Subsurface 4.7 / 5.0

[Anton Lundin]

On 21 January, 2017 - Lubomir I. Ivanov wrote:

> On 21 January 2017 at 20:44, Lubomir I. Ivanov <neolit123 at gmail.com> wrote:
> > hello,
> >
> > On 21 January 2017 at 13:01, Anton Lundin <glance at acc.umu.se> wrote:
> >> On 20 January, 2017 - Dirk Hohndel wrote:
> >>
> >>> On Fri, Jan 20, 2017 at 05:06:40PM +0100, Tomaz Canabrava wrote:
> >>> >
> >>> > Other option is to try to make next Subsurface the Subsurface 4.7:
> >>> >
> >>> > Continue duplicating code for the Mobile version (that has a small userbase
> >>> > but will probabbly gain an increase of usage over the years) and cleaning /
> >>> > improving the Desktop version, changing things on the core as little as we
> >>> > need.
> >>>
> >>> Or, how about option 3:
> >>>
> >>> Forget about Subsurface-mobile. Wait a year for Kirigmi 7 that uses QML3
> >>> and and Qt.Slow.Conniptions.4 and then revisit if we want to waste another
> >>> year of our time on something that more or less no one is interested in
> >>> using.
> >>>
> >>
> >> I'm still tempted to revive the branch where I bult subsurface-core as a
> >> library with jni wrappers and build a UI in Android native java.
> >>
> >> There are enough competence and tutorials out there so almost anyone can
> >> hack on a Android java app, and the "core" parts of subsurface, we
> >> already know.
> >>
> >
> > i haven't followed the mobile app much (+all the troubles surrounding
> > it) expect that i filed a report of one nasty QML GridLayout bug at
> > the Qt bugtracker at one point; it was a pretty bad showstopper. i've
> > also found some more bugs in QML elements later. maybe QML and the
> > frameworks for it are still not ready...but hmm, it has been at least
> > 3 years since QML started advertising itself for mobile, so not sure
> > what's going on that front. maybe Kirigami was bad choice here...
> >
> > other than that, i can help as much as time permits with the native
> > Android UI as i've been doing exactly that the past couple of years.
> > that native Android also has it's perks here and there, but it's quite
> > good and easy to get into...of course, so as many probably know
> > already - not a single UI toolkit is optimal.
> >
> > and i guess a native Android UI, would mean that a native iOS UI has
> > to be written.
> >
> 
> above typos aside, i would like to quickly point out something about
> multiplatform mobile development and the horror story it is.
> 
> after many trials with my employer, trying pretty much everything from
> A to Z which is available out there, free or payware to be able to
> target both iOS and Android at the same time with a single UI toolkit,
> in a sane matter, good programming language, without bugs etc, i've
> come to the conclusion that - multiplaform mobile development is
> (still) a myth.
> 
> Xamarin, Adobe AIR, Qt + QML, Codename1, JS toolkits etc...all of them
> are either buggy, awkward to use or have major limitations.
> so for me ATM, the only sane way to approach mobile development is to
> develop native UI.

I've bin playing with https://home-assistant.io/ a bit, and they are
using a modern web-app as their frontend. It works okay-ish on mobile,
and thats good enough for those needs, so I'd say for more limited
applications, html5 / service-worker / manifest.json is a viable
cross-platform option, but if you'd like butter smooth and great, native
is the way to go still.


//Anton - somewhat off topic but anyhow...


-- 
Anton Lundin	+46702-161604