Flex or flash interface components for developing IOS apps? - apache-flex

I'm developing apps for the IOS platform using Flash CS5, but the interface components (like listbox, combobox, buttons and so) that comes with flash/flex are not optimized for IOS developing. Is out there a free library of components for the interface on IOS??? Thanks!

Take a look at Reflex and MinimalComps .
I was also recently provided these links as additional references:
http://custardbelly.com/blog/?p=173
http://blog.kevinhoyt.org/?p=548

Without any doubt, my favorite emerging and performant components skinned for iOS is Eskimo http://e-skimo.com/
Update: If you would like to use Stage3D UI Components (to access Hardware acceleration), you can use Foxhole: http://joshblog.net/2012/04/03/foxhole-mobile-ui-controls-for-starling/

Related

Custom CSS for Mobile development using Phonegap/Cordova

I´m planing to use Cordova v3 to develop a generic application to target mobile devices using HTML/CSS. Which is the best solution in order to reuse most of the html but having the visual style for each mobile platform? Which will be the best css/framework to use in this case (preferably free)?
Thanks in advance.
As you said "but having the visual style for each mobile platform?" I understand you are searching for a native look in the apps. the other answers are good frameworks however unless you want to spend time tweaking css they will not look similar to a native UI (visually).
I have worked with Twitter bootstrap and jQM. So far so good but for a native UI look I will go for the following options which I think are the best.
These are my top choices after spending a considerable time looking for a jQM alternative as I am not really happy with it in specific aspects.
EDIT: I am adding two new options based on my experience and what I have found so far (ionic and onsen ui).
Ionic Framework
http://ionicframework.com/
Intended to develop hybrid app using Angular JS is a really gem.
I have been working with it and it has really helped me to develop faster than when using jQuery.
It also was UI elements that you can use out of the box and they are styled properly for iOS and Android although I think its style is more iOS-lish.
Pros
Angular JS based framework
Speed up the development process because of angular JS powers
Very well documented and a lot of examples and tutorials and recipes.
You could use the CSS without using angular if it is required
Free and open source
theming is done via CSS or SASS
Enough components out of the box to start building and app.
Cons
Maybe reading the ionic documentation and the Angular ties if you want to enjoy all of its powers, but it worth it.
Onsen UI
http://s.onsen.io/
I have not work yet with it but it looks like a really complete UI option for hybrid apps.
Pros
Work with Angular and jQuery was well
Free and Open SourceFree and Open Source
It has a theming tool which make easier to customize the look in case you are afraid of CSS or SASS.
Kendo UI mobile
http://www.kendoui.com/mobile.aspx
Pros
It help you create a native look with already native UI looking elements for Android, iOS, Windows Phone, BB.
Incorporates an MVC framework
Theming machine like jQM theme roller
Looks solid (I am looking forward to use it soon)
jQuery based so you can leverage the power of all jquery and JS libraries out there to solve specific problems very easily.
Cons
It is not free for commercial use.
PhoneJS
http://phonejs.devexpress.com
Pros
jQuery based so you can leverage the power of all jquery and JS libraries out there to solve specific problems very easily.
Optionally support Knockout.js for MVVM user interface development
Cons
Seems like its community is far less reduced in comparison with kendo, so I am not sure how much people are out there using it and that could help later.
It is not free for commercial use.
Chocolate chip UI
http://chocolatechip-ui.com
Pros
iOS 7, Android Jelly Bean and Windows Phone 8 UI looking
Open Source and the project looks active
jQuery compatible
ChocolateChip-UI uses its own JavaScript library, ChocolateChip, for DOM manipulation, Ajax requests, etc. It is very similar to jQuery. (they claim have better performance than jQuery and Zepto)
Cons
Doesn´t seems that have a wide community out there
Steroids
http://www.appgyver.com/steroids
If you feel like a adventure explorer take a took at steroids, which is cordova compatible and they claim you UI will perform as well as native.
It is quite new, I haven´t give it a try but I seems promising, however as still is not widely used I did not decided to use it as having a lot of people using it is helpful when you face problems.
NOTE: If other have interesting alternatives to experiences with this or other UI frameworks for cordova/phonegap please share!
My suggestion would be jQuery Mobile which supports almost all mobile devices in the market.
For the list of supported devices: http://jquerymobile.com/gbs/
1) It provides a native feel for each device platform.
2) Supports all platform
3) Easy support and 3rd party plugins
It's been said by some that jQuery mobile might be slow.. but you can tweak its settings to make it good.
You could use Onsen UI. It claims to be faster than jQuery and has its own theme roller and is built to be compatible with PhoneGap/Cordova.
try you using twitter bootstrap, http://getbootstrap.com..
might be a solution for you, because twitter bootstrap is framework for html and responsive code for all device,, check resolution web in http://quirktools.com/screenfly.. and you can convert web with phonegap..

