Is there any automated conversion which will take an existing WPF application and convert it to MonoDroid? Leveraging existing knowledge of C# is great. What would be the icing on the cake would be being able to continue writing WPF XAML code as well.
No, there is no support for WPF.
While you can share business logic between .Net/MonoDroid/MonoTouch, the only supported UI is the native UI on each device, so you will need to write a different UI for each platform.
Related
I am soon beginning to develop a mobile application for my Final Year project in computer science. I am keeping my options open in regards what to use to create the application. I heard Phonegap is quite a handy API but can I still implement things such as JESS rules?
It's called Apache Cordova now, Phonegap is a hosted build system (personally not a big fan of it, maybe it has improved now... anyway).
Using Cordova, you write the cross-platform application bits using JS, not Java.
So if you want to write something similar to JESS in JS this is possible and will give you a cross platform app.
I can imagine that calculations on rules might be computationally intensive so maybe not that suited for JS. In that case note that you can write plugins for Cordova using other languages and call those from Javascript. But you will need to implement the plugin for iOS/Android/... separately using their respective toolkits.
Instead of using Cordova you can decide on Android/Java only. This should be easier and faster, albeit not cross platform. In that case, keep in mind that Dalvik (the android JVM) is not the same as stock JVM. This means that not every Java program can be run an Android without modifications.
HTH.
I am new to development and would like to develop an android application. I have previously built an application with Adobe Flash Builder 4.6 with Flex Mobile Project. I just recently noticed in 4.7 there is an option for Action Script Mobile Project.
Can someone please explain to me the difference between the two and the pros and cons to utilizing either or?
Pros:
Creating a Flex mobile project is easier (use Flex 4.6 with design mode to rapidly prototype, 4.7 to develop) and visually let's you drag and drop
You can use data binding and other convieniant built in tools
Like anything else, there's good and bad about using the Flex mobile project as oppose to a complete ActionScript based solution. Mainly, it's a lot easier to customize your preloadeder, your splash screen and other features similar to tht like customizing how your application handles screen. Below is a couple pros and cons of using the Flex mobile version instead of ActionScript.
Cons:
Slower performance
Can't use Adobe Scout, it's an awesome tool for real time benchmarking and profiling. Using the built in one is ok but it doesn't give you theamazing information that Scout provides.
My advice: if you're savvy enough to do everything in ActionScript, then definitely create an ActionScript project, your users will love you for it. Plus, it's not that much harder and it lets you have a myriad of additional control over your components. Also, you don't have to deal with the overhead that comes with data binding ( it generates event listeners, get and set methods and you can create much more efficient ones on your own). There are a number of other things that benefit you by creating an ActionScript version like refactoring and better subversion but those are more of incentives than anything else.
If you plan on making use of the declarative mark-up, built in UI components, and data binding which the Flex framework provides then you should probably start with a Flex Mobile Project. The downside to this approach is that the additional scaffolding of the Flex framework will incur a slight performance hit and will increase the over-all file size of your project.
On the other hand, if performance is critical and you don't need the declarative markup, built in UI components, or data binding provided by the Flex framework, then you should start with a pure ActionScript mobile project. Really simple applications, games, or applications with highly customised UIs would be examples of projects for which a pure ActionScript approach might be more suitable.
FYI, you can use Adobe Scout on Flex apps. Apache Flex now supports advanced Telemetry.
You can also add advanced telemetry to any SWF with the SWF Scout Enabler.
Closed. This question needs to be more focused. It is not currently accepting answers.
Want to improve this question? Update the question so it focuses on one problem only by editing this post.
Closed 6 years ago.
Improve this question
I want some examples. I always get confused, so with some examples I might be able to figure it out better.
Also: Is Eclipse an API or IDE?
An IDE is an integrated development environment - a suped-up text editor with additional support for developing (such as forms designers, resource editors, etc), compiling and debugging applications. e.g Eclipse, Visual Studio.
