Tag ‘rhodes’

Apple’s iPhone OS 4 new terms and conditions to kill Flash CS 5, Rhodes and Appcellerator Titanium?

Mauro Dalu

Apple iPhone Developer Program License Agreement was updated in the iPhone 4.0 SDK to specifically prohibit the development of apps using “an intermediary translation or compatibility layer or tool,” which would include Adobe’s Flash, Sun’s Java, Microsoft’s Silverlight/Mono, Unity 3D games engine, and most Cross-platform development frameworks such as Rhomobile Rhodes and Appcelerator Titanium.

An existing clause in the developer license only prohibited the use of private APIs (that is, development features that Apple has not completed, documented, and disclosed as being available for public use). That has now been expanded to include prohibitions on developing iPhone apps in other languages or in other development environments that are then translated or cross-compiled into native iPhone apps. What does this mean for all these frameworks?

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Rhodes vs. Titanium, Round 2

Mauro Dalu

I wrote an introductory post a while back that gave a brief overview of the three main cross-platform mobile development frameworks. At that time, Rhodes was definitely the leading solution in terms of features and support of several different platforms, while Titanium was still in a pre-release state and presented an uncertain future in terms of licensing. PhoneGap was a nice solution, but didn’t feel ready for prime time.

Our platform of choice has been Rhodes.
Things are changing very fast though, and nowadays we’re considering the best approach on a project-by-project basis.

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Microsoft on the verge of releasing Windows Mobile version 2.0

Brad Midgley

OK… sorry about the inflammatory title, but it really does feel like MS has been coasting since it came out with its first mobile software release. I’ve used Windows Mobile on two Dell Axim revs and two cellphones. Instead of feeling like each new OS revision was an upgrade, it just felt like the same thing with a few more applications included and a few more options in settings. Before that

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Some quick Rhodes tips: using helpers

Rhodes allows you to create and use helpers, short methods you typically use to DRY your views. Very much the same as the ones you encounter in Rails. There are a number of caveats though.

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Mobile Apps cross-platform development challenge: PhoneGap vs. Titanium vs. Rhodes

Mauro Dalu

Rhodes-PhoneGap-Titanium-cross-platform-mobile-frameworksWhat is the best cross-platform mobile framework out there?
Let’s take a look at the main three competitors.

First of all, cross-platform compatibility is all about compromising on the native look, feel and features of devices. Therefore, if you’re looking into creating a 3D game or an interactive, multimedia, animated app, you’re looking in the wrong direction.

PhoneGap, Titanium and Rhodes are all based on web technologies and are aimed at web developers that want to leverage their current skills set to the mobile apps world.

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Rhodes 1.4: Your java bin folder does not appear to be on your path.

rhomobile-rhodesYou might encounter the following error message when working with 1-4-unstable branch of Rhodes:

Your java bin folder does not appear to be on your path.
This is required to use rhodes.

Here is the fix…

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Rhom vs. ActiveRecord, ID of Rhodes objects

rhodes-framework-mobile-developmentThe ID of an object (record in a table) is an important piece of information. In most of the situations when we need an object from the database, we search for it using its ID. Moreover, the ID is usually part of the URL of a page.

Given its importance it is worh mentioning a big difference between Rhom (the object mapper in Rhodes) and ActiveRecord (in Rails): in Rhom, the object ID is enclosed in brackets {}. A typical Rhom object ID looks like this: {32034644033132}.

Why is it such a big number?

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How-to: AJAX DateTime picker in Rhodes (Rhomobile)

ajax-datetime-picker-rhodesEver desired a method to handle a DateTime picker in Rhodes without reloading the page? The ideal solution would be to tap the datetime input field to popup the DateTime picker, choose a date and/or time and tap ‘Done’. This would automatically display the selection into the input field.

We were able to achieve this using 2 AJAX calls. Read on and get the full code to do this!

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