I've already read this:
IBM Worklight - Which features a Native app cannot use?
but it's a little old now and I'm asking:
what kind of features are still missing while developing a native cross-platform mobile app in the realm of business applications & banking tools using Worklight (are JSONStore and Direct Update still unavailable? There are further features missing?);
what are the CONs, in general, of working with such framework despite of using native SDKs (like the cross-platform struggle to keep up with the native platform roadmap, framework infrastructure weight, performance issues, general trade offs, etc.).
Any reference to Worklight documentation is welcome.
Thank you in advance
The essence of native development differs greatly than that of hybrid development.
In native development Worklight provides a set of APIs that allow you to work with the Worklight Server and the features that surround it (as listed in the question you've linked to),
Whereas in hybrid development you also get features related to the client-side. These client-side related features are meant for web development, so there is no correlation between the two (native and hybrid).
what kind of features are still missing while developing a native
mobile app in the realm of business applications & banking tools using
Worklight (are JSONStore and Direct Update still unavailable? There
are further features missing?);
So the list has not changed much:
Starting Worklight 6.2, JSONStore is supported in native development as well
Push Notifications in WP8 is now supported in native development as well
As for Direct Update... this feature is meant to update web resources, not native resources. Also, such updating of native resources is not allowed by the platform so there is no Direct Update support in native development.
what are the CONs, in general, of working with such framework despite
of using native SDKs (like the cross-platform struggle to keep up with
the native platform roadmap, framework infrastructure weight,
performance issues, general trade offs, etc.).
You handle native development as you would always handle it. The framework only provides you with the tools to use what Worklight provides on the server-side.
Related
I am planning to create a cross-platform mobile app that has native-like versions for most mobile platforms, maybe Windows Phone, Android, iOS. It's supposed to store data in DB on server, and the mobile app is mostly for visualizing that (numerical) data.
Basic usage scenario
User opens the app
App data is refreshed via internet connection
User inputs new data
New data is sent to server, handled and DB updated
User's app data is updated according to DB data (ANIMATION!)
User updates settings on his app that alters it's behaviour.
I'm a noob when it comes to designing and programming mobile apps + web services alone, so I'm hoping you could help me with the following questions. Technologies I'm most familiar with: Java EE, Python, HTML/CSS/JS, MySQL, Graphics. Maybe I should go for PhoneGap? Thanks a lot!
1) What cross-platform mobile technology you would recommend?
2) What kind of solution would be most suitable for server/app server? (Estimated code lines < 5000)
3) What's a good place to start learning scoring algorithms?
Please respond if you have answers to any of the questions asked.
EDIT: found a similar question: Cross-Platform Mobile Application Solution
#thevangelist: It's a very good question you have raised, all mobile developers face the same problem when we start writing an app. Today there are multiple Open Source Frameworks available in market which are trying to solve the same problem but in different manner.
Based on my research and experience, I would like to recommend below technologies which we can consider while building an mobile apps.
View: View is an important part of any mobile apps. When we start building UI/UX we also have consider it's platform design principles. Looking these points I would like to recommend React Native for the same.
React Native: It is a Facebook, and Instagram developed JavaScript library used in creating native mobile applications. It allows us to write iOS and Android applications using JSX, a known HTML look-a-like code, and JavaScript. It is based on “Learn once, write anywhere” methodology.
Pros
Renders native views with a native behavior and interaction … you’ll end up with a real native application
Has a paradigm of “Learn once, write anywhere” where developers only need React and JavaScript to create better application for Andoroid, iOS.
Uses native architecture and concept
It does not require a WebView
CSS Flexbox is used for layout design
Cons
Code abstraction leads to bugs and memory leaks
Cannot work without the API, which is provided by React Native, technically there’s no fallback like with classic hybrid mobile apps
When creating proper native applications, a developer will have more power and control regarding performance tuning
React Native is still a new framework so we can’t predict possible problems and downsides
These cons are somewhat negligible, especially if we consider that React Native is empowering more and more native applications with each passing day.
Data in Transit: If your app sync data from web services, then there are multiple frameworks available in the market to make our job easier. Please find below some of the most popular JavaScript RESTful Frameworks:
ACTIONHERO, StrongLoop
Data at Rest: You would also be needing offline storage for the sync data. Since we do not have direct support for native SQLite in JavaScript, we need to use some of the React Native SQLite Plugins. Please find below plugins which are available in the market:
almost, andpor, jbrodriguez, ramsundark5, remobile
For Data at Transit/Data at Rest, I would like to recommend Siminov Framework which is available on all the major platforms (Android, iOS, Windows). It also supports hybrid technologies such as React Native, Cordova, Xamarin.
Pros
Available on all the major platforms (Android, iOS and Windows)
Easy to configure, it provides standard xml based structure using we can easily configure our app database
It allows developers to bind ORM with remote RESTFul web services too
Also have support for SQLCipher on all the platforms
Cons
Lack of community: Recently they have launched their products on all the major platforms, not many people are using it.