A Library is a chunk of code that you can call from your own code, to help you do things more quickly/easily. For example, a Bitmap Processing library will provide facilities for loading and manipulating bitmap images, saving you having to write all that code for yourself. Typically a library will only offer one area of functionality (processing images or operating on zip files)
An API (application programming interface) is a term meaning the functions/methods in a library that you can call to ask it to do things for you - the interface to the library.
An SDK (software development kit) is a library or group of libraries (often with extra tool applications, data files and sample code) that aid you in developing code that uses a particular system (e.g. extension code for using features of an operating system (Windows SDK), drawing 3D graphics via a particular system (DirectX SDK), writing add-ins to extend other applications (Office SDK), or writing code to make a device like an Arduino or a mobile phone do what you want). An SDK will still usually have a single focus.
A toolkit is like an SDK - it's a group of tools (and often code libraries) that you can use to make it easier to access a device or system... Though perhaps with more focus on providing tools and applications than on just code libraries.
A framework is a big library or group of libraries that provides many services (rather than perhaps only one focussed ability as most libraries/SDKs do). For example, .NET provides an application framework - it makes it easier to use most (if not all) of the disparate services you need (e.g. Windows, graphics, printing, communications, etc) to write a vast range of applications - so one "library" provides support for pretty much everything you need to do. Often a framework supplies a complete base on which you build your own code, rather than you building an application that consumes library code to do parts of its work.
There are of course many examples in the wild that won't exactly match these descriptions though.
The Car Analogy
IDE: The MS Office of Programming. It's where you type your code, plus some added features to make you a happier programmer. (e.g. Eclipse, Netbeans). Car body: It's what you really touch, see and work on.
Library: A library is a collection of functions, often grouped into multiple program files, but packaged into a single archive file. This contains programs created by other folks, so that you don't have to reinvent the wheel. (e.g. junit.jar, log4j.jar). A library generally has a key role, but does all of its work behind the scenes, it doesn't have a GUI. Car's engine.
API: The library publisher's documentation. This is how you should use my library. (e.g. log4j API, junit API). Car's user manual - yes, cars do come with one too!
Kits
What is a kit? It's a collection of many related items that work together to provide a specific service. When someone says medicine kit, you get everything you need for an emergency: plasters, aspirin, gauze and antiseptic, etc.
SDK: McDonald's Happy Meal. You have everything you need (and don't need) boxed neatly: main course, drink, dessert and a bonus toy. An SDK is a bunch of different software components assembled into a package, such that they're "ready-for-action" right out of the box. It often includes multiple libraries and can, but may not necessarily include plugins, API documentation, even an IDE itself. (e.g. iOS Development Kit).
Toolkit: GUI. GUI. GUI. When you hear 'toolkit' in a programming context, it will often refer to a set of libraries intended for GUI development. Since toolkits are UI-centric, they often come with plugins (or standalone IDE's) that provide screen-painting utilities. (e.g. GWT)
Framework: While not the prevalent notion, a framework can be viewed as a kit. It also has a library (or a collection of libraries that work together) that provides a specific coding structure & pattern (thus the word, framework). (e.g. Spring Framework)
Consider Android Development:
IDE: Eclipse etc..
Library: android.app.Activity library (Class with all code)
API: Interface basically all functions with which we call
SDK: The Android SDK provides you the API libraries and developer tools necessary to build, test, and debug apps for Android
(----tools - DDMS,Emulator ----platforms - Android OS versions, ----platform-tools - ADB, ----API docs)
ToolKit: Could be ADT Bundle
Framework: Big library but more of architecture-oriented
In other words...
IDE
Even notepad is an IDE (not notepad.exe) - Software you write/compile code with is an IDE.
Library
A bunch of code which simplifies functions/methods for quick use.
API
A programming interface for functions/configuration which you work with, its usage is often documented.
SDK
Extras and/or for development/testing purposes.
ToolKit
Tiny apps for quick use, often GUIs.
GUI
Apps with a graphical interface, requires no knowledge of programming unlike APIs.
