I'm going to be building an application that will be used across multiple devices including:
iOS
Android
WinRT (Windows 8 & Window 8 RT)
Windows Phone 8
I would like to develop the business logic once and use it across all devices, and then develop the UI for each individual device which in turn interfaces with the business logic. Is there a language that is natively supported across all of these platforms and if so what is it?
Note: I'm NOT Looking for a all-in-one solution for UI and business logic. I'm simply trying to develop the logic behind the app that can be re-used if possible by all platforms
Have a look at Portable Class Libraries. These are typically coded in C# and can be reused throughout all those platforms.
You will probably also need Xamarin
Related
I'm maintaining a React-based web UI which is used both in standard web page and embedded in native desktop apps, where it should look and feel like native app. Both web and native desktop apps are used in both Windows and Mac.
I'm using Fluent UI controls and trying to use standard already implemented controls, but some cases require customization, so few functionalities and controls are implemented manually. In particular, some of the controls (list, tree view, etc.) support multi-selection, which is define differently on Windows on Mac, at least on native desktop apps (for example, Control / Shift keys on Windows vs. Command / Options keys on Mac).
Is there a definition and good practice when implementing such multi-selectable controls? The only way I could find is to manually test the OS and implement the behavior differently for each OS, is there any other alternative to implement this?
I've been developing a windows store application for a windows 8 tablet (Microsoft surface). So far the application has been designed using XAML-RT/C# using a SQLite database. The application won't be released via the store, it'll be just used internally by my company.
I am however finding numerous problems with the platform. i.e. speed of the surface device, releasing versions and renewing the developer licences.
As the application is still in the development stage and no decision has been made on the final tablet I'm thinking about re-writing the application using WPF and using a full windows 8 tablet (not a RT/ARM version). This way I can use full SQL and have much more control over releasing the software.
So, my question is...
What is generally the best development platform for a full windows 8 tablet? Is it best to go with WPF or stick with the Xaml for RT?
Thanks
WPF
less sandbox limitations (can call any APIs)
is currently somewhat easier to do enterprise deployment with
has more features
is more mature overall
can benefit from Surface SDK 2.0 controls for great touch support on big screens
WinRT/XAML
works on ARM devices
is lighter and faster
has built-in modern touch-enabled controls targeted for tablet use
might be better suited for use on tablets overall
Overall the main benefit of WinRT is that you can use it on ARM tablets which are cheaper, lighter and more usable as tablets. WPF requires heavier devices and might be slower, but you gain the ability to access all legacy APIs.
If you intend it to be fully touch screen ready then you'll have to do some extra work in WPF to get the level of UI interactivity that you get from the "metro" apps.
That being said, if you're writing a complex application that requires lots of API calls/web services and file handling then you're going to have a much easier time with WPF.
I'm prospecting alternatives to develop for multiple mobile platforms, and have found Codename One, that uses Java as lingua franca, instead of HTML/CSS/JS or scripting languages.
What I couldn't find is how does it work. Does it bundle a JVM with the application for iOS and Win7, and uses Dalvik in Android? Does it translates source code to native, and do we have access to this source code? Is there other magic, considering they promise "no compromise"? What limitations should I be aware while coding agnostic Java?
Preemptive strike: this is a question about Codename One, not about which cross-platform should I choose or if I should go native or if I should go web.
Codename One has an optional SaaS approach so this might (and probably will) change in the future to accommodate improved architectures. Notice that Codename One also provides an option to build offline which means corporations that have policies forbidding such cloud architectures can still use Codename One with some additional overhead/complexity. It also means you can use it for free without ever working with the build servers.
Currently on Android the standard Java code is executed as is. Java 8 syntax is translated using retrolambda for all platforms when its used. This allows it to be compatible to all Android versions as well as other ports.
On iOS Codename One built & open sourced ParparVM which is a very conservative VM. ParparVM features a concurrent (non-blocking) GC and it is written entirely in Java/C. This effectively means that an xcode project is generated and compiled on the build servers so its effectively as if you handcoded a native app and thus "future proof" for changes made by Apple. E.g. with recent 64bit and bitcode changes to iOS builds ParparVM needed no modifications to comply with those changes.
