Does anybody know of an existing Flex component that does VT500 terminal emulation?
We are gradually replacing terminal-based user interfaces with an AIR-based GUI.
We would like to have a terminal emulator embedded in that new AIR GUI, in order to give our users an integrated user experience when navigating between our old and new software.
Emulation of other VT-series terminals than the VT500 could also be usefull.
Btw, I'm not interested in writing it myself (nor having it written for me) because it would only be a nice-to-have in our software architecture.
Thanks,
Pieter
Isn't the whole point of using Air and upgrading the technology is that you DON'T need to use a terminal anymore? Seems a bit redundant.
I don't think you'll find anyone that has already created the emulator, but it can't be that hard to implement if you really need the functionality. I know I've seen an AJAX implementation of it (anyterm.org) that uses the ROTE library for the virtual emulator. You might want to look into that.
Related
I have an existing software system in pure Java (1.8, currently 32 bit), using Eclipse's EMF Client Platform. Some modules are opened in normal web browsers like IE, Chrome etc. while others are loaded into an Eclipse client as Eclipse plugins. We're using Eclipse Mars.
We're looking to automate our testing with HP's UFT, so we're trying it out for the first time with a freshly downloaded trial version. We easily figured out how to use UFT with modules that are opened in a web browser from a tutorial I found online.
However, we're unable to say the same for the part of the system opened in the Eclipse client. My PM did a little preliminary research and some say there are compatibility issues. Right now I'm investigating this in-depth with the objective to get it working if possible. I Google'd with the terms UFT, Eclipse plugin, and/or EMF Client Platform without useful result.
As someone using this tool for the first time, I'm looking for help from those with experience in the community. Do you know any tutorial, documentation, any material that can assist me, whether to solve the problem outright or at least to help me understand the relevant parts of the UFT tool?
I understand LeanFT is installed with UFT, so I am open to using it as an alternative. Thanks!
Can a Flex application that was designed for use on a PC be run on an iPad, iPhone, or Android-based mobile device?
Seems like a simple enough question. Visiting http://www.adobe.com/products/flex.html yields a picture of a dude running a (presumably) Flex application on an Android. So at first glance, the answer would appear to be "yes." End of story.
but yet…
There is so much (mis)information out there on various tech sites that suggest Flash-based technologies simply won't run on iOS or other mobile platforms. Why is this? Perhaps they mean to say that Flex won't run "out of the box" and requires a plugin? Or do they mean it won't run at all?
Every time I think I've reached a definitive conclusion, some post on SlashDot or CNET directly contradicts it. So what's the scoop? Can one take an existing Flex application and run it on iOS/Android? (I realize there are screen size issues to consider so the app might not run effectively. I just want to know if the runtimes are available on the mobile devices to allow the Flex app to launch at all.)
Sorry for the noob question. My background is WPF / HTML5. Adobe technologies are completely foreign to me.
I wrote a lot below if you'd like to read it enjoy, if not sorry for taking your valuable bytes :) I directly answered the questions up here first:
Why is this?
It's a confusing matter read below for the why details.
Perhaps they mean to say that Flex won't run "out of the box" and requires a plugin?
Or do they mean it won't run at all?
Using the flash builder tools (the bin folder in the SDK) you can compile for native desktop application, desktop web browsers, native iOS application, native Android application. Android with FlashPlayer plugin installed will show Flash content within the web browser, iOS will only run the ones compiled with AIR, not in the the web browser but as a native app.
Every time I think I've reached a definitive conclusion, some post on SlashDot or CNET directly contradicts it. So what's the scoop? Can one take an existing Flex application and run it on iOS/Android?
Yes, if using AIR and run as a native app on all three platforms (the desktop Flex API is for the most part a superset of the web Flex API), your other points about performance and form factor are valid and should be considered though. The nice thing is you can write your model/controller code in a common library in AS3 then write separate presentation layer interfaces that all share the library.
