I am leading a web application with a standard client-server-database architecture. My original plan was to have the client in react.js, the server in django+python, and the database in MySQL. Now, the programmer in charge of the client side is an expert in Unity 3D Engine, and he suggested to use this to implement the client. The advantges are:
Very easy to design;
Cross-platform - can be compiled to web, Android and iPhone.
One disadvantage is that the file size is larger, but for our application, it is not a substantial concern.
What worries me is that I do not know of any non-game web-applications that are written in Unity Engine, so there may be some disadvantages that I am not aware of.
Question: what are the disadvantages of using Unity 3D Engine to design the client side of a web application (versus e.g. react.js)?
I will mention some drawbacks I might think of compared to the web side of developing a web app. However I want to mention first that unity's versatility makes it suitable for any application you might think of and that the feature of compiling for the web is so huge. The times I am mentioning below are not big (it will depend on the app), but are to be considered if what is being built is a web app.
Unity webgl build size is said to be large, so the init load time of your web might take some seconds. Getting your hands dirty improving that might not be feasible as the build is provided by unity, so you would also lose that flexibility improving the load times. Also if you dont have the unity's pro version, your will have the "made with unity" splash screen on your web.
You can check that building an empty or very simple project to check these two things.
If you are not using the engines features regarding the game dev side, would not make much sense to use unity for me, meaning the physics, animations, collisions etc. It is expected a larger load time for graphic things or games, not for current webs though.
Another thing to consider. Seems that you can handle the settings of your build to work in mobile browsers, check the documentation. However the layout adaptation when you are using the app in a mobile browser might be much tougher as you renounce to manipulate easily the html and css directly yourself and renouncing to all the js and css ecosystem that might provide this work done for you. May be not renouncing, but it should take longer to integrate those in your unity builds if that is even possible.
Also, unity webgl builds take a while to be made, so for testing and so on, the compile + building + deploy time is a bit of a drawback compared to a web "live loading" + deploy which is a much faster workflow.
Related
When do you think is best to to use a mobile App Maker (Ex: Appery.io) and when to code using a framework (Ex: Ionic)?
Of course, that coding with a framework doesn't tie you to any App Maker label... But, besides that, any other matter I should consider.
I need to start a simple project that querys a some REST API and have some doubts.
So I thought about posting here to open my head to someone who has walked this road before.
I don't mean this to be an open ended question on what is the best framework and comparing them all. I am just trying to establish is it really necessary to go down the heavier more complicated frameworks or can I get a mature long term solution using something like Appery?
Thanks!
When it comes to mobile apps, and as in your case, apps that load dynamic data from server, it is usually better to go for mobile app frameworks rather than, for online app builders. There can be multiple reasons for this :
App builders usually come with a lot of features, but they almost always fail for some Custom client requirements.
They usually tend to cater the need for static apps, when it comes to dynamic apps that have a lot of data manipulation stuff, you should prefer your own framework and logic to do so..
You can almost everytime modify / tweak a framework, You can't do so with an appbuilder.
You aren't sharing your code on cloud [Matters if you are working for some critical organization / client].
You have total control over your code / view. You can tweak it, twist it and almost guarantee total ownership. All you are bound to is the limitation your framework imposes.
You can mix and match frameworks, that doesn't applies for an appbuilder.
These are some of my quick thoughts, there can be [and are] many more reasons for switching towards a mobile framework..
AppMakers are generally there as tools for Rapid Prototyping. These days they market that you can make production apps using Appmakers but when you start using them you will notice that one or some other requirement you have cannot be implemented. In my experience, app development time seems to be less for AppMakers but it is generally more. On the other hand Mobile App Frameworks provide a lot of flexibility and code reusability too.
I am a computer science student in my senior year at my local university. I recently was hired on as an intern to create a mobile web application. The mobile web application is very simple; it needs to interface with a data base to both give a full data base view for an administrator and for end users to fill out a simple survey. I have never done anything in web development before, so I did a little research and the tools that kept coming up where html, css, java script, and php. However, I also ran into other tools with different applications, like AJAX with Jquery, HTML5, and micrsofts asp.net. I have a basic understanding of html and css, but I haven't committed to a development platform yet. I wanted some advice on which one to choose, based on the following criteria:
1) I want to develop a website that is device neutral. So I want it to work well on both desktops and mobile devices.