In the past Codename One used XMLVM to generate native code in a very similar way but the XMLVM solution was too generic for the needs of Codename One.
iOS builds are compiled and signed on Macs in the cloud using xcode (the official Apple build tool). This makes them compatible with current/future changes from Apple and allows developers to use Windows/Linux while targeting iOS. You can read more about the compatibility of ParparVM to iOS here.
In the past Codename One supported Windows Phone using a C# translator that relied on XMLVM but it was not an ideal approach. Notice that the XMLVM backend that translates to C# is very different from the one that was formerly used to translates to iOS. Codename One chose to discontinue that old backend as it wasn't as powerful as the new UWP backend and doesn't match Microsofts goals moving forward and focusing on UWP (Universal Windows Platform).
For Windows 10 desktop and Mobile support Codename One uses iKVM to target UWP (Universal Windows Platform) and has open sourced the changes to the original iKVM code in the Codename One github repository.
Notice that UWP builds are done on a Windows 10 machines in the cloud thus allowing developers to use Mac/Linux or older versions of Windows when building native windows apps...
JavaScript build targets which are available on the enterprise level subscribers use TeaVM to do the translation statically. TeaVM provides support for threading using JavaScript by breaking the app down in a rather elaborate way. To support the complex UI Codename One uses the HTML5 Canvas API which allows absolute flexibility for building applications.
For desktop builds Codename One uses javafxpackager, since both Macs and Windows machines are available in the cloud the platform specific nature of javafxpackager is not a problem.
What makes Codename One stand out is the approach it takes to UI where it uses a "lightweight architecture" to allow the UI to work seamlessly across all platforms and be developed almost entirely in Java. It is augmented by the ability to embed "heavyweight" widgets into place among the "lightweights". You can learn more about this in this blog post. Notice that at this time peering is undergoing some improvements and now supports more elaborate usages such as layering.
A lightweight component is written entirely in Java, this allows developers to preview the application accurately in the simulators & GUI builder.
Codename One achieves fast performance by drawing using the native gaming API's of most platforms e.g. OpenGL ES on iOS.
The core technologies behind Codename One are all open source including most of the stuff developed by Codename One itself e.g. ParparVM but also the full library, platform ports, designer tool, device skins etc. You can learn more about using the Codename One sources here.
FYI Shai Almog, the author of this answer, is the CEO of Codename One.
Codename one took very balanced approach to portability. I would like to add a pragmatic comment.
From the user interface side, CN1 does paint all its UI on platform-provided canvas. It tries to mimic platform native look and feel, if you choose it, but has as much success as Swing had with its "native platform look and feel", because native platform constantly changes, and "native l&f" always lacks behind and in most cases feels not quite right.
But, if you choose platform-independent look and feel (which is the sort of the trend today), you are not restricted by Codenameone's default component set set in any way: it's just like Swing with its cross-platform look and feel ("Metal" etc.). Which is good.
From the language side: on iOS it is java compiled to C which is then tied to hand-written Objective-C, and it does not bundle VM, only portability layer. Most important here is the fact that java is compiled to C and not Objective-C, which make it faster then idiomatic Objective-C code, because it does virtual or, more often, direct method invocations instead of slow Objective C message dispatch. Which is good.
It also may seem little faster on Android, because, while using Dalvik/Art, it does not use Android native UI which is bulky compared to CN1's. This can make dynamic UI creation faster in runtime, which is good.
One of the strongest points of CN1 approach is its emulator (implemented over desktop JavaFX canvas) which you use to develop software. Emulator makes use of same UI code and portability APIs as on mobile platforms and lets you use IDE of choice for debugging. It restarts quickly, and edit-compile-run cycle is very sustainable compared to android. Which is good.
Second very strong point (main one!) is open nature of their UI library, all native code and bytecode-to-C translator. If you spend some effort, you can avoid building Android/iOS ports on their farms and untie yourself from their particular revision of product (but not from quite a few value-added services they offer, which are not open source!). Depending on your situation, this may (or may not!) be quite good for you!
Weak point of Codenameone is its less-then-ideal maturity, which means you can easily shoot yourself in the foot using basic UI components, if you use them the way they were not indended to be used. Also it means that its java portability layer is not big enough (and has holes in it) to cover everyone's need, and you may have to use native in some places, and port other pure java libraries, too.
