Anyone know about Rhomobile? - html

I read about http://rhomobile.com/ and I found this is great but I want to ask whether the application built with that would run in Browser or Natively on the device as this requires HTML and Ruby?

The application generated using Rhodes are pure Native application... And there is no need to install Ruby on devices as Rhodes will take core of it..
May be this URl is helpful :
http://itsallaboutruby.blogspot.com/2010/08/rhodes-framework.html
Abhishek

Both, actually.
Your application is a web application, but it doesn't run on the internet, it runs on a small webserver that is part of your application inside the phone. It also doesn't run in the browser, but rather in a native browser widget inside your application.
Since the webserver runs on the phone itself, it has access to all the native capabilities of the phone, so you can make HTTP calls to the webserver to capture sound from the microphone, shoot video with the camera, get the GPS location, get multitouch info and so on.

Related

HTML5, jquery mobile app deployed as stand alone app

I have read a few forums and articles on this but can't get a clear answer.
I need to build a mobile app that can run on any platform/device. It looks like HTML5 + jquery is the best option but I need the application to do the following:
The app must run on any platform (Windows Phone, iOS, Android, etc).
It must work as a stand alone application. Meaning it must work without internet connection.
Because it is stand alone, I need a local database on the device. The database can be embedded in the app. I'm thinking SQL CE.
The local database on the device must be able to sync to a SQL Server database.
The app needs to interact with features of the device like the camera, or GPS device.
Is it possible to build such a mobile application?
I am using ASP.net MVC 4 to do the development.
If you want to use HTML5 and JQuery then the PhoneGap/Cordova framework would suit you best.
Phonegap is a cross platform framework that gives you access to the device features like GPS and Camera using a standard javascript API.
The app must run on any platform (Windows Phone, iOS, Android, etc).
Phonegap is compatible with all these and many more including blackberry. See here for full list: http://phonegap.com/about/feature/
It must work as a stand alone application. Meaning it must work without internet connection.
PhoneGap runs as a native application inside each devices webview. It does not need access to a data connection to run
Because it is stand alone, I need a local database on the device. The database can be embedded in the app. I'm thinking SQL CE.
PhoneGap cannot run its own SQL Database like a standard native application but it can use the web standards Web Storage and Web SQL. Though this approach does have limitations. Read more about this here: http://docs.phonegap.com/en/1.2.0/phonegap_storage_storage.md.html#Storage
The local database on the device must be able to sync to a SQL Server database.
This would be upto you to design and implement but can definitely be done
The app needs to interact with features of the device like the camera, or GPS device.
Most device features supported with PhoneGap. See above link for full support list.
If the lack of a full SQL Database support is a problem for you there are frameworks like Titanium Appcelerator that build a fully native cross platform app for you that may be more suited to your situation.
http://www.appcelerator.com/platform/titanium-platform/
But if you're using HTML and JQuery to go cross platform then PhoneGap is your best bet.
Edit: Also there are plugins for PhoneGap to run a standard SQLite DB but this requires extra work on each platform. Every platform you develop for would require a compatible plugin.
http://brodyspark.blogspot.com.au/2012/12/cordovaphonegap-sqlite-plugins-offer.html
Use PhoneGap: http://phonegap.com/
or Apache Cordova: http://cordova.apache.org/
or Intel XDK: http://xdk-software.intel.com/

Embedding The Dart VM In A Desktop Graphical Stand - Alone Application

So I am writing a cross-platform (so far plans for Windows and Ubuntu) application for both the web and desktop.
This application
is expected to at times be moderately graphically intensive and perform a substantial amount of file IO. I am writing it in Dart. Which may seem like a
"funny" choice given the circumstances, however I did not want
to deal with any heavy API's or have two code bases (NaCl and GCC with two different libs).
In short I am using Dart to interact with an HTML web page, and noticed the Dart VM does
not interact with a webpage unless you are in Dartium. But I want a "desktop application" as well as a web application which eliminates Dartium as a choice, so alternately I plan to use a Qt Webview to make it look like a desktop app, but what I am wondering is would it be worth it to go through the trouble of embedding the Dart VM into my app? In doing so would it easily enough to get the Dart VM (running a dart script) to interact with the page in the Qt Webview (I am a bit new to Dart)? Thanks for reading!
Dartium will eventually be merged with Chromium, allowing your DART applications to run inside chrome directly as a web technology.
Once that merges, you can take advantage of the new Chrome Apps which allow you to have a desktop version of your web technologies. As such, you won't need to use Qt Webview, or embed dartVM into your native application; just use Chrome Apps.
~Main

