GWT with Android
Sean Keeney
Android?
I've used GWT successfully in a previous job, but not have a couple of
ideas for Android projects using this. For a fairly basic project is
it best to use GWT + Android, or should I write to Android 'natively'?
Sean
Omar Valerio
They are different technologies and maybe your question should be worked the other way around.. How good is Android support for GWT.. I believe this question could be very easily answered after finding out how compliant is the Android in-built browser with JavaScript state-of-the-art technology.
Frankly speaking, it is like talking about apples and pears. They are completely different things and serve completely different purposes. They share the thing, that both of them are frameworks. But one of them, namely GWT, is targeted to develop Rich Internet Applications, while Android is targeted to develop mobile applications..
cheers,
ovm
Peter Blazejewicz
I've already joined Android group and reviewed SDK (yeah, this is
huge, so only glimpses) and I already wanted to start topic on
Contributors section,
After reading docs I want ask you:
Does android offer better possibilities for GWT users/developers then
iPhone/iTouch (Apple) based on WebKit do already?
What I already read comes to conclusion that there is a something HUGE
just around the corner because Android also will ship with WebKit
browser used but there is much more available in SDK for regular java
coders then fro web koders already,
Especially missing things that we could ask gwt-team members or just
point that to them so they could pass it to android team is:
#1
Android WebKit version: i guess it will be some recent version close
to Safari 3 mobile version shipped on iPHone/iTouch
#2
WebKit javascript/dom support
#3
WebKit CSS subset support
#4
Android WebKit browser User-Agent stamp (important for bootsrapping),
if we know that we are at home at can start coding, so real thing we
are missing is something that apple release as "iPhone Human Interface
Design guideline" documentation (replace iPhone with Android),
@Omar
> But one of them, namely GWT, is targeted to develop Rich Internet Applications, while Android is
> targeted to develop mobile applications..
I don't agree, there is "Made for iPhone/iTouch" mark alraedy , so
there will be "Made for Android" for web development, there are only
few things we need to know (as you already noted though),
regards,
Peter
On Nov 12, 11:46 pm, "Omar Valerio" <omar.vale...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi Sean,
>
> They are different technologies and maybe your question should be worked the
> other way around.. How good is Android support for GWT.. I believe this
> question could be very easily answered after finding out how compliant is
> the Android in-built browser with JavaScript state-of-the-art technology.
>
> Frankly speaking, it is like talking about apples and pears. They are
> completely different things and serve completely different purposes. They
> share the thing, that both of them are frameworks. But one of them, namely
> GWT, is targeted to develop Rich Internet Applications, while Android is
> targeted to develop mobile applications..
>
> cheers,
> ovm
>
Peter Blazejewicz
I havne't run it myself yet (haven't had time to download SDK) but see
Android emulator running browser:
http://www4.osnews.com/img/18904/android.jpg
my points are still valid though,
I've read articles about google (oha team maybe) releasing
improvements they made to webkit for Android sdk back to webkit
repository,
so things can be that actual browser will be better then safari 3
mobile edition on apple devices,
regards,
Peter
On Nov 13, 12:30 am, Peter Blazejewicz <peter.blazejew...@gmail.com>
wrote:
Peter Blazejewicz
> I've read articles about google (oha team maybe) releasing
> improvements they made to webkit for Android sdk back to webkit
> repository,
Android will have Safari 3 beta compliant webkit version (WebKit/
Safari 522) - at least emulator sources are using it:
http://code.google.com/p/android/downloads/list
regards
Peter
charlie...@gmail.com
overall very impressive.
In terms of GWT support, it seems to run existing GWT apps just fine,
which should be expected with a fully powered WebKit based browser
(ok, I didn't put it through a lot of paces, yet, but I did play
Yahtzee - http://www.totsp.com/gwt-yahtzee/com.totsp.gwt.yahtzee.Yahtzee/Yahtzee.html).
I think both Android and iPhone will ultimately be good platforms for
GWT apps, and so will any other mobile platform that steps up to a
fully featured browser (supposedly Opera Mini 5 is getting close to
being able to handle Ajax too).
That's one if the huge advantages for GWT for me, versus "plugin"
based RIA solutions like Flex/Flash/SilverLight/Applets/etc. I tried
YouTube today on Android, no dice with Flash. On the other hand, I can
run my GWT apps on my Wii, my iPhone, and within Android - once the
browser support is there, it's nothing special. Sure, the same could
be said for plugins, but it's just a lot harder to get that "browser
support" when it's something external to the core browser.
On Nov 12, 7:38 pm, Peter Blazejewicz <peter.blazejew...@gmail.com>
wrote:
Peter Blazejewicz
thanks for testing and taking time on that (i'm still reading docs as
first thing),
it looks obvious because of using Safari user-agent (just like on
iPhone/iTouch) by webkit,
as to multimedia then i think there will be similiar solution as on
iPhone: special client side protocol to launch native application to
handle special content which was usually played by closed plugins
(consider YouTube on iPhone played in QuickTime mode or GMaps opened
in native app),
regards,
Peter
On Nov 13, 2:10 am, "charlie.coll...@gmail.com"
<charlie.coll...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I downloaded the Android SDK today and wrote a few little silly apps,
> overall very impressive.