Here's the very long version:
Using the flash compiler results in "bytecode" in the form of a file with a swf extension using the swf format, you can read a ton more about that here:
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/swf.html
To interpret the file you need some sort of run-time similar to some degree to running WPF/XAML/C# within a .NET framework context (either desktop or using silverlight on the web). In the case of adobe technologies (rough equivalence):
AS3 = C#
MXML = XAML
Flex = WPF+WCF (client side RPC not server side)
Flash Player = Silverlight
AIR (Adobe integrated runtime) = .NET
Framework Redistributable .dll(s)/.so(s) for desktop OSes
(Read this list very loosely please, I know XAML is preserved in the MSIL or whatever which is different because MXML is compiled to AS3 and only if a debug flag is set on the compiler does it include the debugging symbols, there's certainly tons of differences but I think this is an easy and correct enough model to use)
On iOS the browser does not allow for plugins in the traditional sense of netscape browser plugins or ActiveX plugins. For this reason you'll not be able to execute a plugin ie flashplayer or silverlight in the browser. Since Adobe did release a flashplayer for Android devices that does run in the browser it will work on those devices in the browser, however they have essentially thrown in the towel for supporting this long term, as they have to support the majority mobile device platform, iOS, in order to remain relevant (this was I think more a collective throwing in of the towel by Google, device manufacturers, carriers, Microsoft, all just following suit and trying to make the best business decision, WebKit and V8 or SpiderMonkey can probably do 99% of what Flash can do and better in some cases and WebKit will hopefully not splinter and will remain open source... frameworks and the browsers just need to get fleshed out and stabilized).
If the user installs AIR (or the runtime is packaged with the app) then a Flex/Flash (that is stuff coded in AS3 and/or MXML and compiled to a swf) can be transcoded/packaged to be interpreted by the run-time for that device correctly (be it iOS or Android or whatever RIM did, I don't think they have AIR for Windows Phone 7 and Win8 on ARM won't support browser plugins either). Part of the confusion is possibly from the fact that Apple denied the distribution of Apps that were "cross-compiled" which kept AIR out of the list of options for iOS for a good year, just after Adobe started announcing it was usable for that purpose (kicking Adobe while their down). Another part of the confusion probably comes from real vids of people who have 1 hacked their device or 2 were able to get open source alternatives to the flash player run-time to work on their iOS device (gnash was one I'm aware of from some occasional Linux tinkering, also possibly FAKE vids).
You can run Flex applications on mobile devices, but you cannot simply run any Flex project.
In Flash Builder ( Flex Ide) or in Flash Professional you can create mobile projects. These projects generate native applications for iOS and Android.
Last time I tried, the result and the available components where less than what I expected. So, if you can, I'll much recommend you go for something like Appcelerator.com or similar, which turns HTML5/Js code into native apps. I tried them, worked a lot better than Flex.
Short answer: No
Long answer: You can use Adobe's tools to compile your Flash/Flex app for use as a native iOS app. So you won't be able to embed the app in a web page like you normally could with Flex, but you can build it as a native app. Note you have to have Flash Builder 4.5 to do this.
It won't run on iPhone as a .swf file, but it will run on Android based devices that have adobe flash installed. It will also run on the BB playbook, which also has flash.
Flex is a framework.( Anyway it is very beutiful one which even sometime looks like complete different language ).
As soon as you are building AIR application it can run on various platforms like : Windows, iOS, Android, upcomming TV's, PlayBook, even .. into the future ( maybe/hopefuly ) on Windows Phone, plus Linux ( which AIR future is not very clear anyway ( but hopefuly Adobe will reconsider ) ).
So - application created with Flash Builder 4.5+ would probably run everywhere as soon as it is AIR application.
The compilation methoods is really simple, and you almost simultaneously compiling for everything you wanna to.
And one of the most important things here - your applications will run, work, look and feel the same way you were designed on one device. Flex is the thing which is responsible for everything to looks beutiful on each platform it is running.
For instance i am compiling currently for Android, and without even test i can clearly say that it will looks and feel the same way under iOS and Windows, and it will.
I am facing one weird problem. In my flex application, there is one
grid on click of each grid item, it will dispatch one event and show
the details. As usual am changing the state of the component to
achieve this. But this is working perfectly in my machine, but from my
client side it is not working. Only difference am seeing is the
difference in flash player version. The FP version am having here is
10,0,45,2 but the onsite is having the latest version : 10.1.102.64.
Will this cause any problem in the behaviour of the flex application?
Am quite confused here, because I have no rights to change the player
version in my machine.
Do anyone have face the same problem like this. Or can anyone help me
with the main difference between these two versions.
Thanks in advance for your help.
Cheers,
Anoop
Most behavioral differences between flex applications are due to different flex SDKs being used during compilation (for instance, is your client viewing the binary-exact copy of the .swf file that you are running) or browsers with different plug-in APIs (the way they handle 500 errors for instance). If you think it's a flash player version issue (they are probably rare since they run regression tests across player builds so that flash swf files from eons ago run fine), you can certainly upgrade to that player build and see for yourself.
Are you also able to rule-out any connectivity issues such as firewalls or proxy servers?
While the item is clicked what are you using you using to get the selected item - event.target.selecteditem or event.currentTaget.selecteditem ? Try to change from target to currentTarget or vice-versa,it might work in both the machines.
