Closed. This question needs to be more focused. It is not currently accepting answers.
Want to improve this question? Update the question so it focuses on one problem only by editing this post.
Closed 7 years ago.
Improve this question
I have questions on true cross platform development and if it is possible to use ONE platform to develop software.
I have a few applications that I write that work on OS X, Windows and Linux. They all use native platform toolkits with some shared source across platforms. I have to boot to each platform, checkout, compile, etc.
I have in the past tried GUI toolkits like QT (I bought a commercial license for Win, mac, Linus, but very expensive and paying it year after year became hard). I have tried WxWidgets, development moves slow.
So what I am thinking about is there a way to run a single platform and cross compile for other platforms so I can build my products from a single platform.
I favor OS X, is there a way to write apps for OS X, Windows, Linux from OS X where I just need to test on each platform respectively. I have found information on cross compilers, stub compiling, etc, etc.
Does anyone have any thoughts? Is this even possible? Would someone make a killing creating such a beast?
In my company, we use the Mozilla Framework to develop cross platform dictionary products. These applications are based on the Gecko/Necko Browser and most of the development is done via Javascript, HTML, CSS, XSL, XUL,... Of course, our homebrew Search engine had to be cross compiled to the three platforms (with some other code which was first done in JS and then ported to moz' C++ for speed reasons).
In the end, we have a reasonnably cross-platform solution: Our developers mostly work like power web-developers (think client and server side at the same time). Because the Gecko is the same on the three platform, we know it will predictably look and behave the same way (except when there are bugs, but the platform is now quite mature on this point of view).
Our R&D knows how to port slow javascript code to rather quick portable C++ code (you do Mozilla code using the NSPR library, a cross-platform lib). Testing has always to be done on the three platform however, although with time and experience, you get to know what will break where (Font support, Audio support, Flash Support)...
Today, you should probably have a look at XULRunner which is really the Mozilla without any real browser interface (in 2002, we had to dismantle the Mozilla Browser to repaint it in our first product colour). Of course, it works well for simple applications but if you wish to make OpenGL, 3D Audio and other nifty things, XULRunner will appear too limited.
I believe Blizzard has some cross-platform framework for that kind of thing... :)
Good luck!
Pierre.
Trying to develop applications on a single platform that will be used on many platforms isn't a good approach. At best you'll make applications which feel alien to users of the platforms that you didn't develop for.
More likely, you'll run into subtle compatibility problems in areas which you never forsaw. Java is probably the best way to go if you want to go down this route. Cross compiling will lead to autogenerated code that will be a nightmare to debug and maintain.
Certainly, you may be able to use tools for porting in some cases, but I don't think that this is a problem that you can just provide an automated solution for in general.
Well, to be honest, the only guaranteed way to build an app to be cross platform in one go is to use Java, but it requires a rather large runtime to be installed first.
However, if that's not an option, I would recommend keeping an eye on recent developments in Qt - it is now available (or should be soon) under the LGPL, which presumably means you don't need to pay for it anymore. Using GCC with Qt, I've found, works perfectly when cross-compiling on different platforms, as long as you only use Qt's classes/code/objects and make sure that any non-Qt code you create or use is capable of being compiled cross-platform.
You don't mention any specific programming language (but I'm guessing C or C++ because of the GUI toolkits), so it's kinda hard to give a good answer to what you are actually asking.
If you want "true" cross platform, I would first consider if it is possible to solve your problem using a language that is less platform bound. Python, Java and plenty of others allow you to write on one platform, and run on many.
If you still want to use C/C++, GCC gives you the option of cross-compiling, and if you combine that with QT (which will soon be available under the LGPL) you should be able to get something working.
Java has tried to do the write once, run anywhere. It works well in some situations, but there are too many "unique" things in an OS. GCC provided the ability to cross-compile applications, but you run into the same sort of problems. The code will just have better performance. The RIA approach seems to work, but it doesn't feel like a native application.
