Are there plans by the xamarin team to make the FormsMaps natively support bing maps v8 api on all platforms? I'm starting a new development project and am considering xamarin FormsMaps as a core code base, but I need to use the new Bing Maps V8 APIs for ios, android, uwa, and wp.
In looking at the forms.map documentation on xamarin, it appears to only support google maps APIs and requires google map api keys. I understand that the windows phone will automatically use bing maps natively and that you could force the other platforms to register and use bing maps. What I'm asking is if there are plans to be able to decide which mapping api you want to use for the CPL and have it apply natively to IOS, Android, WP8 and UWP? Or will this always be a manual process?
I'm especially curious about this, given that Microsoft now owns Xamarin. Does anyone know the plans for Bing Maps V8 integration and is there any documentation anywhere on this?
Glad to see you are interested in using V8 in your mobile app. Many have used the Bing Maps web controls in mobile apps before. Note that Xamarin wraps native API's and uses what ever the default maps are on the device. V8 is a web control, so it is unlikely that the Xamarin team will wrap the V8 web control. You can however use V8 in your Xamarin app by hosting it in a web browser/view control. https://github.com/XLabs/Xamarin-Forms-Labs/wiki/HybridWebView You then create the mapping functionality you need using JavaScript and then display it in the webview control. You can also connect your native code to JavaScript by injecting JavaScript commands into the webview.
It is possible that Xamarin may use Bing Maps in the future. If it does, it would do so using a native control and not a web control.
Related
I am building a language translation flashcard web app. I will have a PWA version on the website and then a native app in the Play Store and Windows Store.. maybe even Apple Store eventually. First time looking to build a native app or pseudo native app.
The app currently uses the Web Speech API and Voice Recognition API in HTML5. These API's have support on Chrome and Android Web Browser. It appears they are in progress for Firefox and some other browsers.
Since the best functionality of the app is built upon these browser based API's..
I am wondering if I choose to use Vue Native instead of Cordova/Phonegap, how is it possible to access these HTML5 APIs natively or is there a native solution?
I'm doing some research right now, trying to figure out the core differences in accessing device API's using a hybrid framework like Ionic. As far as I know, there are two ways for accessing an API through HTML5:
via "standard" HTML5 API
via plugin
Since an access using HTML5 runs from inside the webview, I keep reading it is performing worse. That seems to depend on the fact, that you are actually running a webview inside a native app. That's why hybrid is slower than native, cause native does access directly from the context of the app. Where do i put plugins in that scenario? Are plugins designed like small API's to the devices libraries that do access the native features from outside the web view? And what are the benefits in terms of performance and why?
Or am I just getting stuff mixed up and the "standard" HTML5 API access works through a plugin as well?
Thanks in advance!
Kolja
I'm developing a netflix client on vb.net, and i need it to run silverlight and needed extensions that netflix requires to display the video stream.
how can i change webbrowser from default to another one that works with my needs, and what browser is that?
If you're looking for a different web rendering engine you should try the Gecko web engine. From my experience it is much faster than the traditional IE engine and more compatible with plugins and web content. The engine integrates well into VB.NET applications so using it in your program should work. The engine itself does stream videos from netflix if that's the intent. you can download this rendering engine just from searching it but for convinience I'll put a link to a site where you can find it here.
Is it possible to open native maps app to show the route directions? Need to do this for windows 8 app, and assume it should work for windows 8.1 also in c#
Or is there any maps link uri protocol (similar to mailto:) which can be used to implement this and launched using Windows.System.Launcher.LaunchUriAsync
You can use the bingmaps: protocol documented at URI scheme for Bing Maps app
Example: bingmaps:?cp=40.726966~-74.006076ss
I'm trying to understand how programs like PhoneGap and Adobe Air work, that allow you to 'write once and run anywhere' on mobile platforms. The way I understand it now is that you build your application as a web app using either HTML5, or flash, or I don't know what, and it takes in those files and converts them to the proper types for each mobile OS. Assuming this is correct, what I would like to know is, what the options for developing web apps that are able to be converted into apps are; and what the most popular platforms to use/learn flash, or html5, or JavaScript, or I have no idea what are.
I want to build a web app to deploy across multiple phone platforms, but I don't know where to start. Thanks for the help!
You use tools like PhoneGap to access native device API's through JavaScript. If you don't need access to these API's you can write a HTML5 app and install it using "Add to home screen" etc.
As HTML5 matures, more and more of the device API's are actually directly available through HTML5 (for instance GPS), so depending on what you want to do access it might be in/scheduled to be part of the Device API.
Write once and run anywhere
There are different frameworks that lets you deploy to multiple platforms through the device specific install process. These tools usually work in 2 ways. Run in an embedded browser, or compile to native code.
PhoneGap runs the HTML5 part of your app in an embedded browser. Other tools like MonoTouch actually cross-compiles to native code, so they run on the bare metal.
Cross platform using HTML5
There are plenty of frameworks you can use to make mobile apps with HTML5. These usually help make the app "feel native", and includes abstractions over device specific idioms that differ between the different devices.
Popular frameworks includes Sencha Touch, JQuery Mobile and a bunch of others.
If you want the users to install the app through the AppStore/Market etc. then a solution like PhoneGap is a good option. If you don't care about that you can write your app and add a meta tag like
<meta name="apple-mobile-web-app-capable" content="yes">
and when you add it to the home screen it'll look just like any other app and run in an embedded browser without the browser window etc. You can add offline capabilities using HTML5 and synch when users go on-line etc. all just using HTML5.
Have a look at the Sencha touch app gallery to see what is possible with this technology.