I'm looking for a development platform (language and set of libraries) that will allow me to develop a personal project. (In case anyone is curious, I'm looking at making a music library manager, similar to iTunes, that can work on multiple platforms and sync with Android devices).
I want the language to have the following characteristics:
Essential
The program must run flawlessly, with no (or very little) code changes on Mac, Linux, and Windows. That means, notably, that I need to have a cross-platform GUI framework, a consistent API for accessing files and directories, and a consistent interface for talking to USB storage devices
Important
A language that is easy to use, powerful, and expressive. Big standard libraries with a lot of built-in functionality. (I'd probably use C#/.NET but the portability isn't great)
Nice to have
Good tool support (on Linux if possible, but I'll do my development on Windows if needs be)
Not Java. (I have used it and just don't like it - I'm not interested in getting into a language war here).
Please help me choose a language!
Python
Cross platform GUI: more than one option, I'd use WxPython, but Qt bindings are also available (comparison between wxWidgets and Qt).
File System API: this gets into the os package, but there are also convenience methods for just dealing with I/O.
USB I/O: I confess to not having any knowledge here, but suspect if you're talking storage that Python will be able to read and write using its IO package.
Libraries, Ease of Use, etc..: there's a lot built in, but also a huge number of add-ons (called "packages"). Some of the most notable are SciPy and NumPy, used for scientific and numerical analysis.
Tooling: there are a number of IDEs out there, I use PyDev (but it's Eclipse based so you probably won't like it if you don't like Java).
Finally, Python is supported on Android via its scripting environment.
For cross platform GUI, you can explore QT. The back-end can be on c.
Have you explored anything so far?
Qt quick ?
Related
The UWP infrastructure seems to have everything what's needed for a portable model.
Clear separation between os and application
Clear separation between different applications
Less dependencies
Support portable class libraries
As far I know portable scenario's are not supported right now. Is it something that we can expect in the future or is it intrinsic impossible due the architecture of UWP/WinRT
How hard would it be to create some kind of host executable that can run any local UWP app. At the moment I'm looking for portability between different Windows 10 PC's. Not so much cross device or cross OS.
I'm aware you can side load UWP apps, but that's not what I'm looking for.
Is it something that we can expect in the future or is it intrinsic impossible due the architecture of UWP/WinRT
I don't see any major technical limitations that would prevent this scenario. UWP apps can register to some global mechanisms (which is something portable apps shouldn't do), like push notifications or background tasks, but the whole application model has been designed so that users can limit access to those features on a per-application basis. So every developer publishing an app is supposed to have considered beforehand that those code-paths may fail.
But "technically possible" doesn't mean that Microsoft will do it. In fact, I seriously doubt they ever will. The reason is simple: they're pushing the store with all their might, even seeking to put Win32 apps on it. Clearly, they're moving towards putting more apps on the store, not the other way around.
As to know whether it'd be possible to make a third-party standalone runner, I think so. When running unit tests for an UWP app, Visual Studio is launching a sort of "shell" hosting the app (it has become very apparent recently because after an update of Windows 10, the API that allowed to hide the splashscreen wasn't working anymore). I don't know what API is used to create this shell, but I'd definitely dig that way if I wanted to make a portable UWP host.
Although I haven't done this myself (will update answer if and when), reading this article makes it look like there is an easy way to create an installer that calls that command.
In short, an appx package can be installed locally using the command:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\bin\x86\WinAppDeployCmd.exe
Which can probably be wrapped in a UI or CMD installer.
Here's nice example of it (not mine).
I'm new to Chrome Application development and the Native Client/PNaCL pipeline. I'm a bit confused over the process of using existing C code/libraries in a chrome application. The FAQs and NaCL official docs suggest that using existing code is easy, and one of the advantages of developing Chrome applications.
However, there is also mention of nacl-ports, an official list of ported C libraries to be used in Native Client apps.
If I have some random C library I've used, what is the process for actually using it in my Chrome application? This question feels silly, but I'm quite confused over the process. Do I have to recompile the source with a NaCL compiler? Where in the SDK can I find this?
The FAQ also mentions that things like forks, file i/o is not allowed in the library, so I will have to rewrite any code that does these things, is that correct?
Bottomline: I have an existing C library. What is the process for using it correctly, and making calls to it, in a Chrome application?
The short answer is that you'll have to recompile your library with a NaCl C compiler.
You may want to take a look at naclports: this repository contains ports of many common C libraries to Native Client. You can browse the source more easily here.
As for File I/O, we often suggest using the nacl_io library when porting existing code. This provides a POSIX interface (e.g. fopen/fclose/fread, etc.) Many ported libraries require no modifications when using nacl_io.
Now that TideSDK is effectively dead, I've been looking into alternative 'wrappers' to run HTML/CSS/JS applications as stand-alone desktop applications. The three viable options I have run across so far, are NW.js (formerly node-webkit), brackets-shell, and Electron (formerly atom-shell).
