9:15 a.m.
Hi,
I was at gwtcon last week and I talked with Daniel Kurka ( he is part of the gwt team)
about inbox. This is a new gmail app that is launched on iOS web and android. So google
even though they have a lot of people to develop applications went for a cross platform
approach based on Java. They considered cordova, but because they wanted an UI that was
very speedy and also on older android devices they choice native. Java is used across all
platforms using gwt to translate Java to javascript and j2objc to transform Java to
objective-c. He reckons that about 70 - 80 % of the code is shared.
So that gave me an idea, instead of using Java as the common language why not use
javascript. And build a native UI that calls the javascript parts. This is of course a bit
like appcelerator but without a layer in between. That way you could also still target
windows phone.
Why not try out this idea and see if it’s feasible? WDYT?
Cheers,
Erik Jan
9:33 a.m.
On Mon, Nov 10, 2014 at 9:15 AM, Erik Jan de Wit <edewit(a)redhat.com> wrote:
Hi,
I was at gwtcon last week and I talked with Daniel Kurka ( he is part of
the gwt team) about inbox. This is a new gmail app that is launched on iOS
web and android. So google even though they have a lot of people to develop
applications went for a cross platform approach based on Java. They
considered cordova, but because they wanted an UI that was very speedy and
also on older android devices they choice native. Java is used across all
platforms using gwt to translate Java to javascript and j2objc to transform
Java to objective-c. He reckons that about 70 - 80 % of the code is shared.
So that gave me an idea, instead of using Java as the common language why
not use javascript. And build a native UI that calls the javascript parts.
This is of course a bit like appcelerator but without a layer in between.
That way you could also still target windows phone.
Why not try out this idea and see if it’s feasible? WDYT?
Could you elaborate ? I'm not sure to understand it. You mean using JS to
will be translated into native ?
Cheers,
Erik Jan
_______________________________________________
aerogear-dev mailing list
aerogear-dev(a)lists.jboss.org
https://lists.jboss.org/mailman/listinfo/aerogear-dev
9:38 a.m.
Why not try out this idea and see if it’s feasible? WDYT?
Could you elaborate ? I'm not sure to understand it. You mean using JS to will be
translated into native ?
Sorry if I’m not clear, that is not what I meant. What I meant to say is when you want a
fast native UI, but want still want to do as much as possible cross platform. So using
javascript for all the business code and have a small layer of native UI that call the
javascript, on all platforms.
9:35 a.m.
On Mon, Nov 10, 2014 at 9:15 AM, Erik Jan de Wit <edewit(a)redhat.com> wrote:
Hi,
I was at gwtcon last week and I talked with Daniel Kurka ( he is part of
the gwt team) about inbox. This is a new gmail app that is launched on iOS
web and android. So google even though they have a lot of people to develop
applications went for a cross platform approach based on Java. They
considered cordova, but because they wanted an UI that was very speedy and
also on older android devices they choice native. Java is used across all
platforms using gwt to translate Java to javascript and j2objc to transform
Java to objective-c. He reckons that about 70 - 80 % of the code is shared.
So that gave me an idea, instead of using Java as the common language why
not use javascript. And build a native UI that calls the javascript parts.
This is of course a bit like appcelerator but without a layer in between.
That way you could also still target windows phone.
not sure we really target UI. It's more libraries (and gluecode) that
AeroGear brings to the table
Why not try out this idea and see if it’s feasible? WDYT?
Cheers,
Erik Jan
_______________________________________________
aerogear-dev mailing list
aerogear-dev(a)lists.jboss.org
https://lists.jboss.org/mailman/listinfo/aerogear-dev
--
Matthias Wessendorf
blog: http://matthiaswessendorf.wordpress.com/
sessions: http://www.slideshare.net/mwessendorf
twitter: http://twitter.com/mwessendorf
9:40 a.m.
not sure we really target UI. It's more libraries (and gluecode) that AeroGear brings
to the table
I didn’t mean we need to write a UI library, but a way to make it easy for developers to
build a cross platform project based on javascript that supports using a native UI. It
would offer a way to have native UI components call javascript business functions on all
platforms.
10:13 a.m.
More support for Hybrid app, you mean?
On 10 November 2014 09:40, Erik Jan de Wit <edewit(a)redhat.com> wrote:
>
> not sure we really target UI. It's more libraries (and gluecode) that
AeroGear brings to the table
I didn’t mean we need to write a UI library, but a way to make it easy for
developers to build a cross platform project based on javascript that
supports using a native UI. It would offer a way to have native UI
components call javascript business functions on all platforms.
