IDE for developing PhoneGap HTML5 Apps | Hacker News Reader

IDE for developing PhoneGap HTML5 Apps

vinisketch.com

42 pointsdthevenin21 comments

Sometimes I feel like the only person who is NOT a PhoneGap fan. It just has so many oddities (white flash on Android for one) and the apps never seem to work as well as anything native.

Am I missing something? Serious question, not trying to troll.

I haven't used it extensively, but it's one of few ways to make a truly functional app using just JS+HTML5- allowing you to skip past Java, Objective-C, etc.

Of course, there are huge prices to pay for that- particularly on the UI front. But if your mobile app is a very small part of your business (as opposed to the primary offering, which it is for many) then it can make sense.

I've actually ended up making an app that's a hybrid of native (for top bar navigation) and one big webview for the rest:

http://www.taxono.my/

I think it's come out as very close to a native experience- it's just a case of putting the time in to make it so.

Very nice looking app. Are you using Leaflet for your maps?

Yep. I was very, very impressed. Coming from the Google Maps API I never expected that a web map view could perform as well as a native one, but it does.

Indeed, I maintain my own Leaflet fork for a project I am (occasionally) working on and I am won over as well. Are you using the Mapquest open data? Your maps are beautiful by the way.

I used OSM data with a sprinkling of NYC government data. If you're interested, I blogged about the process:

http://blog.untogether.co.uk/post/17554554409/i-had-no-idea-...

That's a great looking app. Can I ask what framework you used?

I had to use Appcelerator because I need background processing as part of the app- none of the HTML5-only frameworks offer that (AFAIK).

If you don't need background processing, I wouldn't recommend it- I'm looking for ways to move away from it.

Great job on the app! How's the reception been so far from taxi cab companies?

Thanks!

I haven't got to the stage of approaching taxi companies yet- right now the app is really just a developed concept that I've entered into an app-making contest (http://2011.nycbigapps.com/submissions/5832-taxonomy) . It has VC investor judges, cash prizes, etc.- basically, I'm waiting to see what happens. If it gets a fantastic reception then yes, that's time to start approaching cab companies about direct booking etc.

Well, you cannot deliver apps on iOS/Android/WP7 at the same time for a small budget in a short time natively. With Phonegap you can. Most companies really don't care that it is not that polished because most users don't care. We are talking about apps for the average company, not for companies where the app IS their business or anything like that.

The pizza chain with nice revenue rather has a Phonegap app THIS WEEK on all platforms which works a bit flaky, but works, than having to wait a few months to churn out different versions tweaked and tuned for all seperately.

All you're observing here is that the mobile browsers are not as developed as their native runtime cousins. This is an indictment of the browsers (and perhaps the platform owner's priorities), not that of PhoneGap.

The simple answer? It is good enough. Not great, but good enough.

Some constructive feedback for the website. There are three thumbnails along the bottom of the screen. I immediately assumed I could click these and a larger image would appear.

When I see a new product linked on HN, I want to quickly look at screenshots. I couldn't find any screenshots of the product on your website besides those thumbnails that look like any other IDE at that resolution. I did eventually find the movie but I would've preferred some screenshots.

Thank for the feedback. I've fixed the home page and will add additional screenshots.

Judging by your comments, I think you should take a look at MoSync 3.0, iPhone/Android/WP7 and supports NativeUI/OGL and everything phonegap/titaniun does plus much more, it comes in two flavors, a JavaScript SDK called 'Reload' and a Hybrid SDK (JavaScript and native C/C++), beats the others hands down. But don't take my word for it, see for yourselves.

Downloading this now! It looks great so far, cannot wait to try it. I have tried many of these tools coming out; most are browser based and horrible to work with (besides being slow, they basically don't work usually :). So very curious; will give you feedback.

You are welcome to give feedback :-)

We try to develop some thing like xCode for HTML5 apps so I hope VSD fits developers needs.

Has anyone here tried Titanium Appcelerator? You can build native cross-platform apps in javascript. I've been using it to build my app: http://getswaggur.com and it's been pretty good so far.

I wrote a post on my blog about that a little less than a year ago. I'm sure some things have improved, but in general, I've moved on.

http://tannerburson.com/2011/04/03/Thoughts-on-Appcelerator-...

me too!

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