Also, current state of graphics performance is sub-optimal; if you get bunch of text on screen, you'll easily miss 16msec fluid animation/repaint time limit, this can be worked around by double-buffering, but it also has its limits. Luckily, there is still room for optimization in implementation on both main platforms, hopefully they will improve it.
Overall, Codenameone has good niche as a cross-platform framework for several classes of applications; you may find a value in their services, too.
I am working on a project where there is requirement of GUI to be created in Silverlight. Some key requirements are:
Extremely rich GUI
Real time visualization process graphics
Support multiple themes
Support different display size
Support charting / trending controls
Same functionality for Desktop / Web using same code base
Same functionality to be available on embedded controller (based on Windows CE)
I understand that using Silverlight we can have same codebase for desktop / web applications. However challenge is to have the Silverlight application (windows and/or web) for Windows CE. I would like to understand what is the best way to implement Silverlight application on Windows CE with as much code reuse as possible.
I would appreciate if you could provide some inputs on what should our architecture approach be for this application development. Also, please let me know if you need more inputs on the requirement side...
"Silverlight" for Windows Embedded (SWE) is a bad name. It's not really what most would call Silverlight. It's simply a XAML-based engine that you can use Blend to develop for. For Windows CE, you must use C++ to develop for SWE. You cannot reuse SWE assemblies in other Silverlight projects. You cannot use other Silverlight assemblies in an SWE project. Your XAML itself will probably have some reusability, but XAML sharing from a code perspective is a challenge in its own right.
I am willing to develop a mobile application. I wish to have something working for android, windows mobile, symbian and blackberry.
Which is the best way to do that?
I had read here:
You could aim to wrap the sections of
the platform specific APIs (iPhone SDK
etc.) that you use with your own
interfaces. In doing so you are
effectively hiding the platform
specific libraries and making your
design and code easier to manage when
dealing with differences in the
platforms.
I was hoping there exists a framework that does this for me, but it doesn't exist or I didn't find any.
I feel that sort of things will make my code harder to maintain and perhaps it's better to have one version for each platform.
Anyone with experience in the field?
Another links of interest:
most-promising-mobile-platforms
long-term-potential-of-iphone-windows-mobile-development-platforms
Does Java not count (in various guises)
Java on Symbian
Java for Windows Mobile
Java on Blackberry
Android Java Virtual Machine
It should be simpler to manage API differences in a consistent language/runtime platform where capabilities can be assessed in-code ... and configurations of code made at build-time.
As much as I dislike Java, it is fairly ubiquitous. As for the iPhone ... apart from it being much hyped and locked down ... you can get Java to run on jail-broken phones ...
What happened to Apple's open and friendly appearance? The cynic-inside knows the answer ;)
You might want to look into PhoneGap (http://phonegap.com/). From their own description page:
PhoneGap is an open source development tool for building fast, easy mobile apps with JavaScript.
If you’re a web developer who wants to build mobile applications in HTML and JavaScript while still taking advantage of the core features in the iPhone, Android and Blackberry SDKs, PhoneGap is for you.
In addition to using JavaScript, it supports JavaScript acccess to native controls and features of the phones (GPS, accelerometers etc...).
There really isn't any magic bullet that I'm aware of. Even within just the Blackberry platform, there are tons of different devices with different capabilities, screen resolutions, etc. And that's just from one, single manufacturer; Symbian and Windows Mobile are likely even worse.
The answer is likely that you should focus on relatively new and consistent platforms (accordingly with very few and all pretty much similar devices), like Android and iPhone OS, if you really want to reduce your code forking and maximize your audience.
My advice will almost certainly change within a few years when there are nine different iPhone OS devices and two dozen Android platforms.
The first question to ask yourself is if you need a native application, if you do not then designing a mobile web site solution should give you the most cross compatibility, failing that I would make a iPhone and J2ME solution (the J2ME can then be ported for Android relatively easily) for the greatest coverage of users
Or investigate Movilizer. Supports iOS, Android, WinPhone, WinMobile, Desktop PCs, embedded devices, ... and many more. It uses a design once run anywhere approach.
http://www.movilizer.com
try out different cross platform dev tools,
Developing cross platform mobile application