2) No one knows the future, but I would like to use the development platform that is likely to become or remain the standard in the future.
3) It needs to be available as a part of a standard server platform for a typical web host
4) It needs to be able to dynamically generate web content and interface with an SQL data base.
I would really appreciate some advice, input, ect. I don't know if I will pursue a career in web development, but sense I already have to learn at least one development platform, I figure I might as well learn the right one.
Thank you for any advice and input.
If you don't have a web developer background and don't want to spend time learning it thoroughly, I would recommend using Google's GWT. It provides you with all the tools to implement your application purely in Java, without caring too much about the front end. As the whole thing's in Java, all the SQL handling can be done there, with the results sent to the front end.
Then, you can add built-in elements (flexible tables, panels, buttons, images, etc.) to the app, again, using Java only. You can get some CSS templates from the web and apply the styles without any HTML knowledge at all.
Once ready, you can compile the whole thing into JavaScript, with several permutations of the code compatible with most of the modern browsers. Then all you have to do is to deploy these generated JavaScript and HTML files onto your HTTP server and enjoy :) You can also touch the HTML directly if you have something that can't be applied through GWT but in the case of a simple webapp this won't be the case...
I am in the process of converting a very large E-Commerce website into mobile website. I wanted to find out different options which can be used for this process. I am aware of different libraries in which jQuery Mobile seems like the most mature one.
I also glanced at Ionic but it is still in Beta. What are your thoughts on different libraries for implementing mobile websites?
Last frameworks like Ionic+Angular, lavaca, famo.us... have better performance and faster than ever for develop, but they have still some compatibility problems with "old" smartphones (i.e. Android < 4.1), when jQueryMobile works better in old ones. Of course, as time passes this problem gets less important.
Take into account also that these frameworks are based on the SPA paradigm (Single Page Application) that possible is costly to adapt from your current website (JSP or JSF...).
If your app is based on J2EE JSF you can take also look into JSF-Primefaces that uses jQueryMobile as a front-end framework. Perhaps is a shorter path to reach your goal.
Got a problem, and I am pretty sure there is a solution for this.
Currently we have a Website that sells goods & integrates with a thirty party for shopping cart. The shopping cart integration is through standard web re-direct.
Product works well on desktop browser. Its not that bad on browsers on tablets. Not so great on phone browsers. The problem on mobile device is for obvious reasons, as the pages are optimized.
The standard approach we can do is go about optimizing for mobile browsers, and be happy. My team is flying with optimizing for mobile web, because they think apps will be very difficult to do.
If we choose to go the native app model, is developing a library or package for each platform the only way? I am thinking, no in current world with so much technology advancement. I am not a fan of browser view on device, not the smooth experience.
Are there other options available? I was looking at HTML5 hybrid applications, but can't put a finger to be sure that will work for what I am looking for.
Frameworks aside, often times you can use a stylesheet meant for mobile devices and hide everything that is not absolutely vital. You could also consider WML, but I think you could live without it IMAO.
Writing apps for the iOS will require an investment in Apple developer tools and training in Objective-C. Android will call for Java and Eclipse, to name a few things.
When it comes to "native apps", you will need to code for whatever platform you are depending on. The number of platforms you work with is entirely up to you, but yes, each new platform may require a different implementation.
Personally, I would add some specialized markup/styles to make as many browsers as possible happy. If you want to expand, try to see where your target audience really lies and reach out to them on any medium you can afford to build on. I would zone in on specialized applications if there are benefits really worth chasing down that road.
Hybrid applications is a good option, but probably the devil in a box.
The hybrid approach with HTML5 fits your developer, because they will still use HTML, CSS and JS (e.g. with PhoneGap), but on the other hand you will get an medium satisfying UI (what you said you are not a fan of).
Pure native applications is probably a bit too much of all good, if your web app runs fine in a browser.
A way could be to go with compiled hybrid and cross-platform compatible solutions like xamarin or appcelerator, especially appcelerator uses JS, which is an advantage for you. This could result in a native UI (implemented in JS) and shared business logic code. So there are two benefits for you; first, just use JS, second, shared business logic code -> less work.
Other alternative would be to go with responsive or adaptive websites, realized with the help of CSS.
