I would like to begin developing for the Blackberry platform and, specifically, the Bold and also the Storm device which is coming out soon. Do I need to get into Java and J2ME or can I develop sites in ASP.NET and just keep utilizing the skills I already have?
I am completely new to mobile platform development and have no idea what it will take to target these Blackberry devices. I am hoping to continue to use my ASP skills.
To develop Blackberry Applications that are full-featured, have acceptable performance, and look nice, you need to use the RIM native apis.
You can use J2ME applications, but they typically don't mesh well with a full-keyboarded device.
And, of course, web apps will look even worse than that.
This question might help you. "Creating a mini-site in asp.NET that works on blackberry, Windows Mobile, and iPhone"
Are you talking about websites (because you say "develop sites in ASP.NET") or native Blackberry applications (because you say "developing for the Blackberry platform")?
Applications which run on the Blackberry use J2ME. If your application is accessed from a browser on the Blackberry, then it's the server the web app runs on that determines the language, not that it's being accessed from the Blackberry browser.
Then there's Blackberry MDS for integration with enterprise apps. I don't know much about this (never used it or seen an application that uses it) but it's described here: http://na.blackberry.com/eng/services/mobile.jsp
Paul
If you are just doing web development, you don't need to know J2ME for Blackberry. J2ME is a supported JAVA framework for device specific applications. You just need to be familiar with HTML rendering for mobile devices
Assuming that you are building a web app that you intend to be loaded by a Blackberry browser, I suggest building mobile specific pages that are cross compatible across many devices types and configurations.
Look at the Blackberry Browser Development Guides which offer suggestions/best-practices for mobile web development that can applied to all of mobile web development.
Please read this https://web.archive.org/web/20150107061257/https://www.oracle.com/technetwork/systems/index-139239.html
It talks about how one application should not mix RIM UI API calls with CLDC and MIDP API calls.
Ofcourse, I have to mention also that that link is really dated.
Related
I wanna use iOS APIs in my web application.Is it possible?
any example?
Actually I wanna use sound notifications for my web application on iPhone.
Give me suggestions.
thanks
Abdullah
No, it's not possible. The iOS API is for native applications, not web applications.
Your best bet would be to research how to leverage the HTML5 sound features to achieve what you want. Doing so comes with the added benefit that your app will be compatible with non-iOS devices as well.
Dear All,
We are planning to develop Mobile Applications.
Would you please let me know the following information, if you have an idea.
Merits and demerits when we use ASP.NET for Mobile Applications Development.
Best reference book for ASP.NET Mobile Applications Development.
Many Thanks,
Regards,
Anupriya.
So, I'm not sure that I'm understanding your question correctly... When you develop a web application in ASP and host it on a server, both mobile devices and regular computers can use that application in their respective browsers.
It's important to realize the difference between a web application that can be accessed properly on a mobile device and an application that runs natively on a mobile device.
So, if you want to build an application that is accessible on mobile and desktop devices, then a web application is potentially a good choice.
The language you choose for your web application has no bearing on whether or not you will have success in allowing mobile users to access your application.
That being said, what you probably need is a good intro ASP book and (most importantly from your perspective) a good book on mobile website development.
Is there a way to make a desktop application easily interfaceable via Web ? Meaning, can you have a way to interface with a single desktop application as if you were remote desktop'd into the machine but not? I am looking at doing this in ASP.NET or Silverlight.
I'm not sure if this is exactly what you are looking for...
If you were able to create your entire application UI in Silverlight and host it properly (in IIS or whatever) it would then be accessible from anywhere on the web. If you needed the perception of a real desktop app when running locally, you could then just make some simple app (WinForms, WPF, whatever) which contains a web browser control that could also load up the hosted Silverlight app (and just be a transparent browser). Depending on what the application is doing, you would obviously need some sort of service layer (probably in WCF) do to all of the heavy lifting and data access.
I guess the main question would be: can you accomplish everything your application needs to do in Silverlight? Since Silverlight is meant to run in a browser, it can be very limiting.
There are many solutions based on plugins. Some of the popular ones:
Citrix
Spoon
If you're ok with plugins, but only if they're common ones (flash, java), there are various solutions:
http://www.wizhelp.com/flashlight-vnc/
http://www.tightvnc.com/doc/java/README.txt (bundled java applet with TightVNC)
If you don't want plugins at all, there's an experimental HTML5/javascript VNC viewer:
http://guacamole.sourceforge.net/
I don't understand the purpose of the WPF browser appliction. Is it simply another way of serving information through a browser, or is it not intended to be used for external deployment?