Installing an offline html app and data onto an iPad

I am contemplating buying an iPad and am wondering what options I will have for developing an app for personal use ... specifically whether I will be able to do it as an offline browser app. The app currently exists as an Android Java app; it interacts with a large local database (about 3MB) and displays images and text drawn from a very large pool of resources stored locally (about 2GB).
My immediate questions are:
How would I get the files (html/javascript, database, images and text) transferred into the iPad's storage from a Windows PC? With Android this is a simple matter of hooking up via USB and using Windows Explorer. Googling suggests that for an iPad I might have to use an app on Windows called DiskAid, but this costs $25 which seems a bit steep for my simple purpose. Are there free alternatives?
Once the files are installed on the iPad how would I run the html app? On Android this appears to be a matter of keying "file:///sdcard/MyBrowserAppFolder/mybrowserapp.htm" into the browser's address box. Does th iPad browser work in a similar way.
There are two basic kinds of applications that run on iOS.
Mobile designed web applications that are hosted on a server and accessed through Safari or another browser.
Native applications built using Xcode and usually objective-c.
For the latter, you could use the phonegap framework to build an app using existing html and javascript.
My personal advice is to invest the time to learning how to code this up using objective-c. Depending on what format your db is in, importing the structure and data might be trivial. It will take an investment of time, but doing things using the native tools is the best choice for iOS development in my opinion. I was in the same situation (PHP, VB.NET and Javascript developer) and just decided to take the time and learn to do it right. This was a great decision and the development time of a simple to moderate application takes very little time now.
Safari on iOS does not support the URL's of type file:// natively. So you either write your own app, purchase an app or use something like a local web server after jailbreaking.
Alternatively, and if you can verify that the app you have mentioned does what you want to do, then maybe $25 is not so much of a price. Depends on what your time is worth :)
However there are cheaper apps around that allow to transfer and read html via wifi and usb. (Not sure I can name them here)
The USB transfer aka iTunes Filesharing is a standard function that a developer can enable in the info.plist of their app. Many apps use this to transfer data between Computer and iDevice.

What's the alternative for hta (HTML apps)?

I have to convert a HTML application (.hta file) so that it can be executed on Linux and MAC also.
What could be the alternate ways of doing it? Should I convert to an AJAX app?
Any suggestions? OR Has anyone gone through this before?
Reagards,
/Syed
Though you have not provide the nature of application. I mean what you application does.
What I get from question is since you are using HTA application that means you application requires system level access. Now since Linux and windows are completely different platforms. It is not possible to complete port one app from one platform to another.
If you can work at the plugin level like development of flash-plugin or you can use the Adobe AIR to build your application.
I mean to say don't use Microsoft native code in you application.

Get a stream from client microphone via web browser?

I want to implement something like voip communication that client doesn't need to install additional application, they just open the webpage and talk to a server. Is there anyway to access the audio stream from client microphone via web browser ? I don't want additional plugin like applet that user have to install.
I think flash can do this, but is there anyway else ?
Thank you,
Voteforpedro
Your four main options are:
Flash
Silverlight
ActiveX
Unsecure browser settings (e.g. javascript calling EXEs)
All of the above will be subject to various security limitations or require some acceptance by the end-user. I'm not even certain that the browser calling out to EXEs is even possible any more so it should be avoided at all costs.
Installing an ActiveX control will limit you to IE on Windows, so should probably be avoided. The user would have to agree to installing the ActiveX anyway.
Both Flash and Silverlight are cross-platform (Flash more so than Silverlight) but also require the user to agree to access to the Microphone/Webcam - this is done by the framework, not something you can control/influence. Obviously, if the user does not have Flash or Silverlight installed, you'd need to prompt the user that they need to install it!
As stated by #Oded, there are serious security and privacy issues related to microphone's and webcams, so do not expect future browsers to make this easier for you (e.g. the new family of HTML5 browsers).
There is no standard, I think flash is your best bet.
AS 3.0 Accessing a microphone.
There is no standard that gives you access to the client machine microphone.
I can imagine there are security implication to giving a browser such access, so don't expect to see anything soon, not without some sort of plug-in.
Chrome 11+ supports access to the microphone. Visit this page (with Google Chrome) and click on "Speech" and try it out. This is using Sencha Ext/Touch which is an open library. This specific addon to Sencha Touch is also open source and released here.
Edit: To clarify, this is JavaScript only. The user doesn't need to approve anything. But, it only works in Chrome and it uses Google voice recognition.
Good luck!