Since the configuration is based on XML structure which looks pretty old to me. But based on their documentation it was done to support all the major platforms
Algorithm: I have found this link nurlybayevaAMS9 related to algorithm, hope this may help you.
Try avoid writing cross platform application. It is doable using HTML5+jQuery. But you can never get the same look and feel as native app. secondly windows, ios and android have their own look and feel and will come up with their own elements. You can never cater to all three having same code base. Better is to code using native sdks.
1) Never used PhoneGap, although aware of it, but don't forget to consider a simple HTML5 application. If possible, this would save you lots of work and maximize compatibility.
2) You can develop great RESTful webservices with both Java EE (see JAX-RS/Spring) and Python (see django). The choice is really more a matter of personal taste.
I am not much clear with the "Cross Platform Apps." Can we really built up some apps which can run on iPhone/iPad , Android Phones/Tabs , Blackberry , Nokia (Any platform or more than one platform at least) ?
I have heard something like WAC , Titanium but really not clear with all these. Please help me out.
There are some good frameworks out there to build cross-platform mobile applications:
Titanium: It is a framework to build Android, IPhone (and BlackBerry, still in beta it seems) using javascript, that will compile to native applications for the platforms specified.
Rhodes: A ruby framework, that supports almost all the mobile platforms out there (recently they added support to WP7). It has an MVC structure, and can use RhoSync to synchronize the data to a server side application.
PhoneGap: Another javascript framework, but it supports more platforms than Titanium, because it doesn't compile to native applications, but it embeds a web application inside a native application (web apps/web views are supported in each platform, so it's easier to handle the portability this way).
The apps will have access to the hardware, like the camera/gps, through some generic apis.
In some case you can build specific native module to integrate them in just one application platform if you need to.
These frameworks are useful to build cross-platform application writing just one application, without having to write each single application with the platforms sdks.
They have some (or many) limitations. If your application are simple enough you can consider using one of those framework. But for more complex ones, sometimes, if you target only a couple of plaforms, it could take less time to build each one with native sdks individually than using one of this cross-platform framework, because of their limitations (I highly prefer using the Android SDK than using Titanium).
Is there a sane way to develop a cross platform Mobile app? We want these to be native apps on each platform, and not necessarily some kind of web page.
Currently we're thinking to split it into two languages:
C# backend (business logic)
--> Standard C# app for WP7
--> App built on MonoTouch for iPhone/iPad/etc.
Java backend (business logic)
--> Standard Android Java app (MonoDroid version of C# not ready
yet)
--> Standard Blackberry Java app
We could also develop initially in C# and use one of the conversion tools out there to get our C# converted into Java as a starting point.
Is there another approach? Our skillsets include mainly include a strong C# .Net background, and minor Java experience.
We don't really want to go low level and use something like C/C++ to get the job done. These are usually going to be simple LOB applications that communicate to some web service.
Side Question: how do game devs like the makers of Angry Birds do it?
UPDATE:
MonoDroid is now officially released. So it seems you would only need to use Java for the BlackBerry. We are considering not developing for BlackBerry at all, because developing for the other 3 platforms has been simplified. There is definitely some cost involved, as MonoTouch and MonoDroid are both $399 and you would also need a license for Visual Studio (this doesn't include cost for App store, etc.).
There's no good simple answer that I know of for all mobile platforms. You can use development environments like Appcelerator Titanium, which cross-compile to native code on various platforms (right now, for instance, I think Titanium supports iOS and Android, with plans for Blackberry). However, these usually have a limited API that you have access to, and you still end up needing to design different UIs for the different platforms (in my commercial work, I have never successfully used such a platform)
You could also design all the business logic in a web-services back end, and then just write "thin client" apps for each platform. This works, but of course requires network access when the end user wants to use your app. (Usually it'll be there, but sometimes may not)
Ultimately, I usually end up doing what you propose -- writing the basic business logic in a couple of different languages as generically as possible, and then bundling that in with custom UI/device code for each platform. Haven't found a better way myself....
(BTW, I believe games like Angry Birds are written largely in OpenGL and then loaded onto the OpenGL processor on each platform. But I could be mistaken...)
Those are some great answers. I agree, x-platform development is still very primitive. I'd like to add 2 points:
1) You do not need to write your backend in different languages. Choose one language (based on your comfort level, performance etc. criteria) and then connect from your platform-specific apps directly to the backend. If your backend is server-side code, one way of talking to it would be via XmlHttpClient. If it's a piece of native code common across various apps and is written in say C++, you can use JNI from Java and wrapper assembly from C#.
2) Another reason for avoiding x-platform tools is that you'd always need to wait for them to support the new APIs released by the platform vendor (Apple, Google, MSFT etc.). Once these companies release new APIs, the tools will need to be updated and only then will you be able to use the new APIs.