If you are looking for developing a hybrid app (phonegap + angularJS + backend), I would like to recommend Monaca. I've just recently discover it. It is very cool since it has phonegap inside its framework and its own backend. Moreover, it also has a fast and lightweight UI framework called OnsenUI which is based on Topcoat and AngularJS.
Even it is a hybrid app but it will give users the native application feel since it also provides native components to use in your hybrid apps. What is impressive about it, you don't even need to build and install your app to your device every time during development. That's what I love the most about this.
I hope it helps since I think it is just like what you are asking for. I'm just a novice developer and I find it is very easy to use.
I've been asked to do some work on an existing Silverlight project, mainly extending it a bit and doing bug fixes as needed. But there are a couple of ASP.Net pages too and a WCF service to deal with too. My background is desktop development with .Net so I think this is a good opportunity to start getting more involved in Web development.
So I'm trying to figure out what background knowledge I need for a project like this. Clearly I need to get familiar with Silverlight, but I'm not sure what other Web technologies, etc I need to ramp up on for this project. Obviously I would like to know as much as possible but in reality with limited time and resources I really need to focus on what I important in the near term for this project. Then expand my knowledge as things arise.
The things I'm thinking that are important in the immediate future are:
The basics of Web Development (I'm thinking this might be the most important\fundamental area to build a good foundation)
But what are consided the basics?
What is technology\language independent?
What is important for Silverlight?
The basics of ASP.Net (since there is some ASP.Net code)
What are the basics? ASP.net seems so huge, I have a 1000+ pg book here which seems daunting.
If you focus on Silverlight is knowing ASP.Net important, or is ASP.Net something I will continually run into?
How does ASP.Net MVC fit into the overall development picture and especially as related to Silverlight?
The basics of WCF
As compared what?
Any suggestions\comments on the list above?
What other topics\technologies will I run into if I continue doing Web development?
Note: Beyond this project I would focus on the Microsoft stack.
Generally speaking the amount of knowledge of ASP.Net you need to do Silverlight development is very very low.
Silverlight applications are hosted in a browser, usually via the <object> tag. This can sit on an asp.net page or a html page. The Silverlight template creates that for you, so you can forget its there and just get on with the Silverlight app.
Of course if you are integrating into an ASP.net environment (for example, islands of Silverlight sprinkled through an ASP.net site) then thats another thing. There are ways to get Silverlight talking to the HTML dom via the HTML Bridge but its not necessary. Really depends on what you are developing and integrating with. (new site vs existing)
I avoided ASP.net for as much as i could as the richness compared to desktop (WPF) just wasnt there. Silverlight changed all that. Its a Rich world on the web now!
Best place to start learning Silverlight is www.silverlight.net on the getting started part of the site. great Quickstarts and tutorials there.
Good luck
Only cursory knowledge of traditional web technologies (css, html, js, etc.) are necessary for silverlight development. As a consequence, you also don't need to understand the many cross-browser dependencies as well.
Here is my list of things that you must get a really good understanding of to be proficient at Silverlight development:
Understanding WCF (the Silverlight-supported parts) is essential. It can be a configration nightmare, but once working it is pretty stable/ reliable
You need to understand serialization used by WCF and how to debug the mysterious 404 errors. Get good at Fiddler and/or Firebug.
You must understand multi-threaded applications and how do debug them. Silverlight makes extensive use of threading to not block the UI thread. This creates numerous opportunities for race conditions that create what appear to be "magical" results. That said, it is incredibly powerful and IMHO one of the dominant reasons to use Silverlight.
What you learn about serialization and WCF will ultimately help you cache some data in IsolatedStorage. Learn about IsoStorage, it will reduce our bandwidth requirements and cost and improve your user experience
Learn about Linq - again this is one of the most powerful features of Silverlight. Combined with a smart client-side caching strategy you can offload lots of processing to the client.
Figure out how you going to support printing. SL3 does not at all and you will need a server side component. SL4 beta does, but it is not go live
Understand the Silverlight Roadmap as much as possible and plan out your roadmap to match/ sync with it as best as possible. I first built a SL2 app and I spent a lot of time building things by hand that were ultimately released in SL3. As it is getting more mature, there is less of this.
Download the Silverlight Toolkit and use it. But more importantly examine the source code, the structures, its build process. There is not better real world place to look for inspiration & best practices.
Good luck.