Adobe Flex ToggleSwitch alternative for desktop applications

I am looking for a ToggleSwitch alternative for a Adobe Flex desktop application that I am working on.
For ref:- http://help.adobe.com/en_US/flex/mobileapps/WS7dd5c1363434bb70-30e3f7e3131b54bf0ee-8000.html
This functionality has been released for Mobile development, but I couldn't find an alternative to build/have such functionality for desktop environments.
The closest alternative is ToggleButton (which is same functionally, but it doesn't look anywhere similar to the ToggleSwitch.
Any help on this is greatly appreciated.
Found a solution:-
http://yonaskolb.com/blog/2012/1/18/flex-toggle-switch-spark-skin.html
Adobe still hasn't released this for desktop themes, so one would need to use the mobile component (by including them in the build path)
I didn't see the ToggleSwitch for non-air apps but you could simulate it pretty easily by doing an owner draw with the two button-states as images: http://blog.flexexamples.com/2009/02/11/styling-specific-states-in-an-fxtogglebutton-control-in-flex-gumbo/

CSS Library for Mobile Web Apps

I was wondering if anybody knows of any css resources that are geared strictly towards mobile web apps?
I am building a mobile app using backbone and zepto, but am missing a framework for handling the main user interface components.
I know there is jQuery mobile and ST2 (and yes I know you can just grab their css), but I was wondering if there are any resources that are standalone mobile css libraries and focus on using css transitions to mimic device behaviors?
topcoat.io is still in an early stage, but is developing quite fast.
For simple example application have a look at: Sample Mobile / PhoneGap Application with Backbone.js and Topcoat
Question is a bit older, but I just stumbled across it. Maybe this is useful for someone :)
I don't know of any css frameworks that are strictly mobile but these ones are very good and have media queries that help make their stuff look good on mobile devices. Bootstrap is highly modular so it is a great starting point:
bootstrap - http://twitter.github.com/bootstrap/
foundation - http://foundation.zurb.com/
There's now Kendo Mobile available that does this, but it's not free or that cheap though.
http://www.kendoui.com/mobile.aspx

Does JavaFX have a "native look and feel" option like Swing?

It's been a couple of years since I've done any Java work, my last efforts were using Swing. I'm poking around with a cross-platform client app that will interact with a Rails web service. JavaFX is one of the options I'm considering, but I'm concerned at the out-of-the-box aesthetic. Does JavaFX have a native look and feel option for the JavaFX controls (not Swing)?
I'm getting the impression that if I want to build a line of business application in Java, I should probably stick with Swing which is a shame since I like some of the features of JavaFX like binding, a terse syntax, and easy support for REST client programming.
I haven't see that. At best, you can use the extensive support of CSS styling we got with 1.3 to mimic native look and feel, but that's a big job! Not even sure how to deal with various themes we got on modern systems...
I suppose the point of RIAs is to bring their own look or to be flexible enough to allow to do your own shinny look, not to look like a random bland application on your platform... :-)
(Now, if I like skinnable applications, I also appreciate GUI frameworks using native controls or looking as such, like Qt (vs. GTK+ for example), precisely to provide good old "bland" applications not breaking user experience.)
JavaFX 2.0 has only one Look by default that is called "Caspian".
With Java 8 a second one was introduced, called "Modena".
Both are cross-platform Look&Feels.
See announcement of Modena, with screenshots.
At the moment some developers create native Styles for JavaFX as OpenSource projects. You can find an overview here:
http://www.guigarage.com/2013/01/this-is-for-the-native-ones/
If you are interested in the Mac OS L&F (AquaFX) for JavaFX, here are some posts with previews:
http://www.guigarage.com/category/aquafx/
Native look and feel is not supported by Oracle in the default JavaFX 2.x distribution.
A proof of concept on button styles by one of the JavaFX developers demonstrates that JavaFX is flexible enough to generate widgets that look like native widgets.
For OS X, you can try the third party AquaFX style for JavaFX, which makes JavaFX applications look like native OS X applications. AquaFX appears quite complete and comprehensive to me.
There have been other 3rd party projects which partially create native look and feels for other platforms, but their coverage is currently nowhere near comprehensive.
Some third party projects (all of which seem currently experimental and incomplete) are:
JMetro in jfx-styles
javafx-native-themes (JavaFX look and feels for: default swing, iOS, windows 7...)
you could definitely embed some css in your application to make the javafx components look more like the standard swing look. With scene builder its actually really easy to get all your tags setup correctly.
Check this out
http://docs.oracle.com/javafx/2/css_tutorial/jfxpub-css_tutorial.htm
Interesting thing is in javaFx is, you can give the rich look and feel to native application also.You can apply css to the javaFx components. Not only that you can embed the HTML Css and pages in JAVAFX application.Which i can feel great revolution in terms of UI building for Standalone applications.

Lightweight method for integrating flash functionality in the background

I'm looking to be able to run some actionscript 3 in the background to handle some audio and build a javascript front-end. I heard that you can simply compile actionscript 3 and run it using the flex framework, but I'm new to all of this and am not really sure the difference between flex and actionscript. Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks!
Matt Mueller
Flex is a framework for developing data-driven flash SWFs. It lets you create gui using the markup language mxml (similar to html, but with a strict syntax) and has a lot of inbuilt UI components like Button, Panel, ComboBox, Datagrid etc.
The flex compiler, mxmlc.exe, can compile both flex projects and normal actionscript projects (that doesn't use any flex components).
If you are looking for just the audio functionalities of Flash, you need not use Flex, pure AS3 would suffice. Download the Flex SDK and compile the ClassName.as file using the mxmlc.exe
Yes, you can achieve this using actionscript. And Flex is a framework for developing flash applications which requires coding in Actionscript. Flex api is extension to actionscript's tandard API with lots of built-in functionalities like drawing charts, handling videos etc. If you are just looking for handling some audio in the background then you can just use actionscript with Flash IDE. But you are looking to build a full fledged GUI with lots of functionality then yes, you should have a look at Flex as it provides lots of built-in libraries.

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