This four page how-to article introduces the Appcelerator Titanium platform and demonstrates how to create cross-platform, native look-and-feel desktop applications using only HTML, CSS and JavaScript.
It's an interesting product that uses WebKit technology and special JavaScript APIs to build a native applications from open standard web languages. The article explained this WebKit-based approach strategy, the Titanium Developer tool, suitable editors, an overview of API functionality and how to start creating your own desktop applications.
Part 2 of the mini-series will focus on smartphone development, still with the Titanium platform, but with the mobile API. All my examples are for Google's Android operating system, but Apple iOS development is also supported. Once again you can create native look-and-feel mobile applications using only JavaScript code.
Here's an extract from the article:
Titanium achieves all this flexibility through a design rather similar to Adobe's AIR product, but with a standards-based open source pedigree. The key component is a platform-specific, WebKit derived runtime engine to render and execute the web pages and scripts as a native application.
WebKit technology is not only very popular – it's found in Adobe AIR's runtime and many browsers like Google's Chrome and Apple's Safari - but it ensure developers can use the latest HTML5 and CSS3 standards, plus the powerful functionality offered by Javascript frameworks such as JQuery, Prototype, Dojo and MooTools.
Importantly, JavaScript behaviour and HTML/CSS rendering is consistent across all platforms, while still exhibiting an OS-specific look-and-feel. This is critical to achieving the best possible user experience on each platform - an important factor in gaining a high rating in the various mobile App stores and marketplaces.
WebKit technology is not only very popular – it's found in Adobe AIR's runtime and many browsers like Google's Chrome and Apple's Safari - but it ensure developers can use the latest HTML5 and CSS3 standards, plus the powerful functionality offered by Javascript frameworks such as JQuery, Prototype, Dojo and MooTools.
Importantly, JavaScript behaviour and HTML/CSS rendering is consistent across all platforms, while still exhibiting an OS-specific look-and-feel. This is critical to achieving the best possible user experience on each platform - an important factor in gaining a high rating in the various mobile App stores and marketplaces.
I've posted a PDF of this article on my sample PDF page.