_______________________________________________
aerogear-dev mailing list
aerogear-dev(a)lists.jboss.org
https://lists.jboss.org/mailman/listinfo/aerogear-dev
10:39 a.m.
Since this is basically what Appcelerator Titanium does and is pretty big
scope...
But what you mean is just having a Cordova plugin that would allow to
access native UI widgets, right?
~ Lukas
On Mon, Nov 10, 2014 at 10:13 AM, Corinne Krych <corinnekrych(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
More support for Hybrid app, you mean?
On 10 November 2014 09:40, Erik Jan de Wit <edewit(a)redhat.com> wrote:
> >
> > not sure we really target UI. It's more libraries (and gluecode) that
> AeroGear brings to the table
>
> I didn’t mean we need to write a UI library, but a way to make it easy
> for developers to build a cross platform project based on javascript that
> supports using a native UI. It would offer a way to have native UI
> components call javascript business functions on all platforms.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> aerogear-dev mailing list
> aerogear-dev(a)lists.jboss.org
> https://lists.jboss.org/mailman/listinfo/aerogear-dev
>
_______________________________________________
aerogear-dev mailing list
aerogear-dev(a)lists.jboss.org
https://lists.jboss.org/mailman/listinfo/aerogear-dev
11:14 a.m.
On 10 Nov,2014, at 10:39 , Lukáš Fryč <lukas.fryc(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Since this is basically what Appcelerator Titanium does and is pretty
big scope...
Appcelerator enables you to create a xml to define the UI and translates that to
native widgets, so adding an abstraction layer. That makes it less flexible and will only
make you native UI look and behave the same. I suggest we leave the creation of the UI
alone and only provide a way to reuse the javascript code.
But what you mean is just having a Cordova plugin that would allow to
access native UI widgets, right?
No not really what I meant, I mean having cordova so that you can build a native
UI (no webview) and have a way to invoke javascript functions from this native UI. It will
still use cordova libs to enable the communication, but not like in a plugin more the
other way around.
11:43 a.m.
If that's the way you think, you can invoke Webview directly from the
native Java / Android and use Javascript (as well as all the Web
technologies) from there. Basically, that's the way Cordova works...
On Mon, Nov 10, 2014 at 10:14 AM, Erik Jan de Wit <edewit(a)redhat.com> wrote:
On 10 Nov,2014, at 10:39 , Lukáš Fryč <lukas.fryc(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> Since this is basically what Appcelerator Titanium does and is pretty
big scope...
>
Appcelerator enables you to create a xml to define the UI and translates
that to native widgets, so adding an abstraction layer. That makes it less
flexible and will only make you native UI look and behave the same. I
suggest we leave the creation of the UI alone and only provide a way to
reuse the javascript code.
> But what you mean is just having a Cordova plugin that would allow to
access native UI widgets, right?
>
No not really what I meant, I mean having cordova so that you can build a
native UI (no webview) and have a way to invoke javascript functions from
this native UI. It will still use cordova libs to enable the communication,
but not like in a plugin more the other way around.
_______________________________________________
aerogear-dev mailing list
aerogear-dev(a)lists.jboss.org
https://lists.jboss.org/mailman/listinfo/aerogear-dev
11:51 a.m.
On 10 Nov,2014, at 11:43 , Miguel Lemos <miguel21op(a)gmail.com> wrote:
If that's the way you think, you can invoke Webview directly from
the native Java / Android and use Javascript (as well as all the Web technologies) from
there. Basically, that's the way Cordova works...
I know how cordova works, and what I’m proposing will still use cordova, but instead of
using a webview / HTML and CSS to create the UI I propose to use native widgets and have a
framework to call javascript functions from this native UI widgets. That is something that
you can not do with cordova today.
11:49 a.m.
On Mon, Nov 10, 2014 at 9:40 AM, Erik Jan de Wit <edewit(a)redhat.com> wrote:
>
> not sure we really target UI. It's more libraries (and gluecode) that
AeroGear brings to the table
I didn’t mean we need to write a UI library, but a way to make it easy for
developers to build a cross platform project based on javascript that
supports using a native UI. It would offer a way to have native UI
components call javascript business functions on all platforms.
so, you are proposing having a layer that basically wires a native GUI
element to a JavaScript function?
