a couple questions about the titanium platform - titanium

I have recently been browsing frameworks such as JavaScriptMVC, qooxdoo, Sproutcore and others alike which are using javascript to create desktop-like apps in the browser with minimal, or none css/html (depending on the framework).
What I know of titanium is that it uses html/css for the views, and language of choice (javascript, ruby,python,php) for everything else. Then it gets compiled(?) into a native app.
What are the quirks? if any?
Is it necessary for the user to install some sort of a runtime to execute the compiled app?
I suppose javascript is the prefered language, but how are the other ones handled?
For example, which Ruby interpreter would be included, would I be albe to use the ruby stdlib or external libraries? Would it affect the speed of the app? I.e JS > Ruby in terms of speed.
Since the views are CSS/HTML, would it still be necessary to style the elements, add them effects via JS librarier to achieve a widget-like feeling? Or does it come with some pre-made settings/classes for that?
I am not sure if it applies to the desktop package, but is there some syncing with the appcelerator's server required? What would it be necessary for?
I am sorry if the questions sound stupid, but I didn't even realise there are than many tools until recent. I am ultimately looking for something which is easy to use, has an option to work with a back-end server for data exchange, looks preferably good 'out of the box' or doesnt require that much work to get it themed nicely and works on mobile as well as desktop devices.

With Titanium you build your app out using javascript. Titanium ultimately generates its own XCode project for you that is compiled and deployed to a device.
The user does not require any runtime be installed prior to installing your app.
Unless your building custom modules to hook up your own controls you stick with javascript.
Your javascript calls end up as native controls, early versions required css like styling due to reliance on webkit but this is no longer the case.
There is no IDE but it does come with an app to create Titanium projects, test in emulator, deploy etc. It also talks back to HQ for updates.

In answer to (2), Titanium Mobile is Javascript only, but Desktop also supports Python, Perl and PHP.

Related

neutralinojs and Blazor in Linux

I try some platform to create Linux Desktop application with Blazor (Including ElectronNET), but in most case its empty self advertising without really opportunity to do even simplest task.
Therefore I'm still in searching a good platform to make desktop apps in Linux with Blazor.
Is neutralinojs good fit to this task including development in VS CODE and deployment to end-user?
Neutralinojs is a lot like Electron. The main difference being that Neutralinojs does not use npm or is based on chromium.
This makes Neutralinojs faster than Electron. If you desire to make desktop apps with HTML, CSS, or JS then Neutralinojs would be a good fit for you!
I have tried both and I can tell you that Neutralinojs is the best at a quick startup.
Neutralinojs will work great with any code editor. You can even use the terminal that VS Code provides.
After you finish writing the code for your project, you can run the build command. This command will make executables for any OS including Linux.

Ionic2 client + Meteor server, which approach is better?

I want to have Meteor as a server and Ionic2 as a client. I currently have a headache with authentifiacation. It seems that there are two different approaches:
First is use of Meteor server and Meteor client with ionic-angular library. This approach described here
https://angular-meteor.com/tutorials/socially/angular2/ionic2
I guess the advantage of this method is use of Meteor native architecture, on the other hand I guess we're using Ionic2 just like a subframework and maybe loosing some stuff from native Ionic2.
The second is using separate Meteor server ('client' folder deleted completely) and native Ionic2. This approach described here
https://angular-meteor.com/tutorials/whatsapp2/ionic/authentication
This option is vice versa: use of native Ionic2, but it has to use libraries like meteor-client-side, accounts-base-client-side, accounts-password-client-side etc, which I'm not sure are native for Meteor.
The first approach looks better, because there is a ready-to-use UI component for authentification. But I wonder what issues I would have, when I come to the step of completing my applications for different types of devices.
Thank you in advance for your help.
These approaches are essentially the same for the authentication itself.
What you are pointing out is more about what mobile platform to choose to develop and run mobile projects.
In the first case, you use Meteor's built-in Cordova platform to run the app and Meteor's compiler and bundler plugins (like TypeScript package or Meteor core packages for Babel and UglifyJS etc) to develop the app. In the second case, you develop and run the app solely on Ionic 2 CLI.
But from the app logic point of view these approaches are absolutely same: you import the same Ionic 2 components and use the same Meteor packages with the only difference in the second case is that these packages are now NPMs not Atmosphere ones (essentially though they contain the same scripts since these NPMs are built from Atmosphere packages).
The reason why What’sApp clone is built in that way that differs from the Socially’s one is simply described in the README of
the What’sApp repo (see https://github.com/Urigo/Ionic2CLI-Meteor-WhatsApp). If to repeat: since Ionic is a one of the best Web frameworks that specializes solely in building mobile apps, it’s reasonable to guess that it’ll be (and likely it is) much more powerful in building them than Meteor itself. From that point of view the second approach seems more future-proof, I would say. You could think even of building your project in some way that will allow you to substitute Meteor easily with some another framework if you decide to use it at some point in the future.
If you are though concerned about using those NPMs mentioned in the second case (e.g., if the process of building them doesn’t look transparent to you), you could try this project https://github.com/Urigo/meteor-client-bundler to bundle Atmosphere packages you need into separate scripts and use them after.

