This thread should be Time Capsuled for 2050

Mobile Apps
#1

The following discussion is just the barest sliver of issues frustrating people in Mobile Apps 2021.

10,000 + forks in the road on the way to getting a “common mobile app” to work smoothly & without BAFFLING ERRORS circa 2021
The infinite variables in play these days due to myriad javascript based frameworks, stack components, whether Android Native or IOS Native, or hybrid stacks constantly evolving that are being updated with multiple, multiple dependencies from other projects that are being used as tools or modules to process what used to be called “functions”. Hybrid building tools such as Bootstrap, Angular, Sencha Ext JS, Ionic, Mobile Angular UI* , Xamarin, Phone Gap, etc.

To me this splitting up of Tools to make Mobile Apps is evolving into an infinity of possible paths that also makes expectations increasingly frustrating as Apps now rely on a near infinity of DEPENDENCIES from so many components that your files are relying on. What is called a “lightweight” app typically loads so many thousands of lines of code which in themselves are calling for other libraries across the Mobile App universe of developers and companies – all to work beautifully in synch to get a simple image and a line of dynamically sourced text to show up in my mobile device within a reasonable execution time.

I see developers bravely tramping on through the thickets trying to find out why Fred Cool Ap Water Fetcher component in the service worker just sends up “Help Me!” flares instead of bringing back the gin & tonic afternoon chaser we were expecting.

As I say, just a typical quest as described in the following Wappler forum is indicative of today’s state of affairs in the jagged corners of the Development Community. And months and months later it is referred to again in another problem thread here wondering “if this is still an issue”?

I salute you all for diving in and braving the storms.

The latest thread —
https://community.wappler.io/t/mobile-app-login-successful-but-not-retrieving-identity/30729

– that then finally refers back to this thread last year:

https://community.wappler.io/t/wkwebview-form-post-and-session-cookies/15467/46

#2

Said it some time ago.

Wappler should eventually ditch their F7 integration(completely) and move to something like nativescript which is by the way the tool chosen by Svelte for their mobile development.

1 Like
#3

I’m looking at this introductory video on Nativescript, JOHNL

WOW
What you see that looks like html DOM nodes actually renders as Native UI for iOS or Android apps.

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/xq_mvfdELaw?rel=0

And, as JONL suggests: SVELTE

during your build process Svelte compiles them into tiny standalone JavaScript modules. By statically analysing the component template, we can make sure that the browser does as little work as possible.

https://svelte.dev/blog/frameworks-without-the-framework

1 Like
#4

This is kind of FUN to read through.

Tags

Tags allow you to bind data to your template. Whenever your data changes (for example after component.set(...) ), the DOM updates automatically. You can use any JavaScript expression in templates, and it will also automatically update

You can also use tags in attributes:

REPL App.html

<h1 style="color: {color};">{color}</h1>
<p hidden={hideParagraph}>You can hide this paragraph.</p>

Boolean attributes like hidden will be omitted if the tag expression evaluates to false. Attributes will be removed from the element if their value is undefined or null .

https://v2.svelte.dev/guide

Examples:

#5

Actually all those troubles you mention are just a result of cookies and CORS troubles.

This has nothing to do with frameworks but just evolving standards and security measurements in the last years.

Getting cross domain cookies is getting harder and harder to do, even with proper CORS configuration.

So on the long term we should switch to more reliable login solutions like oauth2 with hashing instead of relying on cookies.

Furthermore, mobile apps are mobile apps - with a different layout and way of working. They are not websites!

So people shouldn’t really think of mobile apps like building a quickly a responsive website and you are done. If you want that you can just as good stick to PWA or SPA and deliver your app from the web not from the App Store.

Real mobile apps should look and feel like native apps and act like ones. That is why it is better to invest some time to learn and understand the whole new structure of mobile apps and Framework7 for example.

For example Mobile apps layout is more lists oriented and not grid one like in bootstrap.

So invest more time in understanding the mobile technology instead of building just another website.

4 Likes