I thought that Cordova would already allow you, building native UI _and_
invoking JS functions, but looks 'pure' like Cordova apps are just WebView?
So, for adding native buttons, I'd have to take the project to the next
stage (e.g. open in Xcode and do some ObjC/Swift foo), where I than need to
manage the JS invocation (I assume that I am able to leverage Cordova for
the call from native to js, since that's what the plugins do - but _not_
explicitly wired to a native 'button;)?
-M
_______________________________________________
aerogear-dev mailing list
aerogear-dev(a)lists.jboss.org
https://lists.jboss.org/mailman/listinfo/aerogear-dev
--
Matthias Wessendorf
blog: http://matthiaswessendorf.wordpress.com/
sessions: http://www.slideshare.net/mwessendorf
twitter: http://twitter.com/mwessendorf
8:59 a.m.
On 26 Nov,2014, at 11:49 , Matthias Wessendorf <matzew(a)apache.org> wrote:
so, you are proposing having a layer that basically wires a native
GUI element to a JavaScript function?
Yes
I thought that Cordova would already allow you, building native UI _and_ invoking JS
functions, but looks 'pure' like Cordova apps are just WebView? So, for adding
native buttons, I'd have to take the project to the next stage (e.g. open in Xcode and
do some ObjC/Swift foo), where I than need to manage the JS invocation (I assume that I am
able to leverage Cordova for the call from native to js, since that's what the plugins
do - but _not_ explicitly wired to a native 'button;)?
No cordova does not have this functionality, so my suggestion is to make a library to make
that effort easy. Initially base this on cordova and the way cordova makes calls to and
from native code, because then you could still use the plugins as well. Another
possibility could be to build something on top of iOS 7 JavaScriptCore and v8 on Android,
because we don’t use the web view anymore and only need a Javascript execution
environment, but for first version using web view to execute the Javascript would be good
enough.
Cheers,
Erik Jan
9:07 a.m.
I think there is definitively an interest for having one code base (Java/JavaScript:
choose your weapon) for multiple platform using native look and feel. At Devoxx I attended
2 sessions on the topic:
Here is an extract from my blog post devoxx summary [1]:
"Develop your mobile app once in your favourite language and deploy it on iOS and
Android. Still the Nirvana mantra for quick-win mobile development… If your language of
choice is Java, see “Real cross-platform Java on mobile devices” session and how to use
JavaFX to build your app on Android (LodgON) and iOS (RoboVM). UI is not yet native feel
but it’s in the pipe for future as well as using Java8. If you’re a JavaScript ninja, go
to “Use JavaScript to build Mobile Apps with Native UI” session to hear about Titanium.
You have to learn a titanium specific API to build all your app including UI. but, UI get
bridged into native widgets. As … stresses a lot no lowest common denominator, When you
need to go platform specific use a if/else :)) “
Worth investigating further...
++
Corinne
[1] http://corinnekrych.blogspot.fr/2014/11/devoxx-2014-in-eyes-of-mobile-dev...
On 27 Nov 2014, at 08:59, Erik Jan de Wit <edewit(a)redhat.com>
wrote:
On 26 Nov,2014, at 11:49 , Matthias Wessendorf <matzew(a)apache.org> wrote:
> so, you are proposing having a layer that basically wires a native GUI element to a
JavaScript function?
Yes
>
> I thought that Cordova would already allow you, building native UI _and_ invoking JS
functions, but looks 'pure' like Cordova apps are just WebView? So, for adding
native buttons, I'd have to take the project to the next stage (e.g. open in Xcode and
do some ObjC/Swift foo), where I than need to manage the JS invocation (I assume that I am
able to leverage Cordova for the call from native to js, since that's what the plugins
do - but _not_ explicitly wired to a native 'button;)?
No cordova does not have this functionality, so my suggestion is to make a library to
make that effort easy. Initially base this on cordova and the way cordova makes calls to
and from native code, because then you could still use the plugins as well. Another
possibility could be to build something on top of iOS 7 JavaScriptCore and v8 on Android,
because we don’t use the web view anymore and only need a Javascript execution
environment, but for first version using web view to execute the Javascript would be good
enough.
Cheers,
Erik Jan
_______________________________________________
aerogear-dev mailing list
aerogear-dev(a)lists.jboss.org
https://lists.jboss.org/mailman/listinfo/aerogear-dev
9:27 a.m.