Distributing TideSDK application

I recently finished an application based on Titanium, Javascript, HTML, CSS. I have only been a web designer to date so I have little experience in distributing applications. I was accustomed to the TiDev Community deploying app, which prepared the app for download and made it available for download at a given link.
But tidev community is no longer supported, so I use TideSDK Developer to package the app, which doesnt do all the hard work the other one did so nicely.
I am obviously a complete rookie to this.
Could anyone outline the steps I would need to take to go from the bundled application folder I have now (put together by TideSDK Developer), to a link that will allow customers to download and install the app or online? I know there is an issue with packaoging the app for platforms other than your own, and that appcelerator is working on a solution to this I think. I also realise I would probably have to pay to host the download online. Any guidance would be greatly appreciated.
You must use the tidebuilder.py script. to compile a installation package. To compile a binary for a Mac, you must run the script on a Mac, to compile a binary for windows, you must be on a windows box etc.
There is some documentation on how to use it here per platform. The command is very simple and works.
Once you have your application file (DMG for OSX or a MSI for Windows) then just distribute it however you see fit, email, putting it on your web server, whatever works for you.

How do you manage PhoneGap and webapp Code?

As far as I see every time I make a change, for example the value of a configuration variable, I have to
Make a copy of the change in each project (webapp, Android, IPhone, etc.)
Build each project
Distribute each project (besides the webapp)
I have found PhoneGap build which seems to be a great solution for the mobile part. But it's still beta and it doesn't solve everything. I still have webapp's code, which is not exactly the same.
Do you know techniques, tools or tricks, which help to improve this process?
Thanks in advance.
We are currently developing a web/Android app using PhoneGap and Sencha Touch (iOS is coming soon). So far our approach is as follows:
We have one project per platform plus several additional toolkit projects.
One platform is "primary", web in our case. This is what developers mainly use to develop and test the app. We're using jsTestDriver for testing.
During the build, the app is packaged for web in the first step. We're producing several artifacts here (.war file, tests in a .jar file).
"Secondary" platform projects do not include the source code. It gets unpackaged and copied to the right places when projects are built. This also includes tests from the primary platform.
Platform projects contain some additional code - normally only testing code, app code itself is currently cross-platform (not sure if it will stay this way).
So we're doing it mainly through advanced build scripts. We're using Maven for web and Android. iOS is coming soon (into our work, I mean), so we'll be looking for some sensible build tool there too.
We're building our projects using Hudson continuous integration.
What I have to admit is that this whole environment (multi-project Maven builds, JSTD, multi-node Hudson) is a hell of a setup, took quite an effort to figure it out.

Apple Script on iPhone

I have one Apple script and its working fine on Mac. I want to use it into iPhone application. How can I integrate to iPhone application?
Also AppleScript uses Carbon and Carbon AppleEvents, so trying to get this on a iPhone is pretty much impossible you would pretty much have to write your own AppleScript interpreter, I also would not see much point in having AppleScripts on an iPhone since the main purpose of AppleScript is to control other applications by sending the AppleEvents. Have you thought about using JavaScripts I was looking at that for a web scraping application, using Javascript meant I could update the web scraping code quickly without having to resubmit my app to Apple.
Unfortunately, you can't easily do that. This excerpt is from the latest iOS Developer Program License Agreement:
3.3.2 ... Interpreted code may only be used in an Application if all scripts, code and interpreters are packaged in the Application and not downloaded. The only exception to the foregoing is scripts and code downloaded and run by Apple's built-in WebKit framework, provided that such scripts and code do not change the primary purpose of the Application by providing features or functionality that are inconsistent with the intended and advertised purpose of the Application as submitted to the App Store.
So, in theory it is allowed, nut since AppleScript is not supported by iOS SDK, you should also package an AppleScript interpreter with your app.