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Adobe launches Shadow, a new toolkit for mobile developers

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11–18 of 18 posts

Re: Adobe launches Shadow, a new toolkit for mobile developers

#13
post #11

Nice to see Adobe adapting to the slow passing of Flash with interesting tools for the new generation of mobile developers and their problems (device/os fragmentation).

Although I agree with your statement, this project has very little to do with Flash. If anything at all. I would imagine Adobe would have considered such a project regardless of the future of Flash.

Re: Adobe launches Shadow, a new toolkit for mobile developers

#14

What always amazes me is that companies like Adobe launch a new product, but don't bother registering the domain - adobeshadow.com (DOH!!) - guess because it's a free product?

Why bother with obtaining domains for every single product when shadow.adobe.com would work just as well?

Re: Adobe launches Shadow, a new toolkit for mobile developers

#15
Gave it a spin, and unfortunately it won't replace a pure weinre for me.

The way to connect all devices is pretty polished, although the install is not terribly clear. You need to install a local app on your dev machine (presumably hosting weinre), as well as a chrome extension. Then you install the Shadow apps on all your devices. Once that's done, connecting devices works pretty well.

On the other hand it's for pure web browsing (the chrome extension is to follow you around in chrome). So you obviously can't use it to debug a hybrid app (e.g. PhoneGap). You can do that with a pure weinre.

Second, my devices sometimes lose track of where I am. This may or may not be because of the next point.

Third, the devices following you around is entirely url-based. In other words, it doesn't reproduce browser events (e.g. clicks, form submits, etc.), it simply reloads the page completely when the url changes. I'm not saying it should: desktop and mobile support different sets of events. However this reduces its usefulness with single page load apps.

I almost mentioned ajax form submits as a case where its usefulness is reduced. But it occurred to me that you'd probably rather enter your stuff manually on every device anyway. This, paired with the fact that Shadow doesn't try to keep all device in sync when you click around on the devices (it only follows your chrome browser), actually makes it possible for one to test these kinds of interactions.

With that said, I'll still keep an eye on this tool. I think it's pretty promising.

Re: Adobe launches Shadow, a new toolkit for mobile developers

#16
post #15

Gave it a spin, and unfortunately it won't replace a pure weinre for me. The way to connect all devices is pretty polished, although the install is not terribly clear. You need to install a local app on your dev machine (presumably hosting weinre), as well as a chrome extension. Then you install the Shadow apps on all your devices. Once that's done, connecting devices works pretty well. On the other hand it's for pur…

Oh, and it follows you around on Chrome, regardless of the tab you switch to. So switching to HN, for example, brings along all of your mobile devices with you :-)

Re: Adobe launches Shadow, a new toolkit for mobile developers

#17
post #15

Gave it a spin, and unfortunately it won't replace a pure weinre for me. The way to connect all devices is pretty polished, although the install is not terribly clear. You need to install a local app on your dev machine (presumably hosting weinre), as well as a chrome extension. Then you install the Shadow apps on all your devices. Once that's done, connecting devices works pretty well. On the other hand it's for pur…

What is a "pure weinre"?

Re: Adobe launches Shadow, a new toolkit for mobile developers

#18
post #15

Gave it a spin, and unfortunately it won't replace a pure weinre for me. The way to connect all devices is pretty polished, although the install is not terribly clear. You need to install a local app on your dev machine (presumably hosting weinre), as well as a chrome extension. Then you install the Shadow apps on all your devices. Once that's done, connecting devices works pretty well. On the other hand it's for pur…

What is a "pure weinre"?

By that I mean installing the "weinre" tool locally (or using debug.phonegap.com) and connecting your hybrid app or website yourself by including the script tag in your html.
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