I've been looking into some mobile development frameworks lately. The app I want to develop looks more like a business app. I should be able to retrieve data from my MySQL database. As well just fetch normal data, but as well a log-in system.
I would set up a webservice in PHP that the mobile app could use to retrieve the data, but what's the most robust framework to make these kind of apps?
It's important that these frameworks are free.
I've taken a look at
JMango
At first sight, it doesn't look like it's able to do something like that really. It seems to have it's own scripting language, seems unlikely that it can meet such business needs.
Rhomobile
Seems like you need a license to even get it running, so doesn't seem an option either.
phonegap
Looks nice, but what frightens me is that all business logic is pumped into javascript.
I'd vote for PhoneGap (disclaimer—I have contributed to this (a bit)).
PhoneGap puts the business logic in JavaScript as this is the only cross platform programming language. Other solutions conver/recompile code for each app.
Alternatively you could look at the Mono family of tools (MonoTouch & MonoDroid) which when combined with C#/VS2010 can be used to create apps for Windows Phone 7, iPhone & Android.
Related
Do Windows Phone 8 Application developed for Windows Phone 8 device will run on Windows Surface Tablets (RT & 8.1)? Kindly clarify me.
Could you please suggest me on, what are the changes required for migrating the application.
Take a look on the Portable class library.
It allow you to share your code between different platform.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg597392(v=vs.110).aspx
This blog clearly explains how to use it :
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/stephe/archive/2012/05/07/partager-du-code-entre-plate-formes-gr-226-ce-224-la-portable-class-library-1-4.aspx
Anyway you got specific dev to do.
You will need to rewrite many portions of the application. It's difficult to be more precise as you did not describe anything about your application.
The UI, assuming you select C# and XAML for the Windows 8 modern application will need a significant amount of changes. While there will be a significant amount of knowledge overlap and technology similarity, the UI will not be portable. The components are similar, but for example, you've probably used the Windows Phone toolkit which is not available for a Windows 8 store application. Another consideration is that on the larger screen sizes, you'll ideally want to use a different layout of your application.
For the business logic, you may be able to use much of it as is. However, anything that deals with the file system or network (and more) will not necessarily be portable. You could use a portable class library for some features, but you may still need platform specific code.
While this all may sound like a tremendous amount of work, I'd actually like to suggest that it's not. The platforms are very similar, the development environment will be identical, and some amount of UI work would have been necessary anyway. Assuming you create two applications, the structure might look like this:
PhoneApplication
Windows8Application
DataModel
PortableClassLibraryStuff
PhoneSpecific
Windows8Specific
A lot of differences beetween WinRT and WP8 API makes porting much more difficult. But if you are still interested in this topic I can suggest you
Waiting for WP8.1 and W8.1 Update 1 API combination or
Writing your own little framework in a portable class library for navigation, setting, notification, ... support. I already did that work and there are a lot of possibilities for code sharing (resources can be completely shared with the binding notation of WP8). For more information please visit the opensource github project: Github MultiPlatform Framework sample. You will still need to rewrite a lot of xaml code but the leaked footage of the WP8.1 API already showed that we will be able to use much more shared UI code :-)
I am absolutely new to the mobile development and I am puzzled by the following question:
How can I write a cross-platform mobile application with UI on HTML5 (same for all platforms), most of logic in JavaScript and ajax, but keeping some of native capabilities like marketplace and a good offline storage?
Do "hybrid" applications provide what I need? Is it possible to get access from javascript code inside "web page" to the phone native resources?
Could someone suggest an entry point for such kind of work (framework/toolkit)?
There is some frameworks like Corona SDK or PhoneGap, which can help you to achieve this. Also take a look to this similar post. Another good comparison between such frameworks is available at Mashable
I have a webapp developed (game), based on HTML5 + CreateJS, but since Android lacks of standards, I've run into unsolvable issues for my webapp. That's why im recurring to PhoneGap.
Yet my confusion lies in the fact that I need to make this game into a phonegap app that runs on Android/iOS, using for each platform native specific stuff.
So, should I build 2 apps (one for each platform), all over again, or use the one I have and try to deploy it into different devices using phonegap?
The truth is I don't know how to approach this problem... can anyone help?
Best Regards.
Yes, you can use Cordova (PhoneGap) to create a cross platform mobile app. Basically, Cordova (PhoneGap is Adobe's version of Cordova) is an open source project that provides JavaScript API's for accessing native device functionality (like the Accelerometer or Camera.) Cordova also lets you package your app in the native application shell, so you put your app on the app store. Please see my other answer here about Cordova and hybrid apps: Beginning with Apache Cordova
If the game runs completely in HTML5, I think it would be easiest to just use that one codebase and integrate it with Cordova and then deploy to the various platforms - why rewrite the app twice if you don't need to?
However, if you are using native device functionality, you may need to develop your own Cordova/Phonegap plugins for use. This way, you can call regular Android/iOS code (Java or Objective-C code) that you write from your web app code with JavaScript. This might be more work, especially if you have never written in these languages.
