If I build a cross-platform app using the Intel XDK or jQuery mobile, would I still be able to use Parse.com as a back-end to manage data in the cloud and push notifications?
Short answer is yes, but only up to the point, and to make it clear, I'm talking from jQuery Mobile perspective.
You application will use Parse.com REST API for communication but that's about it. Because you are creating a hybrid mobile app RESTFul (AJAX) connection is only viable solution.
You can of course go for some native solution, using Java (Android) or Objective C (iOS) but you will need to write your own wrapper code that will communicate with JavaScript. This is a bad solution because it brakes the point of hybrid mobile applications (One solution to rule them all).
To incorporate everything you will need Cordova (PhoneGap) as mobile app wrapper. From my knowledge, Phonegap plugin is still no go, so you will need to create your own implementation, which will not be that hard, if you take into account that Phonegap plugin for classic push notifications exist, and you can use RESTFul communication to feed it data.
Also, why limit yourself to those two frameworks? Faster, more native like frameworks exist, so choose wisely (find more information here). Application speed if your first and major concern.
Leave me a comment if you need more information.
Yes, Intel XDK is an HTML5 Development Environment to develop HTML5 Mobile Apps, you can use any HTML5 framework like jQuery Mobile and use Parse.com for back-end for data, for push notification you will have to install Cordova plugin, which is currently not supported in the current version, but will be available soon.
Related
I understand that not all the code and functionality are available. However, I am currently in the planing of a new project and there are no document to be found on this aspect.
I want to know once I code in Titanium, is it possible to make a web version for mobile without the application with limited feature and the same code base? (something like touch.facebook.com vs Facebook app)
Thank you very much
Of course, Titanium could do that since it also supports MobileWeb. Titanium features:
Develop native applications for iOS, Android, BlackBerry, Windows, and
mobile web through a single code base.
With their Titanium Studio, you can easily build and package your app for MobileWeb.
But there are a lot of things to consider on developing titanium apps. Here are the few things I've learned along the way:
Don't use ImageView. Use View with backgroundImage. If it's an icon, you can make a font for your app. See how to create an icon font using IcoMoon.
Memory management
Never use borderRadius, borderWidth, borderColor in components within components, as for example a ScrollableView.
Minimize calling Ti.Platform.[property_name]. Example: instead of always calling Ti.Platform.osname to your controllers, you could have put it on you commonjs var osname = Ti.Platform.osname, then exports.getPlatformName = function() { return osname; };
Here are some few references:
http://developer.appcelerator.com/question/152656/tips-and-tricks-for-memory-management
http://developer.appcelerator.com/question/116867/this-is-a-solution-to-your-memory-woes#answer-203729
http://www.tidev.io/category/howtos/
Titanium SDK supports iOS, Android, BlackBerry, Tizen and HTML5 platforms. You can read more about that in their documentation. You can limit features in HTML5 app in a code with simple if() and reuse most of your codebase.
You can create a web version of the application if you include Mobile Web in the target platforms, when you create the project.
To deploy it on the browser, run the application as Mobile Web.
You may refer the following links for more details.
Getting Started with Mobile Web
Mobile Web Platform Overview
Mobile Web Limitations
I am thinking about developing a android application to make a WebRTC call. Unfortunately the native WebView in android does not support such feature. I tried XDK with CrossWalk and it works with WebRTC well, but the problem is that it is a pure HTML, Javascript application. I suppose the capability of HTML5 application in android would be a problem? (Notification, service, communication with database). So what I am thinking is that maybe I can build a hybrid application with the framework of a native application and a WebView with it? Thanks in advance, that would help me a lot.
Yes, it is possible. I build this HTML5 , https://www.noupei.com/. Its fully HTML5, build using jQuery and jQuery Mobile. One of my college easily transpose it using a webview for android, https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.knowledge7.android.noupei
BUT
It is also possible to completely develop your whole application using HTML5, and then package it with something like phonegap, the advantage you have is that using something like phonegap allows you to access the native features of the Android Device.
For HTML5 technologies like Bootstrap that allows you to make very good mobile interfaces are fully mobile responsive. It is possible to make very beautiful and attractive interfaces as well as you also have very good javascript frameworks like AngularJS.
I am interested in web standards (js/HTML/CSS). I would like to create applications from them, for phones and tablets. And sell these applications on mobile stores and web stores (for appstores and google play).
Is it possible ? What would be the best way to do it ?
Yes, there is a PhoneGap platform that can be used for building mobile apps for iOS, Android, Symbian, Windows Phone.Apps developed with it are accepted in all the stores. It is quite popular, robust and has nice features.
As mentioned in one of the other answers, yes PhoneGap will do the trick if you decide to write your app in HTML/CSS/JavaScript. Now, if you want to have a pleasant user experience on both smartphone and tablet operating systems, I would also recommend looking into Twitter Bootstrap.
This CSS framework has built-in responsive web-design styles that will allow you to scale things down in a user-friendly manner from tablet to smartphone, as well as show/hide different parts of your HTML depending on whether your users are viewing the page on a tablet or smart phone.
Specifically, you can do things like the following:
<div class="visible-tablet">
This will only be visible on tablets.
