10 Dec, 2009

A detailed primer on building cross platform mobile applications

Posted by Bhavin Turakhia | (9) Comments

I finally had a few hours today morning to wrap up my study on comparison of mobile application platforms that allow developing cross-device applications easily using familiar technologies. Here is a quick braindump of all the links and resources I went through -

Rhomobile

• Google TechTalk on Rhodes - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2pztOky_L0
• http://rhomobile.com/products/rhodes/
• http://www.ultrasaurus.com/sarahblog/2009/07/cross-platform-mobile-apps-with-rhomobile/
• http://www.rhohub.com/
• Notes
  • Dual licensed. Though license is cheap – $500
  • Code is written in html and ruby (though a python interpreter would have gotten more smileys from me )
  • interesting approach – uses the native browser component of the cellphone itself to render the html and a web server to host the app – so javascript support will be random based on the phone browser support
  • sqlite support
  • Supports iphone, windows mobile, blackberry, android, Symbisn etc
  • Basically rhodes runs a mini ruby web server and an html rendering engine all in 2.3MB
  • Supports native capabilities like camera, gps, PIM data, SMS etc

Phone gap

• http://phonegap.com/
• Check the video on their site
• Notes
  • Fully open source and free
  • Code written in html+javascript
  • Supports iphone, blackberry and android

Pyxis Mobile

• http://pyxismobile.com/platform/technical-overview/
• Build one configuration and deploy to BlackBerry, iPhone, and Windows Mobile all at the same time
• Skinning, scripting, localized languages, complex workflow management, push, hotkeys, mapping & LBS, camera support, signature capture, GUI calendar, disambiguation, hotkeys, and much more

Titanium Mobile

• http://www.appcelerator.com/products/titanium-mobile/
• This is an upcoming mobile platform by appcelerator
• I am quite familiar with the company since we already use their Titanium Desktop and have two fulltime contributors to it

Quick Connect

• http://quickconnect.sourceforge.net/

Comparison sites and articles

• http://blog.twinapex.fi/2009/09/30/cross-platform-mobile-application-development-and-payment/
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_development
• http://www.infoworld.com/d/open-source/building-native-mobile-applications-open-source-mobile-platforms-735
• http://www.infoworld.com/d/mobilize/iphone-development-tools-work-way-you-do-309
• http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-10202598-94.html
• http://www.slideshare.net/inouemak/rhodes-and-phone-gap
• http://techboise.com/multi-platform-mobile-development-and-quickconnect

Some others

• http://quickconnect.pbworks.com/
• http://www.mobinex.biz/smartface-platform.html
• http://qt.nokia.com/products/qt-for-mobile-platforms
• http://www.anscamobile.com/corona/

29 Sep, 2009

Writing a Wordpress Plugin

Posted by Bhavin Turakhia | (7) Comments

I was just reading up on building wordpress plugins andthe simplicity and architecture impressed me enough to quickly pen down a short post. Now it does not make any sense to pen down a detailed HowTo since the documentation on the wordpress site is adequate and self-explanatory. However here are some quick notes -

• Start off by reading – Writing a Plugin – it lays down the framework of creating a plugin and defines what your plugin should be called, file names, structure and even a header for your plugin
• Next review – Plugin API – which describes the simple yet powerful Hooks, Filters and Actions mechanism provided by Wordpress to plugin developers
• Hooks are provided by WordPress to allow your plugin to ‘hook into’ the rest of WordPress; that is, to call functions in your plugin at specific times, and thereby set your plugin in motion.
• There are two kinds of hooks – Actions and Filters
• Actions are the hooks that the WordPress core launches at specific points during execution, or when specific events occur. Your plugin can specify that one or more of its PHP functions are executed at these points, using the Action API.
• Filters are the hooks that WordPress launches to modify text of various types before adding it to the database or sending it to the browser screen. Your plugin can specify that one or more of its PHP functions is executed to modify specific types of text at these times, using the Filter API.

I like the architecture – it allows any plugin developer to modify pretty much any functionality provided within Wordpress. Many application platforms can be modeled around this same event-based plugin architecture providing powerful extensibility to plugin developers.