The problem is that there does not appear to be a sufficiently complete comparison between the three in terms of feature set, compatibility, etc. I'm hoping to turn this into a more-or-less canonical thread on the (objective) differences between the three, in particular regarding:
Platform support; operating systems, dependencies, etc.
Language feature support, as far as HTML5, CSS3 and JavaScript are concerned. Think things like "does HTML5 video work, and if yes, what codecs are available?"
Non-standard extra features, such as tray icons, popup notifications, and OS-rendered menu bars.
Extensibility; eg. ability to 'plug in' native code, talk to Node.js, and so on.
Architecture; in particular the architectural differences that affect daily usage as a developer.
Debugging; included development tools, compatibility with commonly used tools like node-inspector, etc.
... and so on.
What are the objective, technical differences that matter when making a choice between them as an application developer?
I did similar research about two months ago, and in the end I went with node-webkit. The biggest upside on node-webkit is node.js and npm. The package management of npm is really nice, and node has well done filesystem access.
Brackets-shell looked interesting, but other than a nice IDE I didn't really get what made this one as good or better than the rest. They are very clear that "The brackets-shell is only maintained for use by the Brackets project ", that screams run away to me.
https://github.com/adobe/brackets-shell#overview
Atom-shell seems to be recently active, but it seems much like brackets in that they are really writing and editor/IDE that just happens to be attached to a webkit runtime. It also is built on top of node.js. This one has the downside of being difficult to search for stuff online without being reminded of your middle school chemistry.
I really don't want an new editor, and most programmers have their favorite already. For the actual application development, they pretty much work the same, and should, since they all use webkit. You basically write 90-95% of it like a website, and then deal with the native parts, and some config.
These things are true for all three of them
platforms - runs on Windows, Mac, and Linux
language support - HTML5, CSS3 and Javascript : since they run javascript you can download and run nearly any library/framework that you want.
The big caveat on webkit is codec support. Typically you will have problems with non-free video codecs, unless you rebuild the dll/so to support them. For example the shipped node-webkit won't play mp4 video.
I've been playing with Atom-Shell over the last few days, and I am loving it so far.
The best part about it is that it's backed by GitHub.. which should allow you to settle into the platform for the long term, especially if it gains a large following. It's also made possible by direct Node.js improvements courtesy of a contract with StrongLoop, who is a major Node.js contributor (they claim to employ more Node.js core developers than any other company, even Joyent).
I've also found it rather comfortable to get started. It took me about a day to learn the structure and get my first proof of concept running. Very cool.
Bullet Points:
Platform support: Windows, Linux, Mac OSX (More Info Here)
Language feature support: HTML5, CSS3, JS via Chromium - so far, zero issues, but I have not tested video specifically.
Native Features: Native App Menus, Task Tray Support, Global Hotkeys, Protocol Handler Support (that I've seen so far)
Extensibility: Excellent Node.js integration, both the client and server can "require" Node.js modules and natives. I've also successfully tested Bower libraries (incl jQuery) without issue.
Architecture: Covered in the other points, but in general its very smooth.
Update (11/25/14): I've not yet found use case for Atom-Shell in any official capacity, but I have used it to build a few small apps for my own use, the most complex being an app that pulls my time logs from my PM software and creates Paypal invoices.
My opinion of the platform remains positive. It's pretty awesome.
On my time invoicing app I successfully brought in Bootstrap 3's Dashboard Example Template and a few node modules (bluebird, Paypal SDK, Teamwork PM Client) to create a mildly complex app. It took me a few days and does its job well.
I really cannot think of anything negative to say about Atom-Shell, its solid, stable, fast, and easy to code for. I hope this helps someone.
Besides fully support Web standards, NW.js supports a list of non-standard features for native app development including:
Protect JS source code by compiling them into machine code: https://github.com/nwjs/nw.js/wiki/Protect-JavaScript-source-code-with-v8-snapshot
Jailed devtools: https://github.com/nwjs/nw.js/wiki/Devtools-jail-feature
Additional security model with which you can do more in DOM: https://github.com/nwjs/nw.js/wiki/Security https://github.com/nwjs/nw.js/wiki/Changes-to-DOM
enhanced file dialog: https://github.com/nwjs/nw.js/wiki/File-dialogs
kiosk mode: https://github.com/nwjs/nw.js/wiki/The-Kiosk-mode
supports for a growing list of chrome.* API, include chrome.webRequest so you can intercept HTTP requests from DOM: https://github.com/nwjs/nw.js/issues/518
support for rich notifications, print preview, many more chrome.* APIs, Chrome Apps and other Chromium features starting from 0.13.0-alpha0
There is much more to see in the wiki including Menu, Tray, etc.