Even using a cross platform GUI toolkit will not remove all your cross platform problems. There's more to an app than GUI, after all. Cross compiling will never be able to catch all the issues that a native build will catch, either. If you're going to support multiple platforms, you're going to have to at least test on each platform. But hopefully you can perform native builds with all warnings turned on, in addition to testing.
In the past few months, I found a few great videos exploring this topic of cross platform development. I hope you find them useful as well.
QTCreator
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aYiPvM7ZRHA&feature=channel
FlexBuilder
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_O_xDXRsh3Y&feature=channel
Mono / MonoDevelop
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6VG_Z0aRek
I've personally had success using Silverlight / MacOS X
http://screencast.com/t/if8xenkt
RealBasic
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWipoBeKSRk
For Cross Platform Development you can use Phone Gap, Appcelerator (Titanium), Corona... This all provides a framework based on JavaScript and finally able to run on different platforms. What I am using is Titanium for Mobile Development which allows us to develop applications with Native Codes.... (which is very good advantage). Phone Gap is giving a web app which is not native in general... This softwares are used for development of cross platform supports... with support on Windows, Linux and Mac OS.
Based upon my personal experience, I believe you should adopt Java: you will avoid many headaches.
You develop in whatever platform you like and you deploy in all other platforms with no need of compiling for each target platform, as you mentioned.
For example, I develop under linux, I hit "compile" only once and the resulting file is ready to be run anywhere (windows, mac, solaris, z/OS, you name it). A double click will run it on any platform (Java runtime must me installed, but most users have it installed already and if not, it's a matter of downloading, installing, "Next>", "Next>", "OK").
If you choose the "Java Web Start" deployment method, it gets even easier: the user just clicks the launch button on a webpage and the application runs (if the proper JVM is installed according to what specified in the JNLP descriptor) or the user gets redirected to the Java download page (if no suitable JVM is found).
GUI development (with Swing toolkit) is easy and powerful, especially if you use the right tool (i.e. Netbeans IDE).
Related
I have a few questions that I hope clarity and facts can be fed all of us about this. First, the last release of ironpython had the feature of running on the mobile platform highlighting that on mono/android it runs best and not so much on the other platforms which are IOS and Windows phone. So does this mean one doesn't have to use the SL4A? Can i argue that monodroid hooks into the core of what android is capable of and so might give a more robust access/implementation/rendition of apps on android?
Next, I just want to be sure of this: As with python you can create full fledged desktop applications with ironpython right? Cos everywhere (almost) I see ironpython they refer to it as a scripting tool and how you can script aspects of excel etc which has prompted me ask such a question. some say that the speed of applications written using ironpython is not that great and I was arguing asking for why that opinion is held by those who were speaking and no one could say anything worthwhile.
Lastly, with the movement at novell and xamarin, I have not understood where mono stands in their release schemes. I have a mac and I installed a recent version of mono and when I typed ipy I saw something like mono 1.1.0 or something like that. Does anyone have a clue of what is going on with it.
I fell in love with python from learning ironpython and I think the ironpython concept is just sheer brilliance its a pity microsoft esteemed F# other it.
First off, for future reference, multiple questions should really be, well, multiple questions. :)
On IronPython for Android: it works slightly better than on other platforms (where it doesn't work at all right now) but it's still very, very early code. There are some limitations with what you'll be able to do (mainly, you cannot inherit from Java classes from dynamic code). It's very experimental.
On desktop apps: You can absolutely write full apps in IronPython. There are some samples that show how it can be done. In particular, PyWpfSample and PyGtkSample. Startup times are not great, but the actual runtime should be just fine for most GUI apps.
I need to build a fairly simple app but it needs to work on both PC and Mac.
It also needs to be redistributable on a disc or usb drive as a standalone desktop app.
Initially I thought AIR would be perfect for this (it ticks all the API requirements), but the difficulty is making it distributable, as the app would require the AIR runtime to be installed to run.
I came across Shu Player as an option as it seems to be able to package the AIR runtime with the app and do a (silent?) install.