WPF Browser applications allow you to create very rich, application style UI's deployable via the web, using coding languages windows developers already likely have in their toolset. The downsides are that the users must must have .net installed, and use IE to access the application, considerably limiting the size and scope of your audience. WPF browser applications are very similar to Java applications in that they run in a virtual machine on the client. As it runs on the client, all data access and communication with the server must be done through WCF or web services.
With ASP.NET you have considerably more cross browser compatibility and support, giving you access to a much larger audience, with the possible downside of learning new libraries and the ASP.NET programming model. ASP.NET also provides a rich data access model and data control support. Silverlight is another interesting option based on .NET and WPF, as it is supported by a wide variety of browsers and provides similar rich user interface experiences. It can als be run out of the browser, disconnected if neccesary.
** Update based on Comment Request ***
The big advantage to Silverlight out of browser, is that you get most of the Rich, windows application style functionality, with a web deployable model and tiny install (4-6MB). Silverlight also supports an auto update feature which is VERY nice if you have a large user base.
Microsoft's Official description (propaganda :) )here
Silverlight Out Of Browser
Enables users to place their favorite Silverlight applications directly onto their PC and Mac, with links on the desktop and start menu—all without the need to download an additional runtime or browser plug-in. Further, the new experience enables Silverlight applications to work whether the computer is connected to the Internet or not—a radical improvement to the traditional Web experience. Features include:
Safe and secure. Leveraging the security features of the .NET Framework, Silverlight applications run inside a secure sandbox with persistent isolated storage. These applications have most of the same security restrictions as traditional web apps and so can be trusted without security warnings or prompts, minimizing user interruptions.
Smooth installation. Because Silverlight applications are stored in a local cache and do not require extra privileges to run, the installation process is quick and efficient.
Auto-update. Upon launch, Silverlight applications can check for new versions on the server, and automatically update if one is found.
Internet connectivity detection. Silverlight applications can now detect whether they have Internet connectivity and can react intelligently including caching a users’ data until their connection is restored.
A WPF browser application is a client side technology, rather than ASP(.NET) which is server-side. It is definitely not meant to replace it.
Using a WPF browser application one can provide a rich client inside the browser. However, this will only work when the whole .NET framework is installed. Another similar technology is Silverlight, which uses a very small (the installer about 5-6 MiB) framework, and is available to multiple platforms. It includes a small subset of .NET framework.
You can use it in external deployment considering the above requirements.
The following portion of the above selected comment is wrong:
and use IE to access the application,
considerably limiting the size and
scope of your audience
WPF in the browser (aka XBAP) is works just from FireFox (Mozilla) and Google Chrome. It was true about 2 years ago, but not today.
You could use XAML in silverlight, if thats what you are looking for.
Plus the RIA Application templates makes development quite neat.
i'm new to creating desktop applications. I've a working site in php with mysql support. I want to convert this site into a desktop application. Is Adobe AIR or Adobe Flex better?
can i use php as such in both AIR and Flex? or should i convert them to xml or something which it uses?
AIR is Flex on the desktop... So... I suppose you mean whether you can use AIR with PHP? AIR/Flex should be able to handle whatever communication protocol you're using on the server.
Saying 'should i convert them to xml or something' is a bit nebulous.
I guess what you really asking is: Should I rewrite my application entirely in Adobe technologies or Can I/Should I integrate it with my existing PHP code.
I would recommend you expose the existing PHP functionality as RESTful web services and redo the user interface in Adobe AIR. That way you can leverage the existing site to make the desktop application. There is a ton of information of building applications like this, just research REST, SOA (service oriented architecture), SAAS (Software as a Service).
Adobe AIR/Flex is fine, especially if you want it to work on multiple operating systems, but the Application won't necessary have the looking and feel of its host desktop environment.
Adobe AIR is a runtime that adds to the capabilities of Adobe Flash Player to allow the creation of desktop applications.
Adobe Flex is a framework to build rich user interfaces. Flex applications are supported both in Flash Player and AIR.
This cannot be a question of one or the other. Flex can be used together with AIR. If you want a desktop app that allows you to use Adobe's Flash Platform technologies, definitely use AIR. If you want a set of pre-built UI controls to use in that AIR app, use Flex too!
You can communicate with PHP on your server in both Flash Player and AIR. PHP cannot be run directly in AIR. If you want the application to be entirely self-contained with no server, then you can't use PHP.