On 27 Nov,2014, at 9:07 , Corinne Krych <corinnekrych(a)gmail.com> wrote:
I think there is definitively an interest for having one code base
(Java/JavaScript: choose your weapon) for multiple platform using native look and feel. At
Devoxx I attended 2 sessions on the topic:
Right the idea is not new, but I think this is a niche that could be very nice. The
problem with solutions that want to be native, but work on all platforms is that they have
to use the lowest common denominator or have a not really native UI it just looks that
way. That is why I think having a custom native UI for each platform and reuse as much as
possible the ‘business logic’ is something worth investigating as this does not exist.
Here is an extract from my blog post devoxx summary [1]:
"Develop your mobile app once in your favourite language and deploy it on iOS and
Android. Still the Nirvana mantra for quick-win mobile development… If your language of
choice is Java, see “Real cross-platform Java on mobile devices” session and how to use
JavaFX to build your app on Android (LodgON) and iOS (RoboVM). UI is not yet native feel
but it’s in the pipe for future as well as using Java8. If you’re a JavaScript ninja, go
to “Use JavaScript to build Mobile Apps with Native UI” session to hear about Titanium.
You have to learn a titanium specific API to build all your app including UI. but, UI get
bridged into native widgets. As … stresses a lot no lowest common denominator, When you
need to go platform specific use a if/else :)) “
Worth investigating further...
11:56 a.m.
On 2014-11-10, Matthias Wessendorf wrote:
On Mon, Nov 10, 2014 at 9:15 AM, Erik Jan de Wit
<edewit(a)redhat.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I was at gwtcon last week and I talked with Daniel Kurka ( he is part of
> the gwt team) about inbox. This is a new gmail app that is launched on iOS
> web and android. So google even though they have a lot of people to develop
> applications went for a cross platform approach based on Java. They
> considered cordova, but because they wanted an UI that was very speedy and
> also on older android devices they choice native. Java is used across all
> platforms using gwt to translate Java to javascript and j2objc to transform
> Java to objective-c. He reckons that about 70 - 80 % of the code is shared.
>
> So that gave me an idea, instead of using Java as the common language why
> not use javascript. And build a native UI that calls the javascript parts.
> This is of course a bit like appcelerator but without a layer in between.
> That way you could also still target windows phone.
>
not sure we really target UI. It's more libraries (and gluecode) that
AeroGear brings to the table
I must agree here.
>
> Why not try out this idea and see if it’s feasible? WDYT?
>
> Cheers,
> Erik Jan
> _______________________________________________
> aerogear-dev mailing list
> aerogear-dev(a)lists.jboss.org
> https://lists.jboss.org/mailman/listinfo/aerogear-dev
>
--
Matthias Wessendorf
blog: http://matthiaswessendorf.wordpress.com/
sessions: http://www.slideshare.net/mwessendorf
twitter: http://twitter.com/mwessendorf
_______________________________________________
aerogear-dev mailing list
aerogear-dev(a)lists.jboss.org
https://lists.jboss.org/mailman/listinfo/aerogear-dev
--
abstractj
PGP: 0x84DC9914
12:38 p.m.
I like the idea
but i don't have an idea of what an impl could be. Do you have more insight
Erik?
sth like http://hayageek.com/execute-javascript-in-ios/
and how will it fit with Cordova?
++
Corinne
On 10 November 2014 11:58, Erik Jan de Wit <edewit(a)redhat.com> wrote:
not sure we really target UI. It's more libraries (and gluecode) that
AeroGear brings to the table
I must agree here.
So do I, and that is not what I’m suggesting.
_______________________________________________
aerogear-dev mailing list
aerogear-dev(a)lists.jboss.org
https://lists.jboss.org/mailman/listinfo/aerogear-dev
2:17 p.m.
On 10 Nov,2014, at 12:38 , Corinne Krych <corinnekrych(a)gmail.com> wrote:
I like the idea
but i don't have an idea of what an impl could be. Do you have more insight Erik?
sth like http://hayageek.com/execute-javascript-in-ios/
Could use something like that, but my initial idea was to keep the web view as a
javascript runtime and reusing the cordova libs for invoking the javascript, so that we
don’t have to reinvent the wheel. Then the only thing needed is a kind of delegate that is
used by the native UI that calls the javascript.
3446
days inactive
3463
days old
17 comments
7 participants
participants (7)
-
Bruno Oliveira -
Corinne Krych -
Erik Jan de Wit -
Lukáš Fryč -
Matthias Wessendorf -
Miguel Lemos -
Sebastien Blanc