However this seems to break the T&C from Adobe (as outlined here) so I'm not sure about the legality.
Another option could be Zinc but I haven't tested it so I'm not sure how well it'll fit the bill.
What would you recommend or suggest I check out?
Any suggestion much appreciated
EDIT:
There's a few more discussions on mono usage (though no real conclusion):
Here and Here
EDIT2:
Titanium could also fit the bill maybe, will check it out.
Any more comments from anyone?
EDIT3 (one year on): It's actually been almost a year since I posted that question but it seems some people still come across it every now and then, and even contribute an answer, even a year later.
Thought I'd update the question a bit. I did not get around to try the tcl/tk option at the end, time constraint and the uncertainty of the compatibility to different os versions led me to discard that as an option.
I did try Titanium for a bit but though the first impressions were ok, they really are pushing the mobile platform more than anything, and imho, the desktop implementation suffers a bit from that lack of attention. There are also some report of problems with some visual studio runtime on some OSs (can't remember the details now though).. So discarded that too.
I ended up going with XULRunner. The two major appeals were:
Firefox seems to work out of the box on most OS version, so I took it as good faith that a XULRunner app would likely be compatible with most system. Saved me a lot of testing and it turned out that it did run really well on all platforms, there hasn't been a single report of not being able to start the app
It's Javascript baby! Language learning curve was minimal. The main thing to work out is what the additional xpcom interfaces are and how to query them.
On the down side:
I thought troubleshooting errors was a sometimes difficult task, the venkman debugger is kinda clunky, ended up using the console more than anything.
The sqlite interface is a great asset for a desktop app but I often struggled to find relevant error infos when something didn't work - maybe i was doing it wrong.
It took a little while to work out how to package the app as a standalone app for both PC and Mac. The final approach was to have a "shell" mac app and a shell pc app and a couple of "compile" script that would copy the shells and add the custom source code onto it in the correct location.
One last potential issue for some, due to the nature of xulrunner apps, your source code will be deployed with the app, you can use obfuscation if you want but that's something to keep in mind if you want to protect your intellectual property
All in all, great platform for a cross-platform app. I'd highly recommend it.
Tcl/Tk has one of the best packaging solutions out there. You can easily wrap a cross-platform application (implemented in a fully working virtual filesystem) with a platform-specific binary to get a single file executable for just about any modern desktop system. Search google for the terms starkit, starpack and tclkit. Such wrapped binaries are tiny in comparison to many executables these days.
Many deride Tk as being "old" or "immature" but it's one of the oldest, most stable toolkits out there. It uses native widgets when such widgets exist.
One significant drawback of Tcl/Tk, however, is that it lacks any sort of printing support. If your application needs to print you'll have to be a bit creative. There are platform-specific solutions, and the ability to generate postscript documents, and libraries to create pdfs, but it takes a little extra effort.
Java is probably your best bet, although not all Windows PCs will necessarily have Java (most should). JavaFX is new enough you can't count on it - you'll probably find a lot of machines running Java 1.5 or (shudder) 1.4. I believe recent Mac OS still ships with 1.5 (latest version may have changed to 1.6).
Consider JavaFX
It would run everywhere with a modern JRE ..!
AIR could be an option, but only if you don't mind distributing two different files (the offline runtime installer and your app), and expecting the user to run one and then the other. You do have to submit an online form at Adobe's site saying you agree to distribute the offline installer as-is, rather than digging out individual DLLs or whatever, before they give you the installer.
Unfortunately there's currently no way to get both an AIR app and the runtime to install from one file though. I'm not sure what the deal with Shu is, or whether it's doing anything that isn't kosher.
i would recommended zink. it has all the functionalities you require for desktop. however, the las time i used it it was a bit glitchy.
i was hung up by trying to write a 6M file to the disk. thought it trough and changed the code to write 512K chunks at a time (3min work, fast).
probably it still has some little annoying glitches like making you think on root lvl but the ease of use and the features are just way too sweet to ignore.