</div>
<div class="visible-phone">
This will only be visible on smart-phones.
</div>
For a full listing of the responsive design support in Twitter Bootstrap, check out their section on responsive design.
You may also want to check out the Google Chrome Web Developer plugin to assist you in creating a responsive web experience. This plugin lets you (among other things) view how your page will look on multiple device resolutions and is an invaluable tool for debugging resolution-specific issues.
You can look at Zurb Foundation, which is a very active open source project for building responsive web apps for mobile devices. Some overall description of the features here.
You can create Windows 8 Apps using Javascript and HTML 5 (apart from using Native languages). Windows 8 runs on Surface tablets and PC's.
Create your first Windows Store app using JavaScript (Windows)
There is a free ebook as well: free-ebook-programming-windows-8-apps-with-html-css-and-javascript
There are lots of options around - PhoneGap seems to be the most popular and, since it's now part of Adobe, it will probably continue to be popular.
However, there is a more important issue to be considered here: iOS users expect an iOS app experience, Android users an Android one... You get the idea. Make sure it's the best choice for your customers.
See this story about HTML5 at Facebook.
Also, and I know I might open a can of worms here, the performance will always be inferior to that of a native application.
You can also try MoSync:
"Build native mobile apps for all the major platforms using our leading open-source, cross-platform development environment. Now with support for In-App Purchases, NativeUI and Windows Phone 7." ]
There's Titanium from Appcelerator where according to their site you can build native apps using Javascript.
Just a late update: Facebook has open-sourced react-native since use asked your question and unlike PhoneGap (now called cordova) React-Native does not build hybrid app but builds true Native mobile application with the same power you would get when using Java for android or ObjectiveC for IOS. You can find out more here
No point in doing Microsoft/Windows Mobile anymore since it's now dead, but the easiest way to create Android apps based on HTML is to use DroidScript which can be found on Google Play (it did not exists at the time of this question).
You can also build native (non-html) apps with pure JavaScript using the same tool and it's far easier to use for novices than PhoneGap/Cordova.
At first glimpse Cordova and PhoneGap exist primarily for the use to develop apps to be used on a mobile device. Well, I am not interessted in the developement of native mobile apps.
There exists a webapplication (a cms) of our own and the question is now if a mobile toolkit like Cordova or PhoneGap is able to be of any help to develop parts of our cms functionalities with it in order to be able to support more plattforms.
Does it make sense to use Cordova or PhoneGap for the developement of a pure browser-based web application?
Phonegap (or Cordova as its now called) works by wrapping your webpages in a Webview and giving you access (in JavaScript) to some of the native device functions, such as the Camera, Accelerometer, Contacts etc.
As for whether it will help you depends on if want to make use of any of the native device functions, for example if you think incorporating the Camera (current HTML support for camera is quite spotty) into your web app is of use then you probably should consider it.
Another consideration is how your users will access the applications, with Phonegap it gets packages into a native app and they can just launch it from their home-screen (or however they launch apps on their mobile device), while with a Web App it depends on the device, on iOS you can pin it to your home screen and add some meta tags to make it appear more native like (for example hide the address bar) while on Android as far as I know you can't do that.
Finally consider that with Phonegap it might be more of a pain to debug your application since your HTML/Js is wrapped in a Webview, but as far as I've seen there is no easy way to debug it there.
One other thing I seem to recall reading somewhere that on iOS Apple doesn't give your native applications' Webviews access to the same amount of memory as if it were in safari so the exact sane web application when packaged into a Phonegap application might actually be slower.
To sum up, the benefits of wrapping your application in a Phonegap wrapper are access to native device functions and how your users access your app, if those aren't important (or the cons outweigh the benefits) than it probably isn't worth your while to go that route.
Cordova/Phonegap extend javascript with functionality provided by mobile operating systems. Therefore apps developed with these frameworks must be compiled to the target platform and only embed the HTML etc. in an embedded browser. The extensions need java, objective-c etc. code to run so I don't think that you are able to benefit from this code.
You are forced to write your own mobile device compliant HTML code when using Cordova/Phonegap. There are no neat mobile device ready user interface controls provided by the framework but only access to device specific hardware or software apis like notification etc. is given.
Cordova is just the latest name of PhoneGap. I would not go for that if you just want to build a mobile website. First of all publishing such an app on several online stores (iTunes, Play) is a pain.
does anyone know how to create a javascript interface in iOS that can be called from javascript? My aim is to save data from a website in a native fashion and not using html5 local storage.
If I understand correctly, what you need is a mobile webapp packaging solution.
The most popular here is, perhaps, PhoneGap, it supports many platforms including iOS. The product is free and open source. You will still need to use Apple's iOS platform SDK and have a developer account. As for storage mechanism, I believe PhoneGap has a solution for it (allowing the storage to be persistent, not cleared out like browsers' localStorage).
If you want to simplify your deployment process, you may want to check out appMobi, they build on top of PhoneGap, providing their own development kit and cloud deployment services.
Also refer to this thread that discusses different kits:
Comparison between Corona, Phonegap, Titanium
UPD. Have you tried the PhoneGap SQLite plugin for storage?