I've been working with brackets-shell for some time now, here are some of my findings:
brackets-shell is primarily developed as a shell under the brackets IDE project, but the project can run any web application. You just need to point it to your own html page. Clint Berry wrote an excellent tutorial about doing just this: http://clintberry.com/2013/html5-desktop-apps-with-brackets-shell/
The project is backed by Adobe and has a lot of activity
Documentation could be better
platform support They support Windows, Mac and Linux. An installer package can also be created. I only tested it on Win and Mac, it works great.
feature support html5, css3, js. Html5 video does not work out of the box, but is very easy to enable (by default the ffmpegsumo.dll is not copied into the installer, if you change the script to copy it it will work).
native features menu bar, 'open file with', file system access. I am not using any of these, as all I need is the communication with the node process.
extensibility a nodejs is built in, and you can communicate with node from your web application. In this way, you can use node to access the filesystem etc.
architecture The project is well set up, keeping a nice separation between the shell project and your own web app running inside it. In your own application, a global appshell object is available which gives you access to the brackets functionality (filesystem access, communication with node process, ...).
One thing to note (if you care), is that the Electron officially does not support Windows Vista. Vista's market share is about halfway between OSX 10.9 and 10.10 (both of which are fully supported by Electron). Vista is also still supported by Microsoft until 2017.
NW.js works fine in Vista, as well as OSX 10.9+. NW.js works on Ubuntu, Debian, Zorin, Manjaro, Arch, and most other Debian based Linux OS's. Electron has refused PR's to fix Ubuntu specific bugs on their platform which is concerning.
NW.js works in XP too. Currently 18% of the market is still on XP. So if you're desktop application is more general purpose or wants to have access to the late adopters still on XP, you're probably better off with NW.js (0.14.7) as Electron only supports Win 7 and up.
If you use NW.js 0.12.3 you can also support OSX 10.6+ and very old versions of Debian based Linux OS's like Ubuntu, and Win XP+. It is recommended that you do special builds just for those legacy systems though and use the newer versions of NW.js for newer OS's.
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.
What is a Windows scripting language that: does not rely on .NET and offers the most OOP support and has simplest deployment?
It doesn't necessarily need to be a scripting language; It can be in the form of a compiled executable, however it needs to be self contained--only ONE file, no DLL's and it cannot be declared to "include" other files. I cannot rely on the user having any .NET installed and it needs to be able to run on Windows 7 64 bit.
By "most OOP support", I basically mean anything that has better OOP support than VBScript.
A little context: Everything I have done thus far is in VBScript and writes a bunch of data into an .html file, which in the end is to be viewed by Internet Explorer. It also zips up a bunch of directories and files. It heavily relies on accessing the registry, file-system, and WMI (I can probably do without accessing WMI though, as long as I have good registry access).
I can bring myself to write in any language so long as it meets me ridonkulous requirements stated above.
I look forward to some good answers from those more experienced than I.
Python has OOP Support. And no .Net. And pretty easy to install: double-click the MSI.
I suggest AutoIt v3. It can be compiled to single exe, allows many things that VBS offers and many more. Has ability to build simple and complicated gui and works on all Windows systems (older ones are supported by older autoit v3 version, newest version supports win2k/xp and up). It supports both 32/x64.
Best of all is their forum. Much like SO where they help you with both simple and complicated tasks. It also has great helpfile which describes all commands and shows examples how to use them.
AutoIt v3 is a freeware BASIC-like scripting language designed for automating the Windows GUI and general scripting. It uses a combination of simulated keystrokes, mouse movement and window/control manipulation in order to automate tasks in a way not possible or reliable with other languages (e.g. VBScript and SendKeys). AutoIt is also very small, self-contained and will run on all versions of Windows out-of-the-box with no annoying "runtimes" required!
AutoIt was initially designed for PC "roll out" situations to reliably automate and configure thousands of PCs. Over time it has become a powerful language that supports complex expressions, user functions, loops and everything else that veteran scripters would expect.
Features:
* Easy to learn BASIC-like syntax
* Simulate keystrokes and mouse movements
* Manipulate windows and processes
* Interact with all standard windows controls
* Scripts can be compiled into standalone executables
* Create Graphical User Interfaces (GUIs)
* COM support
* Regular expressions
* Directly call external DLL and Windows API functions
* Scriptable RunAs functions
* Detailed helpfile and large community-based support forums
* Compatible with Windows 95 / 98 / ME / NT4 / 2000 / XP / 2003 / Vista / 2008
* Unicode and x64 support
* Digitally signed for peace of mind
* Works with Windows Vista's User Account Control (UAC)
It may be not OO, but it can achieve your goals.
Microsoft JScript
PowerShell is superb. Of course, you should have .NET. But look: it's already installed on Windows 7 and Vista, is widely used and has tons of docs and samples on the net.