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I was procrastinating and wandered over to the Cordova[^] site. A cross-platform Javascript library to allow devs to create apps on Mobile devices using a single API using Javascript, CSS and HTML.
So: anyone used it? What's the general feeling on cross-platform mobile development? There was a thread on Xamarin[^] the other day that had mixed responses so I thought I'd throw this into the fray.
cheers
Chris Maunder
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I didn't used Cordova (I will attend a meeting about it next week with samples and presentation), but did used Intel XDK[^] that sound me the same. You are develop in a JavaScript/HTML/CSS environment and the Intel XDK creates packages for every platform it supports...
It is very nice on the level that you can use your knowledge and need not learn new languages, but it is still force you to learn (and that's the good part  ) about mobile platforms and its features.
All in all I found Intel XDK a nice idea and if ever will develop for mobile I will use it or some other toolkit based on the same idea...
I'm not questioning your powers of observation; I'm merely remarking upon the paradox of asking a masked man who he is. (V)
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De ride... so smooth.
De seats? Only de finext CorINthian leather.
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KHHHAAAAAAAAANNNNNN!
Please remember to rate helpful or unhelpful answers, it lets us and people reading the forums know if our answers are any good.
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I have trust issues with cross-platform kit, in that it rewrites my code, and I don't trust it to do so.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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I've used XDK and I've used Cordova. While the Cordova "platform" is powerful, it's a complete PITA to use. As it's primarily run from the command line, it's easy to miss something, especially if you're adding features. Forget a step and it can be a complete pain to unwind and figure out what went wrong.
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Yes, I hate the command-line thing including for installation. Is there any other ways to install that other than "npm" way? Last week I found the details of latest release(ver 3.5) on their site but couldn't find the download for 3.5.
Please give me light on this.
Recently I have installed both XDK & Eclipse. Gonna start quickly. But before these I just wanted to take a deep look on Cordova.
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thatraja wrote: Is there any other ways to install that other than "npm" way?
Not that I'm aware of. Sorry.
You don't need Eclipse for XDK. I just use the Brackets editor in Chrome. It's installed as part of the XDK installation process.
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Pete O'Hanlon wrote:
thatraja wrote: Is there any other ways to install that other than "npm" way?
Not that I'm aware of. Sorry.
Hope there'll be few on future versions.
Pete O'Hanlon wrote: You don't need Eclipse for XDK.
Agree. But just wanted to try recent version[^].
Pete O'Hanlon wrote: I just use the Brackets editor in Chrome. It's installed as part of the XDK
installation process.
I didn't aware of this one. Thank you.
I found your recent article[^] & I think you're gonna post series of articles on mobile development. And is the any possibility for reboot of this article[^]?
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thatraja wrote: is the any possibility for reboot of this article
Possibly at some point. I had a few articles written on 7.5 and then Microsoft announced that 8 would be a big departure from 7.5, rendering a lot of what I was writing moot. It kind of knocked the wind out of my sails.
thatraja wrote: I think you're gonna post series of articles on mobile development
That's the plan. I have some things I'm doing for Pluralsight first, but I have some interesting things coming up.
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I had personally used Cordova for small scale projects. It's really good. However there are pros and cons of using Cordova and Xamarin
The biggest advantage of using Cordova is it's opensource. You can quickly build mobile apps and target multi platforms. But it does have performance issues and I have seen peoples really hate to use apps developed using Cordova. On the other hand Xamarin which also serves the same purpose of targeting your application to multi platform, however its not free. I haven't really used Xamarin, but I did heard a lot about it. They are pretty good, efficient. You can build native apps very quickly and target multi platforms. There are numerous advantages of using Xamarin. What I really feel is Xamarin wins over Cordova 
You can have a look into the following articles for more understanding on Cordova apps.
Property Finder - a Cross-Platform HTML5 Mobile App[^]
PhoneGap Cordova JSONP RSS Feeds[^]
Thanks,
modified 2-Jul-14 20:08pm.
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Yes, but using an older version. It merged with a thing called PhoneGap.
Plus, I wrote a CP article about it: Clickity[^]
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yeah im using phonegap now
meh
Bryce
MCAD
---
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Doesn't it seam absurd to you that there's a cross-plaform library out there for javascript - a cross-platform language?
