I have been trying my hands for POC on an idea and trying to find languages which can support Mobile app development (Android/IOS) via single source code.
I zeroed on React-Native and Flutter.
What I found that for React-Native you still have to write code which is platform specific. Components need to be written differently for IOS and Android.
Then I looked in FLutter and I found that - "Flutter's widgets, however, while there are more of them, aren't really adaptive".
I am not able to understand it and what it means.
It would be really helpful if someone can help me with example or guide me to good reference.
In Flutter you have different sets of Widget Collection:
Material Widgets: Android-style
Cupertino Widgets: iOS-style
And lots of Widgets which aren't bound to one of those styles.
With this you are able to create a application looking like any style on any of the available platform. Therefore you can also have iOS-style Widgets on Android and vice versa.
If you want to have iOS Widgets on iOS and Android Widgets on Android, you'll have to create some conditional rendering, which decides wether to render iOS or Android components.
Sidenote: The Material-style Widgets look also really good on iOS. Also you can use a ton of other Widgets to create an UI in your own style.
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I've been evaluating React Native as a replacement for Cordova, and was wondering if there is a widely accepted solution for styled text inputs. I'd like to see text inputs rendered in Material Design on Android, and Apple style on iOS.
Do you have recommendations for a specific library, or will I have to write my own/combine multiple libraries? Thank you!
You could check out https://nativebase.io/ it supports platform specific default styling there are others as well like https://react-native-training.github.io/react-native-elements/ and http://www.xinthink.com/react-native-material-kit/ which has consistent styling regardless of platform.
Coming from a Cordova/Sencha Touch background I suggest you try to create your own style using only the default react native components, the reason is that before I was having the same question regarding component library that I could use so that I could target all platform at once, but react native isn't 100% cross platform and learning to style on different platform might give you an idea and feedback with your evaluation, unless your aiming to have a project as soon as possible and that is a different story.
Some cross-platform tools (like Xamarin native and RubyMotion) allow the development of two separate views for Android and iOS, while keeping the business logic shared for both of them. Others (like Apache Cordova or Xamarin.Forms) share both UI and business layer, with the option to use platform-specific overrides when necessary.
What is the state of the interpreted JavaScript frameworks (NativeScript, React Native or Appcelerator)? Are they all focused on creating single UI with platform overrides, or do they allow creating two separate views for each platform? For example, is it possible to create a view using Fragments in Android, but a different view on iOS (since Fragments do not exist there)?
Cordova uses WebView, that mean GUI level will be the same for both Android and iOS but different per Device version. In case of Android each client has own Chronium version and it can break UI behaviour. So developers use Crosswalk to set fixed Chronium version. (extra 20M to your application).
BTW Ionic that uses Cordova architecture uses native behaviour per platform. For example for Android Tabs located at the top, on iOS - at the bottom
On other hand Xamarin (C#), React-Native(JS) and NativeScript(JS) call native APIs. They don't use WebView but generate Native code.
For example if you create button - it will look different: on Android - material theme, on iOS - iPhone theme
Anyways, the bottom line is: everything depends on resources and time. If you want to build application fast, with the same view - I would go on Ionic2+ Angular2 + Cordova.
If you you have more time - go on React-Native or NativeScript (Still has poor documentation) or Xamarin (C#).
React-native's slogan is Learn once, write everywhere. So, you can choose what suits your needs, you can:
Share UI between platforms.
Share Only business logic.
So, the answer for react-native is yes. You can create separate UIs or you can share it.
Since you are writing components, one way of separating this logic is to write component.android.js and component.ios.js and the platform loads the appropriate one for you. Note that you can also do that programmatically.
You can see that in action in the official f8 app made by facebook using react-native
As far as I've searched it appears to be impossible to load modules (=plugins/libraries?) dynamically (I'm very new to React Native..).
What I'd like to accomplish is to let the user of the app load additional functions as she/he desires.
Example:
A user wants to add a music plugin to the app.
Intuitively, I'd long for something like dynamic library loading. The user would fetch the library, it'll be loaded into the code and can then be executed. However, in React Native it seems like there are only modules that can be loaded?
Alternatively, I'd hope that auto-updating the app would allow to add modules "on-the-fly" ( https://github.com/aerofs/react-native-auto-updater or www.npmjs.com/package/react-native-hot-load ). But I fear that this is only for JS and data content?
The ability to dynamically add functionality to the app is an essential part of the app. I have no previous experience worth mentioning in mobile app development.
Question: Is it possible to dynamically add functionality (also native in nature) to React Native apps?
If not, would there be a workaround?
EDIT: I have found the following repository on github: https://github.com/yusefnapora/react-dynamic-linking-example .
Unfortunately, without any description. I have no idea about Objective-C, but the repo name sounds promising. Anybody knows what its purpose is?
I have seen that titanium support CoverFlowView in titanium but it works only on ios, Can anyone have idea to achieve CoverFlow in android with titanium
Thanks in advance
Looks like you are in luck! Someone already built a coverflow module for Android using the Android development environment.
https://github.com/moondroid/CoverFlow
You need to be willing to write the additional code for that to turn it into a module for Titanium.
http://docs.appcelerator.com/titanium/3.0/#!/guide/Android_Module_Development_Guide
It should be possible, but I must admit I've never tried to write one myself.
Basically you cannot get Coverflow on Android. Since it is a native iOs component which is not implemented in Android at all. Frameworks like Titanium always "link" your commands to internal system APIs. When there is no API there is no way to access it. Of course you could try to build it on your own but I think this would not work that well. And its a lot of work!
Additionally cover flow is not really useful (except for holding just a few items). Have a look at my question at ux.stackexchange.
I'm starting the iOS development and need to find out what is required to create custom component. I have a few of them to build like star rating bar (which promising tutorial I've found here btw.) or download button with progress like it is in the App Store app.
Instead of searching for ready built solutions I would like to learn on how to build it thus my question, is there any up-to-date guides on how to accomplish it? Using OOP rules:) ofcourse as I'm used to it from ActionScript and JAVA.