I just caught one of Google's commercials for Chrome where at the end they mention that it runs on Linux, Mac, and PC. So I started wondering how they are able to develop a program that can run on multiple platforms like that? I have experience with Java, and .Net but only on a windows machine. Java is by design portable, but I wouldn't think Google is using Java for something like Chrome where performance is such a concern.
I understand that each version is going to have some platform specific code, such as for the UI. But there must also be some central code that is reused across each platform. What language is this written in?
Here is an entire article about the development of Chrome. It's mostly written in C++.
Chrome is written in C++, so they will have a significant amount of platform-specific code for each OS. They most likely maintain a separate branch for each OS.
Any reasonably standardized and popular language will do, because the goal is to compile it on all platforms, not create one binary that will work on Windows, MacOSX, Linux, and z/OS. C and C++ are popular choices, because they'll work readily with pretty much anything. Java is a good choice, because it runs on pretty much everything. For applications with low performance requirements, Perl and Python are good.
The important point is to separate out what is platform-dependent from what isn't, since (except in the case of Java or scripting languages) it will probably be necessary to rewrite platform-specific stuff for each platform, and not necessarily in the same language. MacOSX is best programmed in Objective-C, and that's true for no other popular platform.
The programs are supposed to be portable in source level, not binary level. So you only need to compile it for different platforms, not necessary to make one universal binary. In fact, most languages are supported in all modern platforms including UNIX/Windows/Mac, so you can choose from almost all modern lanagues, which C/C++ is prefered by many people. BTW, C++ is the language of Chrome.
Scripting languages like Python/Perl are also good choices. One more thing, Java can be faster than you think - see Eclipse. Even without JNI Technology, Java is still good enough for most applications like JDownloader.
Google had to build different distributions for each OS (ie compiled for each platform as Francis's answer explains) - in fact the Mac OS version only recently became available - the Windows version has been around much longer.
Google Apps are 'thin applications' - the grunt-work is done on their servers.
The Apps are portable in the sense that the front-end is put together using HTML, CSS and Javascript - which are standard (in theory at least) across all browsers.
Google put a lot of effort into building Chrome's Javascript engine to be performant - to ensure any client-side logic is run quickly.
I've been developing for Windows and *nix platforms for quite some time, and am looking to move into Mac development. I am tossing up between using ObjC/Cocoa and C++/Qt4.5.
The C++/moc semantics make more sense to me, and improving knowledge in Qt seems like a sensible thing to do given that you end up with a skill set that covers more platforms.
Am I likely to handicap my applications by skipping Cocoa?
The sample Qt applications look pretty Mac-native to me, but they are quite simple so potentially don't tell the whole story. Are there other pros to the Xcode way that Qt doesn't have, such as packaging, deployment, etc.?
Here's an easy way to answer it:
If you were developing a Windows app with .NET or MFC, would you handicap your applications by using Qt? If the answer to that is yes, then the situation is likely to be the same on the Mac.
A few negatives I can think of off the top of my head:
Licensing
Qt apps, while good, are not completely a native UI experience and there's things a native UI designer can do in Cocoa which boggle the mind. While I can't be sure that all the same functionality isn't available in Qt, I doubt it.
Qt is always a little behind. If Microsoft or Apple come out with a great new technology, you have to wait for the Qt developers to update Qt.
However, with all that said, only you can determine the business value of using Qt. If you think cross-platform development is going to be a major part of your development, then Qt might be worth it, despite the issues mentioned.
Ask yourself: how many of the best Mac applications that you know of use Qt instead of native Cocoa?
For our robotic systems, we originally wrote our control software in C++ using the cross-platform wxWidgets library (we avoided Qt due to some licensing concerns), because we felt that we had to target Windows, Linux, and Mac platforms for our end users. This is what we shipped for over a year until I started tinkering with Cocoa.
