Questions about book content
ian
1. Is jsonengine still a recommended tool? There does not appear to be
any development for over a year, and after watching this recent video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7SxNNC429U
It seems AppEngine can provide json as a response type(?) I'm not
clear why I need jsonengine
2. I didn't see 'HTML5 bolierplate' mentioned in your book. There is
apparently a version specific to appengine too. Is there a reason no
mention is made? Waste of time?
3. Jo and zepto seem to be good from my quick look. Given things have
changed since the book was published, Is there one lightweight js
library you recommend today? I'll be converting it in phonegap
4. From the video above they also show authentication through the
android gmail address. Authentication through credentials on the local
device through js/HTML5 would have been nice to address in the book.
I'd like to develop a simple appengine backed HTML5 app that appears
as a native app. Your book seemed to be the best starting point for
this, but as always things change quickly with API's etc. - and I get
the impression that certain elements of your book might lead me down
some bad paths. I searched git and google code, but didn't come up
with too much. Are you aware of any open source applications similar
to my needs that might get me started on the right foot for the
application I described (e.g. authentication boilerplate, json
exchange, search, etc.)?
Thanks
Damon Oehlman
ian
Thanks for the response. I forgot to add: I think some of the Amazon
reviews were too harsh, and I do see parts of the book as still being
helpful.
Re: html5 boilerplate
Do you see this as a necessary component for every new project? i.e.
do you use it as a starting point for all of your new projects
(boilerplate OR 320)? Ideally I'd like a single boilerplate to be
applicable to my x86 browser or the phonegap conversion
One other point I was unclear on about the Phonegap discussion in the
book:
If I decide to later extend my HTML5 phonegap conversion, is it
possible (or more complex than starting with a native app) to embed a
native application library? e.g. one of the many video conferencing
tools
Cheers
Ian
On Dec 8, 4:22 pm, Damon Oehlman <damon.oehl...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi Ian,
>
> Thanks for the feedback and the questions. I guess I'll try to provide a general response and then try to help out with some of the specific questions.
>
> You are absolutely right about the cross platform mobile space continuing to change, and while I haven't had a chance to watch the video yet I will definitely do that sometime. I think in general the advice I provide in the book is still reasonable, however, I do now feel that perhaps jQuery Mobile is not the best framework for developing a mobile application that will be delivered through something like PhoneGap. jQueryMobile works exceptionally well when it is generated from server side code, but behaves less well when used in a "single-page apps" context. This is probably something that deserves a whole blog post in it's own right, and hopefully it's something I'll get a chance to write next week as I'm taking some holidays :)
>
> Regarding your searches on github and googlecode, I am finding much the same thing and the intention is to try and create a resource site (in the form of a wiki) at xpmobi.org which pulls together useful cross-platform mobile development resources. Once again, I'll try to get that kicking along next week too.
>
> Regarding the specific questions:
>
> 1 - I think jsonengine is still useful, but my attention has definitely turned towards CouchDB. Doing quite a bit of work in that space at the moment and I love it as a technology.
>
> 2 - HTML5 Boilerplate is excellent, but definitely geared towards desktop browsing. The mobile boilerplate they release as part of the HTML5 Boiler plate project is great though (http://html5boilerplate.com/mobile) and also have a look at the "320 and up" project:http://stuffandnonsense.co.uk/projects/320andup/
>
> 3 - I think Jo is a great framework, and I'm leaning towards using it more and more in recent times.
>
> 4 - Thanks for the feedback, I'll take a look at the video and perhaps include some information on this style of authentication on the xpmobi wiki.
>
> Additionally, note that I've cced in the xpmobi group into this discussion. I'm hoping to grow a bit more discussion around these topics (beyond the scope of just Android Web Apps) there.
>
> Hopefully that helps a little.
>
> Cheers,
> Damon.
>
> --
> Damon Oehlman
> t: DamonOehlman
>
> http://distractable.net/http://www.sidelab.com/
Damon Oehlman
ian
I'll try to leave some feedback to skew the results to a more accurate
perspective of what the book (and the people supporting it) has to
offer.
Based on your comments:
-I'll ignore the boilerplate for now.
-Despite not having as much development activity, you prefer Jo to
zepto or xui.