Personally, since you already have a working HTML5 app, I'd just try to get it working with Cordova and see how it performs. If you really need some native specific stuff, then I'd try creating that "stuff" as a plugin. Rebuilding the app twice, once for Android and once for iOS seems like a pretty big waste of time to me.
The answer here is either yes or no.
Yes if you want to use some specific feature of the native code. For instance, iOS's default objects is beautiful itself, you can easily drag and drop it to build your application. However, it takes lots of time to rebuild for another platform. Specially, if you intend to create app/game for multiple platforms, it would be a nightmare.
HTML5 is much faster for you to approach several platforms. However, you can't get the best result on all platforms and all devices. I mean, it is really difficult to bring the max performance of the app on all devices. For this solution, I suggest HTML5 with some libraries such as LimeJS, Crafty, Impact, etc. or some tools such as Construct 2, etc. I used to use HTML5 with all those libraries but found out that Construct 2 is much better.
Instead of using phonegap, I recommend cocoonjs. Specially if your targets are iOS and Android platforms.
Hope that help.
Yeah, even the simplest game such as bubble buster would be difficult to make cross platform with different version of android webview and you need cross platform? I would suggest looking into something like Unity3D.
I am presently started working with mobile development and would like to know which is the best way to work with Html,css and jquery/Javascript for WP7.
As I have seen couple of things on the web as Phone Gap,Jquery mobile and Appcelerator Titanium
1.I have some of the problems actually this is not a problem but as PhoneGap gives a starter template with C# solution.
But I'm working on VB.Net.I'm unable to work with the C# solution as If I convert to VB.Net the entire starter template it is not working.
2.Just now I had a look at Jquery mobile there is no specific documentation mentioned how to use it with emulator in WP7.
Can anyone show me the links where I can start with the basics of Jquery mobile with WP7 emulator.
3.Do you think there is any other best way so that I Can work with jquery, html and css in WP7.
It sounds like PhoneGap is your best option here. Right now, it's the best way to deploy an HTML-based application on Windows Phone. The main thing that PhoneGap gives you is a bridge to the phone's hardware (things like volume buttons, vibration, etc.). It also gives you an easy way to wrap up your application into a package that can be installed like a real native app.
By themselves, other frameworks like jQuery Mobile, Sencha Touch and Kendo UI don't provide hardware access or the ability to deploy the app natively. They are purely UI frameworks, meaning they provide the interface widgets you'll use to build your app but little else. Generally, with these frameworks, you need to host the app somewhere like a website and access it through the browser.
Assuming you're running a Windows machine, you could host the app locally for development using Internet Information Services (IIS). Here's a guide to setting up a site. Then you could open the emulator and go to http://localhost to interact with your app. That would work, but it would be clunky.
The ideal scenario is to use both jQuery Mobile (or another UI framework) and PhoneGap to create a nice-looking, natively installable app.
What I'd recommend is trying to get PhoneGap set up in a VB project. From what I've seen, this shouldn't be too difficult. There are probably some details to work out, but mainly it looks like you need to copy the www and GapLib folders over. Then right click on References and browse to the GapLib .dll. You'll also need to get the MainPage.xaml and MainPage.vb files set up, but they probably just host a web browser control, so this should be straightforward.
Migrating the pieces into a new project should work a lot better than trying to convert an existing project.
If you post specific issues that you run into during the setup, I'm sure you could get them answered quickly.
I have a new project starting up that consists of building a webapp for a workorder based system. The main views are:
Viewing all open/closed/hold work-orders,
View Detail of Workorders
Create new Work orders
Account management.
In addition to being a webapp, it should also function as a mobile app.
What is the best approach for doing this? Will i have to develop a separate app for the mobile side? Can i use my webapp + sencha, jquery mobile, something.. that can work with my logic, classes, HTML structure to have it effectively work on mobile?
Or do i develop a mobile version first and think about progressive enhancement to the webapp (website)?
This question is open to all interpretations of flow, process, technologies.
Thank you Stack Overflowers.
Seperate out your business logic and model code from the view layer. Then use sencha touch and Extjs to create both a web and mobile (mobile web atleast) application. You can then reuse the model and business logic code and use the different frameworks to manage the view. When you have a mobile app running, use phone gap to turn it into a full-fledged app (assumming you need access to phone only systems (camera etc)).
We've done this with our own custom framework built on top of Ext and Sencha. We use ActiveRecord to run the models and then have a compile script that knows which files are for mobile and which are for web. We can then have all the code in the one repository and use the compiler to produce versions for the correct type (mobile or web).
It's definitely not a good idea to start with the mobile app, since web browsers are more ubiquitous than smart phones. Start with the web application and tailor the UI so that it can be easily displayed on smart phones as well as desktop browsers. If that's not a viable route, you could have a regular version and a mobile version of your website. In general, I think the overhead of writing a dedicated mobile client to browse your website is greater than the payoff unless you want to take advantage of the phones' hardware features like GPS or sensors (and even GPS you can still access from a web app using W3C geolocation api).