>
> In terms of GWT support, it seems to run existing GWT apps just fine,
> which should be expected with a fully powered WebKit based browser
> (ok, I didn't put it through a lot of paces, yet, but I did play
> Yahtzee -http://www.totsp.com/gwt-yahtzee/com.totsp.gwt.yahtzee.Yahtzee/Yahtze...).
Sean Keeney
webkit version embedded in Android be supported by GWT".
As others have intimated there is room for both types of app. The one
i'm thinking of will initially have a GWT browser interface, hopefully
followed by an Android native one, both using the same server apis.
I would have installed the devkit and had a go, but my new laptop
hasn't arrived yet :D
Another related question is: will the javascript engine in android/
webkit support some native android functions, much as in the same way
that Opera on the Wii can expose the controller functionality? This
could be a nice sideways way into android development, using a single
GWT app that runs in a normal browser but still looks native on a
phone.
Thanks for all the replies,
Sean
On Nov 12, 10:46 pm, "Omar Valerio" <omar.vale...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi Sean,
>
> They are different technologies and maybe your question should be worked the
> other way around.. How good is Android support for GWT.. I believe this
> question could be very easily answered after finding out how compliant is
> the Android in-built browser with JavaScript state-of-the-art technology.
>
> Frankly speaking, it is like talking about apples and pears. They are
> completely different things and serve completely different purposes. They
> share the thing, that both of them are frameworks. But one of them, namely
> GWT, is targeted to develop Rich Internet Applications, while Android is
> targeted to develop mobile applications..
>
> cheers,
> ovm
>
Peter Blazejewicz
I've played with WebView from webkit package but cannot make it work
yet (it is supposed to display external pages or static pages from raw
resources folder I think),
That is something you are thinking of, Similiar to OSX native
application can have WebView (browser instance) via native bindings
(OSX: WebKit/Cocoa integration via bindings) and bind javascript to
java (though I cannot find anything related on android pages yet),
Builtin browsers renders the same way as iPhone browser I think,
I've run iUI sample and it looks rendering in iPhone way, for example
*it preserves* zooming settings, which is great,
screenshot attached,
drawbacks are slow rendering and slow event reaction times, but I
think that is emulator thing and will be not issue at all on real
devices,
also content cannot be tested from localhost loopback, it requires
valid external IP or using internal resources,
[image http://peterblaze.republika.pl/iuisample.png]sample
screenshot[image]
regards,
Peter
Peter Blazejewicz
Android SDK emulator does not allow connections to localhost/127.0.0.1
loopback directly :(
solution: to make swift GWT toolkit (hosted mode)+ Android emulator
development on Windows install microsoft loopback driver:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/839013
and setup it to some ip address on your network adapter,
then instead of invoking GWT compiled page from hosted mode via
"127.0.0.1" or "localhost" (assuming page is already compiled in
hosted mode so is availbe in web browser at the same time) use ip
address of loopback driver in Android SDK emulator,
e.g. http://192.168.0.1:8888/com.mycompany.etc/MyPorject.html
works a treat,
if someone knows how to setup loopback on OSX/Linux fo the same
purpose please share,
regards,
Peter
ross
2 Eclipse instances: 1 running my GWT app in hosted mode and the other
running Android web browser in the other instance. sweetness
I agree w/ Sean, it would be even cooler if we had an easy way to do
GWT RPC from an Android application (outside the browser i mean) to
our existing RemoteServiceServlets. Then we could do fun fun things
using the platform's capabilities write 'Service' classes in Android
to reuse our GWT backends :) Anyone from Google thinking about or
working on this already?
cheers
On Nov 16, 1:15 am, Peter Blazejewicz <peter.blazejew...@gmail.com>
wrote:
> hi all,
>
> AndroidSDK emulator does not allow connections to localhost/127.0.0.1
> solution: to make swift GWT toolkit (hosted mode)+Androidemulator
> development on Windows install microsoft loopback driver:http://support.microsoft.com/kb/839013
> and setup it to some ip address on your network adapter,
> then instead of invoking GWT compiled page from hosted mode via
> "127.0.0.1" or "localhost" (assuming page is already compiled in
> hosted mode so is availbe in web browser at the same time) use ip
> address of loopback driver inAndroidSDK emulator,
>
> if someone knows how to setup loopback on OSX/Linux fo the same
> purpose please share,
>
> regards,
> Peter
>
> On Nov 12, 10:44 pm, Sean Keeney <seanyseans...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Apologies if i'm missing the point, but how good is GWT support for
> >Android?
>
> > I've used GWT successfully in a previous job, but not have a couple of
ross
everyone figured that much out :)
On Nov 17, 10:37 pm, ross <ross.m.sm...@googlemail.com> wrote:
> http://10.0.2.2:8080works w/Androidemulator! I just verified it w/
> I agree w/ Sean, it would be even cooler if we had an easy way to do