Right away, the thing that most impressed me was how quickly you could develop using Cocoa. Eventually, we decided to drop support for Linux and Windows and rewrite our entire control applications in Cocoa. What had taken us years to put together in C++ required only three months to completely reimplement in Cocoa.
Aside from the "lowest common denominator" interface issues that others have pointed out, the rapid development allowed by Cocoa has become a competitive advantage for our company. Our software has advanced far more quickly since our conversion to Cocoa, and it has allowed us as a new company with one developer to pull even with 10-year-old competitors that have 20-man development teams. This appears to be a common story in the Mac development space, where you see a lot of small teams who are able to create products that compete with those of much larger companies.
As a final note, using Cocoa gives you the ability to stay on top of the new APIs Apple is continually rolling out. We're now working on a new control interface that will make heavy use of Core Animation, something that would be painful to deal with using Qt.
I'm currently developing both with QT (actually PyQT, but it makes no difference to your question) and native Cocoa app. For me it's no brainer, I'd chose Cocoa. It's really worth time to explore Cocoa in general, there are many great concepts within the Cocoa framework, and Objective-C 2.0 as well.
I'd use Qt if you want this to be a crossplatform application.
You can have a look at the QMacCocoaViewContainer class. It acts as some kind of wrapper for generic Cocoa views, so you can also have Cocoa elements which are not officially supported by Qt.
Of course this means learning a little about Cocoa and Objective C and how a Cocoa UI would need to look like. But if you already know Qt well and if it’s not like your application is all and only about the GUI this could be a good way to go.
And don’t forget about the QMacStyle::WidgetSizePolicy or you won’t understand why your tables come out so huge.
Obviously, the best option is to use a cross platform suite that supports native widgets.
With QT4 you can build your base user interface. Then just add native support for your specific target platform.
Sure, Cocoa has a lot of fancy stuff (and you can still use them trough QT4), but let me be clear. I see a lot of fancy Apps on the AppStore, pretty ones, but most of then are just crap, expensive.. what ever. I really missed my Kate text editor, my okular viewer, my krita drawing software... those are just better than the commercial and expensive alternatives and are free. so i just tweak the source code a little bit too have a REAL native and great experience.
What if i have to use a linux app on my main computer with is a mac os x? or windows? or whatever? only?
For example, why on earth i have to buy a expensive ,fancy but far less featured image editor software for my mac like pixelmator when i can use a full featured real image manipulation software like Gimp? YES Gimp is gtk2 based which is a pain on any platform, specially on Mac because is really ugly. Gimp should be ported to QT4. Inkscape should be ported to QT4 too, and it would feel so great.
Is so simple to do.. gosh!
http://doc.qt.nokia.com/4.7-snapshot/demos-macmainwindow.html
Even you can add support for the the new native lion fullscreen feature, unified title and toolbar menus, etc
I , as a user, i really care about efficient, featured, good and cross platform apps, i don't really care about developer's convenience or laziness .
I do a lot of cross-platform development (Mac, Windows, Linux), and for some projects use Qt. It is a fine framework, and provides a rich class library. If you need to deploy on multiple platforms, cannot afford to spend the time/effort on platform-specific front-ends, or the "generic" support for each platform is sufficiently good, then use Qt.
However, Qt inevitably suffers in some ways from the lowest common denominator syndrome, and sometimes does not feel quite native enough. There are also certain features that are either difficult to support, or are simply not provided in the Qt libraries. So if you can afford the time and effort, or your app really demands the attention to detail and fit & finish, then developing separate front-ends may be worth it.
In either case, you ought to be writing your back-end (aka domain) code in a platform-neutral and front-end neutral manner. This way, the front-end is easily replaced, or modified between platforms.
You could always start with a Qt front-end and go for a quick time to market, then develop a native front-end down the line.
In practice, I've noticed that a Qt app on Windows looks most "native", while on Mac there are certain subtle telltale signs that make it look/feel not quite right. And Mac users tend to have much higher expectations when it comes to UI/UX!