Suppose I develop an application with the logic as a CLI program that can be compiled to various platforms. To add a GUI, I could develop native versions separately for each platform or I could use a cross-platform tool like Tcl/Tk, wxLua, or PyGTK. Some people, like Bruce Eckel and James Ward, promote Flash/Flex on Adobe AIR for this.
I've looked into it, but haven't been able to find clear answers to these basic issues.
Native look and feel
The Spark architecture in Flex 4 improves support for skinning to the extent that you can match any L&F, it seems. What resources are available for implementing Windows/GTK+/Cocoa L&F and how much work is it?
Responsiveness
I would rank these popular toolkits from most to least snappy: FLTK, FOX, GTK+, Tcl/TK, Swing, Qt. Where does AIR fit in this range?
Stability
For a long-running app with extensive user interaction, how are the stability and memory management? I've read that memory leaks have been a significant issue with AIR.
Local system access
I think the biggest complaint about AIR 1 was its isolation from the local system. Now, AIR 2 adds communication via stdin/stdout with the NativeProcess class. How well is this working out for implementing the functionality you typically want in a GUI?
Package size
Ranging from a minor interface with a few buttons and textboxes up to something like an IDE, how big would an AIR version be, compared to say, something in Tcl/Tk or wxPython?
Hand coding
If you don't use Flash Builder, how hard is it, relatively, to create or maintain a nontrivial project?
Native look and feel: It's possible to skin a Flex app to make it look native. And load a different skin depending on the OS. There are already Windows and Mac skins (not sure if they are Flex 4 compatible yet) available on www.scalenine.com. But these skins will never be a 100% match since it's replicating the l&f, not actually using native widgets.
Responsiveness: I'd guess it's probably somewhere between Swing and GTK+. But I don't have benchmarks to back that up - just my personal experience.
Stability: As long as the code is good and objects are being GC'd then things should be fine. AIR 2 fixed some memory leaks that caused the issues you reference.
Local system access: NativeProcess allows you to do pretty much anything. But more complex use cases probably need something like Merapi.
Package size: The entire UI component set in Flex is around 2MB. Then any custom code will add to that number. Usually the bitmap assets are what really bloat SWF files. You can look at Apparat as a way to reduce the size of SWF files.
Hand coding: I hand code all of the time with just the open source Flex SDK, AIR SDK, and vim (my text editor of choice). That's all you really need. But you will lose out on code completion, visual debugging, etc. But there are some other open source tools out there for doing these things.
I have started using Python for web development recently, it's kinda cool;
I have seen programs that are developed in QT/C++, which is good enough in terms of esthetics;
I have just noticed the new PySide project (which brings LGPL Qt license to Python and it doesn't support Windows yet).
In view of the above, I see the possibility of using Python + PyQt/PySide to develop cross platform apps in the future :) but I have several doubts right now:
Can PyQty/PySide be used to develop really complex/modern UI? Can somebody give me some points to have a look at some nice-looking screenshots of apps that are developed in Python+QT?
What about the performance of using Python + QT for a desktop app?
Thanks in advance!
Can PyQty/PySide be used to develop really complex/modern UI?
Desktop applications come in all sorts of varieties -- some nicely laid out, some extremely customized with virtually no semblance to a standard application for that OS. The same can be done with Qt/PyQt/PySide. As Alex said, there should be no visible difference between an application written with PyQt/PySide versus one written with Qt in C++. Any program written with Qt4 (using bindings or not) will, by default, look like a standard modern application.
Of course, there are features of recent Windows releases (and likely some on Mac OS X) that aren't supported immediately and by default in Qt, but you can almost always write some custom platform specific code for those situations where said features are truly important.
Can somebody give me some points to have a look at some nice-looking screenshots of apps that are developed in Python+QT?
The best and most open source program that I know of and which is written with PyQt, is Eric -- a Python based IDE.
What about the performance of using Python + QT for a desktop app?
For most applications the performance difference between a C++ Qt application and a PyQt application are not noticible. But if you really need performance, you can write certain parts of the application in C++ and make bindings available in Python so you can integrate the two.
TortoiseHg was re-designed using Qt and PyQt for its 2.0 release.
Here is one of several posted screenshots:
There is no aesthetic difference between the look and feel of C++ based Qt, and the PyQt and PySide wrappers on top of it. I use basically no desktop GUI apps so I couldn't point you to any implemented with any of these language/toolkit combos, but if you like the former, you'll be hard put to distinguish it in any way from the latter.
A bit late but for the record, apps such as Skype, GoogleEarth or the recent versions of VLC (media player & more) used the Qt libs.