I don't think this is (easily) possible, if you're not using some HTML5 (jquerymobile etc.) in a WebView in your own app (looks like a real app, but still you will somehow see that it's not) instead of the normal browser. You can still use some native API from the device (accelerometer,...).
There are (commercial) platforms like Sybase Unwired Platform that help you in generating some client code. Afaik for Blackberry and Windows Mobile even some UI can be generated out of the business objects on the server. But to me it sounds that this might be too heavy-weight for your case.
Regards,
Martin
Issue
What is your strategy for building a desktop-like webapp that needs to be deployed to desktop web browsers and on mobile devices(Android, IPhone, etc)?
A course of action could be to firstly select the best framework for building the part that runs on computers(i.e. not mobile devices). Being a desktop-like app, a good candidate framework is GWT+ExtGWT since it provides:
Java-based development which is much scalable/solid than developing in Javascript via ExtJS for example
Good debugging
Good testability
Next, you'd want to deploy this app on mobile devices too. So how do you go from here? Write a separate implementation(separate from GWT) for Android, another one for iOS(in objective-c), another one for Windows Mobile, and so on?
Related
Related to above, I saw the presentation of PhoneGap which claims you develop in Javascript+HTML and it generates code for all mobile platforms: Android, iOS, etc.
However, PhoneGap is not an option since I don't think it integrates well with GWT and more important, it doesn't generate a native app which can take advantage of features like backgrounding, services, etc(see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xHXn3Kg2IQE for why native Android apps are much better than browser-based ones). There may be other frameworks like PhoneGap out there that I'm not aware of though but at this point I only see:
one implementation with GWT
one implementation for Android
one implementation for IPhone
and so on ...
If you are already planning on developing for multiple platforms, it is a good idea to at least consider cross platform frameworks like PhoneGap or Appcelerator. Beyond the fact that you are developing for multiple platforms there are a couple of other important questions to consider.
Do you want a web version as well?
Do you need intensive graphics support?
Do you have loads of money to target multiple platforms?
Do you have loads of time to target multiple platforms?
You also point out two more great questions to consider in debugging and testability. In terms of unit testing, any native platform is very difficult to unit test. Debugging is pretty easy for most native platforms.
Regarding PhoneGap, it is important to know a few things about it.
You can write PhoneGap plugins. A plugin is essentially native code for any given platform that can do pretty much anything you would want to do in native code -- background services, opengl, etc -- and make it accessible to JavaScript in the web view.
There are several open source projects that you might be very interested in such as GWT-PhoneGap, QUnit for JavaScript unit testing, and Weinre for Firebug like debugging.
Hope that helps!
I am new to J2ME and what I have now is Netbeans 6.7.1 IDE. Is there any basic guide for developing Mobile applications in Netbeans 6.7.1? Please provide me the links.
Netbeans.org itself has great tutorials for mobile development in Netbeans. And that is what you need:
http://netbeans.org/kb/trails/mobility.html
For examples this is a very good Quick Start for Netbeans J2ME development:
http://netbeans.org/kb/docs/javame/quickstart.html
I think this book best source for J2ME with Netbeans:
Kicking Butt with MIDP and MSA: Creating Great Mobile Applications (The Java Series)
Book Description:
The release of MIDP 2.0 and the introduction of the new Mobile Service Architecture (MSA) are generating momentum for the Java ME platform. As more and more Java-enabled mobile devices become available and more service providers become open to third-party development, the demand for customized applications will grow dramatically. Now, there's a practical, realistic guide to building MIDP 2.0/MSA applications that are robust, responsive, maintainable, and fun.
Long-time Java ME author Jonathan Knudsen offers real solutions for the complex challenges of coding efficiency, application design, and usability in constrained mobile environments. Experienced Java developers will master MIDP 2.0 and MSA programming through clear, carefully designed examples. Downloadable code is available for both NetBeans Mobility Pack and the Sun Java Wireless Toolkit. Kicking Butt with MIDP and MSA's wide-ranging content covers:
Pushing MIDP's limits, and exploiting MSA's full power
Using MIDlets, Forms, commands, core classes, and invocation
Building effective mobile user interfaces
Designing graphics with the Canvas, the Game API, SVG, and 3D
Providing storage and resources: record stores, FileConnection, and PDA PIM
Internationalizing mobile applications
Networking via WMA, Bluetooth, Web services, and SIP
Parsing XML documents
Implementing audio and advanced multimedia
Securing mobile applications with SATSA and the Payment API
Building advanced location-based applications
Designing applications for multiple devices
Creating end-to-end mobile application architectures
Tell what platform you are developing on so that the tools available for you can be given.
Also, you most definitely want an emulator so that can test your applications directly on your computer (Saves time).
Honestly, can't give much more advice than to know java well and to use google + stackoverflow. Those are what I did and ended up developing a commercial app in j2me just fine.