Framework
Bunch of APIs/huge Library/Snippets wrapped in a namespace/or encapsulated from outer scope for compact handling without conflicts with other code.
MVC
A design pattern separated in Models, Views and Controllers for huge applications. They are not dependent on each other and can be changed/improved/replaced without to take care of other code.
Example:
Car (Model) The object that is being
presented.
Example in IT: A HTML form.
Camera (View) Something that is able to see the object(car).
Example in IT: Browser that renders a website with the form.
Driver (Controller) Someone who drives that car.
Example in IT: Functions which handle form data that's being submitted.
Snippets
Small codes of only a few lines, may not be even complete but worth for a quick share.
Plug-ins
Exclusive functions for specified frameworks/APIs/libraries only.
Add-ons
Additional modules or services for specific GUIs.
SDK represents to software development kit, and IDE represents to integrated development environment. The IDE is the software or the program is used to write, compile, run, and debug such as Xcode. The SDK is the underlying engine of the IDE, includes all the platform's libraries an app needs to access. It's more basic than an IDE because it doesn't usually have graphical tools.
I'm currently starting to integrate "Delphi Web Script" in my application basically only as a scripting engine (interfacing with functions, classes, etc.); awesome software for the standard delphi open source quality in my opinion, but just for curiosity,
What's exactly the "web part" of the project?
How is intended to be used?
It was used somewhere with some success commercially?
Thanks!
As ain said, the original use was for PHP-like, ASP-like server-side web-page generation, but it was also capable of general purpose use, which is what I used it for. And as I did not use the "web" side of DWScript, most of the "web-oriented" features haven't been ported over (only the HTML Filter was ported actually).
The Web functionality is still available in the SourceForge repository, if someone wants to tackle the port. Though, they may be outdated beyond simple renamed methods and classes, as since DWSII, the script engine has gained various features. For instance, it is now capable of multiple thread-safe executions of a single compiled script, while the old codebase is built around the limitation that a compiled script can be executed by only one thread at a time.
On the other hand, there are some new features that could simplify the porting, the simple WebServer demo recently added uses RTTI to expose TWebResponse & TWebRequest f.i. (was manually exposed in DWSII). On the down side, that's only possible with recent Delphi versions.
AFAIK the main focus of the original author of this scripting engine was to make it possible to embed Pascal scripts into HTML pages, just like ie PHP does it. Hence the name "Delphi Web Script". While the focus of the current maintainer, Eric Grange, is on using it as a general purpose scripting engine, it should still be possible to use it for web purposes as well - for that you use the "filters" feature of the library. Check out the dwsHtmlFilter unit for HTML filter.
As an Asp.Net MVC developer, what is the best starting point to dive into WPF?
WPF is a totally different technology used for a different purpose. You're writing desktop applications rather than web applications.
While there is some cross over in terms of design patterns and both use C# (or VB.NET) as the "code behind", they each need their own approach.
Your best bet is to read and work through some WPF tutorials and then decide on a fairly simple application to write from scratch. Get that working and you'll have a reasonable grounding in the technology.
WPF is a platform for developing Windows Application , while ASP.NET MVC is a platform for developing Web Applications.
If you are into Web apps development, and you want to learning something similar to WPF, you can go for Silverlight.
Silverlight is Rich Internet Application development (RIA) platform that can be used to develop interative web apps. Silverlight is also capable of running on desktop as Out of Browser Application.
I suggested Silverlight because, Silverlight & WPF both share a markup language called XAML to a great extent. Once you are familiar with XAML, you can slowly start with WPF.
WPF consists of wide range of new terminologies and techniques such as :
Routed Events
Data Binding
Commands
Styles and Templates
Some of these are present in Silverlight while some are yet to be introduced in future versions Silverlight.
If you're looking for a framework that helps you apply some 'best practices' in WPF/Silverlight development (similar to MVC helping you in the ASP.Net world), you may want to have a look at caliburn and/or prism (aka. CompositeWPF). However, as others have stated, it's probably a good idea to learn some of the basics of WPF first.