Since posting this, i've been learning the Cocoa / Objective-C way, and have been quite impressed. Despite what I initially thought was quite a quirky syntax, Objc appears to be a very effective language for implementing UI code, and the XCode sugar - things like Core Data and bindings - make short work of all of the boring bits.
I spent a while with the QT examples and documentation before digging into cocoa, and tend to agree with what has been said above w.r.t being slightly behind the curve and less 'aqua-ish' - albeit from a fairly trivial inspection. If I absolutely had to be build a cross-platform app i'd probably use QT rather than trying to separate out the UI code, as it seems like it would provide close-enough visuals, but for mac only purposes, Cocoa seems like a definite win.
Thanks all for your responses, they've all been very helpful!
DO NOT use Qt for a Mac app. You will get no hardware acceleration for 2D rendering, and you will not be able to deliver ADA compliance.
Depending on what kind of apps you want to write, another contender is REALbasic now called Xojo.
The move from C++ is pretty easy (I have 15 years C++ experience) and the framework and IDE extremely productive. You have the added bonus of being able to deploy to Linux and Windows with trivial effort. Their framework compiles to native code and uses native widgets so you don't have an emulated look and feel.
The big reason for learning Cocoa and coding in Objective-C is if you want to hone your iPhone skills or are chasing a really fancy user experience. If you wanted to rival the cutting edge of WPF development then I'd recommend Cocoa.
I'm looking at rewriting an eMbedded Visual Basic app I wrote years ago. I'm unsatisified with it because of various problems clients keep having with it now and then over the years, mostly along the lines of the app not loading anymore because a required dll/activex control has gone missing! This is so frustrating and naturally difficult to debug when a client is using it far away. In alot of cases reinstalling the app doesn't fix the problem.
My preference would be to rewrite it in C# since I'm comfortable with C# and DotNet, but I'm also open to other platforms like blackberry or iTouch/iPhone so long as the platform can support maps and GPS. I'd start rewriting it in C# now but I can't be sure that I won't have the same problems in .net.
Has anyone else had similar problems with eVB apps which have gone away/persisted when moving to CF DotNet? Or would you suggest a different platform again?
Edit: Note that I wish to move away from eVB anyway, but if I move to CF DotNet I want to make sure I won't have the same missing dll/control problems.
I recommend .NET CF strongly, especially if you already know C# and .NET. Mono has been ported to the iPhone, so it is possible to write apps that will run on Windows Mobile and the iPhone. No Mono for Blackberry (yet, if ever), so that's a definite limitation. I personally can't stand Blackberries (I have both a Blackberry and a WM smartphone and the Blackberry makes me want to hang myself), but they do have a huge user base.
You should have migrated away from eVB years ago, but that's water under the bridge. If you want to continue targeting Windows CE/ Windows Mobile I'd recommend going to the CF - language is irrelevant, use what you're comfortable with.
There's no way to guarantee that whatever your "missing DLL" problem is won't happen again, since we have no idea what DLL went missing. If it was a 3rd party control, then you're at the mercy of the market. If the provider survives, it's likely their control will.
If you want to target iPhone/Blackberry then Java is more likely to be your language of choice - the tools I'm not as familiar with. Eclipse for Blackberry - iPhone may have their own tool.
As for Silverlight, you might look at it, but so far it's just way too slow to be a viable platform, at least on any WinMo device I've ever seen. We've delevered many, many CF apps for all sorts of verticals and have never had any usability problems (though we've been doing it a long time and know every limitation and what we should and should not be trying).
I suggest you take it one step further and look at Silverlight. One of the premises is that it's a more long-term-stable, portable, lightweight download and install, and it hasn't gotten krufty yet.
I think it has the potential to be the next VB for embedded. One of the difficulties with CF is that I've found it to be an insufficient subset of the real thing.
Another option is NS Basic/CE. It's highly compatible with eVB, so you will be able to keep most if not all of your code. The product has been continually updated so it runs on current devices.
The installer that NS Basic/CE creates includes all the dll files your program requires, so they will be included on installation.