receipient has (if messaging via SMS/MMS), as different handsets have different resolution screens and handle different image formats for main images and thumbnails.
I'd suggest that you consider a hybrid cloud architecture as was mentioned in the Microsoft PDC keynotes this year. This would enable you to have your own server(s) to support your application, but if you require additional capacity due you scale out into the cloud using AppFabric.
Additionally, to maximise the market availability of your product pulling the image processing to a common reusable infrastructure allows you to target different platforms, exploiting the positives in each.
I have worked on a solution that hosted its image processing and delivery infrastructure server side and then built different UI offerings allowing sales via desktops, MNOs and AppStores. It can work and from a business perspective can offer economies of scale benefits.
Why not mention Java Applet ?
Good sides are:
almost all browser support ?
need install JRE ?
all OS support
Java provide Java Advanced Image kits, but if c++ dll can be called, that is best (JNI can call c++ dll )
In Python, one of the most popular libraries for image processing is pillow. Through the pyodide project (python running inside browser via emscripten), it's possible to use libraries like pillow and numpy for image (or matrix) processing, and convert the output to a base64 string (via Python standard library). This can then be passed to your <img> html element, either native JS document or with a library like React.
The way I see it, there's no one solution that meets all of your needs. Your best option, imo, is to go with Flash and hope that Adobe sets an agreement with Apple to get Flash on the iPhone/iPad. The major downside, of course, is you'll have to rewrite much of your code.
If the mobile sector isn't absolutely critical, then choose the Silverlight option for reasons you mentioned already. You could also use Silverlight in an out-of-browser mode to work as a desktop application.