".45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly" - JSOP, 2010
-----
You can never have too much ammo - unless you're swimming, or on fire. - JSOP, 2010
-----
When you pry the gun from my cold dead hands, be careful - the barrel will be very hot. - JSOP, 2013
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It's a cross-platform set of APIs using Javascript. No different than a cross-platform SDK in C.
What I find absurd is Javascript being used as a first class language.
I know - now I sound old, stuffy, elitist and a dinosaur. I just - I dunno - like things like type safety and stuff, and languages where {} + {} doesn't equal NaN.
cheers
Chris Maunder
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Chris Maunder wrote: I know - now I sound old, stuffy, elitist and a dinosaur. I just - I dunno -
like things like type safety and stuff, and languages where {} + {}
doesn't equal
NaN.
Well, we dinosaurs have to stick together.
".45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly" - JSOP, 2010
-----
You can never have too much ammo - unless you're swimming, or on fire. - JSOP, 2010
-----
When you pry the gun from my cold dead hands, be careful - the barrel will be very hot. - JSOP, 2013
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After dealing with ridiculous type conversions and unnecessary classes just to do the obvious, JavaScript is a relief. I can do a project in about 1/4 of the time it takes to do it any other way. And for those who worry about type safety - if your code is written well, you shouldn't have to worry about it.
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Bruce Patin wrote: if your code is written well, you shouldn't have to worry about it.
If you code is written well, regardless of the language, then a significant amount of development time (and people) could be eliminated from the every industry that uses programming.
But I seriously doubt that is going to happen.
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I originally chose Cordova because I wanted to learn the javascript tools associated with single-page-apps so that I would potentially be learning skills that I could use in my web development also. I have used it to port a SPA to mobile apps, and while there is a fairly steep learning curve at first, it actually works fairly well and there is a good community to help. Performance on older Android versions is slow, Android 4.2+ and iOS is much better but probably not as fast as native apps written with Xamarin would be.
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I've used it in conjunction with Android Studio and am still committed to it for JavaScript clients calling a Web API. I have not tried it with anything other than Android so far. For those who complain about command line - it only takes one or two simple commands for a whole project. For those who complain about it altering their code - what? it doesn't at all. I did have to add a couple of lines in the index.html file and move in some javascript and css libraries. But that was easy and to be expected. I have been using Cordova with the initial goal of moving a desktop application based on AngularJS and .NET Web API to mobile devices. So far, it works in the virtual device. (On a real device, I had to copy the APK file to the phone and execute it to install.) However, the visual appearance is not good for mobile, and I have realized that I have to almost totally redesign the appearance for mobile. Expecting a simple CSS change to do the trick is unrealistic.
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Yes, I use it for collaboration on open source projects under the umbrella of Apps4Canadians.ca. It enabled me to post hybrid apps in Google Play, Samsung, BlackBerry App World and both the iOS and Windows Mobile stores.
If you want to get up and running quickly with mobile apps by leveraging your HTML, CSS and JavaScript skills then it fits the bill, however you may want to evaluate other options once you get into more demanding data centric and complex presentation layers on mobile devices. It's definitely a good tool to get started and can serve the purpose for your development and distribution needs dependent upon your business objective.
There is also a fairly active community and several books to purhcase if you get stuck on any development or implementation details.
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Chris Maunder wrote: What's the general feeling on cross-platform mobile development?
Cross platform anything is a dream, into which reality often interjects itself.
Cross platform often works well for things that are very simple. Anything more complex either requires work arounds or compromises.
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...so I went to QA in Chrome and right clicked.
To my delight, the context menu showed and option "Translate to English".
I clicked it!
Google translated it!
Sadly, it was unchanged... 
Those who fail to learn history are doomed to repeat it. --- George Santayana (December 16, 1863 – September 26, 1952)
Those who fail to clear history are doomed to explain it. --- OriginalGriff (February 24, 1959 – ∞)
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It may interpret the words, but not the intended meaning.
Google should have translated to "I did not pay attention in class, did not study or even open my textbook until now. Please do my homework or I shall fail my ccourse."
It was broke, so I fixed it.
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