-CouchDB is interesting, but decided to stick with gae only because it
seems cheaper/easier to get a prototype running. I was concerned about
search not being available on larger text fields, but my understanding
is gae allows this now.
So, I'll proceed with this path forward: jo+phonegap <-> jsonengine
+gae
Thanks for the pointer to phonegap plugins. It would seem almost any
resource on a device can be opened up with the plugin system while
still allowing for development of the UI in a device agnostic manner.
RE: video conferencing
I assume I could just use an href (e.g. "skype:") to call a video tool
already on the phone, or integrate further using a plugin. The youtube
plugin seemed to be a simple example:
https://github.com/phonegap/phonegap-plugins/tree/master/Android/VideoPlayer
The only project I found using phonegap with gae is here:
http://code.google.com/p/gtug-ka-eastern/
But it's about a year old.
The gae project in your book is still the best easy to understand
mobile_HTML5+gae example I've seen. I haven't actually deployed it
yet, so hopefully I'm not back with questions :)
Thanks for the help.
Cheers,
Ian
On Dec 8, 10:38 pm, Damon Oehlman <damon.oehl...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hmmm, I hadn't looked at the reviews in a little while, not good :( Thankfully Seb has provided a comment. I guess I need to prioritise getting that xpmobi site up and running soon.
>
> With regards to the boilerplate, I don't tend to use it on every project. If I have a project that is going to be desktop focused then I have found the the twitter bootstrap (http://twitter.github.com/bootstrap) to be very good, but unfortunately it's applicability for mobile is limited (it's a fixed width layout).
>
> If you are keen on a single starting point, then I think the HTML5 boilerplate is probably the best place to start.
>
> Regarding PhoneGap and later embedding native libraries, you may want to consider playing around with native Android development to begin with. If the video conferencing component is a major component of the application, then it may be easier to implement your own WebView to include HTML components of the app.
>
> I'm sure at some stage someone will create a video conferencing plugin for PhoneGap too, heck, if I had more time I'd take a look :) For reference a list of current PhoneGap plugins for Android can be found here:
>
> https://github.com/phonegap/phonegap-plugins/tree/master/Android
>
> Cheers,
> Damon.
>
> --
> Damon Oehlman
> t: DamonOehlman
>
> http://distractable.net/http://www.sidelab.com/
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Friday, 9 December 2011 at 2:35 PM, ian wrote:
> > Hi Damon
>
> > Thanks for the response. I forgot to add: I think some of the Amazon
> > reviews were too harsh, and I do see parts of the book as still being
> > helpful.
>
> > Re: html5 boilerplate
> > Do you see this as a necessary component for every new project? i.e.
> > do you use it as a starting point for all of your new projects
> > (boilerplate OR 320)? Ideally I'd like a single boilerplate to be
> > applicable to my x86 browser or the phonegap conversion
>
> > One other point I was unclear on about the Phonegap discussion in the
> > book:
> > If I decide to later extend my HTML5 phonegap conversion, is it
> > possible (or more complex than starting with a native app) to embed a
> > native application library? e.g. one of the many video conferencing
> > tools
>
> > Cheers
> > Ian
>
> > On Dec 8, 4:22 pm, Damon Oehlman <damon.oehl...@gmail.com (http://gmail.com)> wrote:
> > > Hi Ian,
>
> > > Thanks for the feedback and the questions. I guess I'll try to provide a general response and then try to help out with some of the specific questions.
>
> > > You are absolutely right about the cross platform mobile space continuing to change, and while I haven't had a chance to watch the video yet I will definitely do that sometime. I think in general the advice I provide in the book is still reasonable, however, I do now feel that perhaps jQuery Mobile is not the best framework for developing a mobile application that will be delivered through something like PhoneGap. jQueryMobile works exceptionally well when it is generated from server side code, but behaves less well when used in a "single-page apps" context. This is probably something that deserves a whole blog post in it's own right, and hopefully it's something I'll get a chance to write next week as I'm taking some holidays :)
>
> > > Regarding your searches on github and googlecode, I am finding much the same thing and the intention is to try and create a resource site (in the form of a wiki) at xpmobi.org (http://xpmobi.org) which pulls together useful cross-platform mobile development resources. Once again, I'll try to get that kicking along next week too.