Building Cordova apps for Firefox OS • Hacker News Board

Re: Building Cordova apps for Firefox OS

#11

Post by nathanathan » Thu, Feb 20, 2014, 9:01 PM UTC

suyash wrote: post #2

What is the advantage of creating Firefox OS using Cordova (if you're only creating firefox os apps)? If you all you need for firefox os apps are: html, css, js then why do I need to add additional cordova library? The big plus of Cordova is you can use HTML5 and write apps that run on other platforms where HTML5 is not natively supported but Firefox OS claims to be HTML5 first. Cordova seems useless for FireFox OS a…

Phonegap Build has some useful features for packaging, debugging and distribution that could eventually become available to Firefox OS Cordova apps.

Re: Building Cordova apps for Firefox OS

#12

Post by thebokehwokeh2 » Thu, Feb 20, 2014, 9:06 PM UTC

Cordova is wonderful if you know how to use it. It allows for cross platform apps with a single codebase.

The problem lies in how it is used. Our project tried to incorporate a ton of native UI/UX conventions that screwed us over royally. CSS transitions, layered divs, swipe gestures, all of these were far too complicated for a little phone to handle. Stay away from these, and do simple hides and shows. Or go the hybrid method of having barebones native wrappers and web-views inside of those views.

The web (i.e. HTML/CSS/JS) promises a lot but mobile browsers are nowhere near where they should be in terms of pure processing power. As of right now, native is still the way to go.

Re: Building Cordova apps for Firefox OS

#13

Post by zalun » Thu, Feb 20, 2014, 9:17 PM UTC

thebokehwokeh2 wrote: post #12

Cordova is wonderful if you know how to use it. It allows for cross platform apps with a single codebase. The problem lies in how it is used. Our project tried to incorporate a ton of native UI/UX conventions that screwed us over royally. CSS transitions, layered divs, swipe gestures, all of these were far too complicated for a little phone to handle. Stay away from these, and do simple hides and shows. Or go the hyb…

That really depends on the type of the app and the target device. BTW "the web" is native on Firefox OS.

Re: Building Cordova apps for Firefox OS

#14

Post by lmorchard » Thu, Feb 20, 2014, 9:26 PM UTC

thebokehwokeh2 wrote: post #12

Cordova is wonderful if you know how to use it. It allows for cross platform apps with a single codebase. The problem lies in how it is used. Our project tried to incorporate a ton of native UI/UX conventions that screwed us over royally. CSS transitions, layered divs, swipe gestures, all of these were far too complicated for a little phone to handle. Stay away from these, and do simple hides and shows. Or go the hyb…

Yeah, I would say that the problem is the "little phone" hardware moreso than the web tech. I wouldn't be surprised if a "native" (ie. Dalvik) Android app had similar issues on the same hardware.

Re: Building Cordova apps for Firefox OS

#15

Post by Mikeb85 » Thu, Feb 20, 2014, 9:35 PM UTC

thebokehwokeh2 wrote: post #12

Cordova is wonderful if you know how to use it. It allows for cross platform apps with a single codebase. The problem lies in how it is used. Our project tried to incorporate a ton of native UI/UX conventions that screwed us over royally. CSS transitions, layered divs, swipe gestures, all of these were far too complicated for a little phone to handle. Stay away from these, and do simple hides and shows. Or go the hyb…

If you have Android Chrome, open this. Super smooth on Nexus 5 and Chrome... http://helloracer.com/racer-s/

Re: Building Cordova apps for Firefox OS

#16

Post by camus2 » Thu, Feb 20, 2014, 9:39 PM UTC

zalun wrote: post #13

thebokehwokeh2 wrote: post #12

Cordova is wonderful if you know how to use it. It allows for cross platform apps with a single codebase. The problem lies in how it is used. Our project tried to incorporate a ton of native UI/UX conventions that screwed us over royally. CSS transitions, layered divs, swipe gestures, all of these were far too complicated for a little phone to handle. Stay away from these, and do simple hides and shows. Or go the hyb…

That really depends on the type of the app and the target device. BTW "the web" is native on Firefox OS.

you mean javascript is native on Firefox OS. Firefox OS api =/= web standards.

Re: Building Cordova apps for Firefox OS

#17

Post by chebum » Thu, Feb 20, 2014, 10:21 PM UTC

thebokehwokeh2 wrote: post #12

Cordova is wonderful if you know how to use it. It allows for cross platform apps with a single codebase. The problem lies in how it is used. Our project tried to incorporate a ton of native UI/UX conventions that screwed us over royally. CSS transitions, layered divs, swipe gestures, all of these were far too complicated for a little phone to handle. Stay away from these, and do simple hides and shows. Or go the hyb…

Have you released your Cordova app? Can we take a look?

Re: Building Cordova apps for Firefox OS

#18

Post by zalun » Thu, Feb 20, 2014, 10:28 PM UTC

camus2 wrote: post #16

zalun wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That really depends on the type of the app and the target device. BTW "the web" is native on Firefox OS.

you mean javascript is native on Firefox OS. Firefox OS api =/= web standards.

Well for sure. But it does support vast majority of it.

Re: Building Cordova apps for Firefox OS

#19

Post by thebokehwokeh2 » Fri, Feb 21, 2014, 12:17 AM UTC

chebum wrote: post #17

thebokehwokeh2 wrote: post #12

Cordova is wonderful if you know how to use it. It allows for cross platform apps with a single codebase. The problem lies in how it is used. Our project tried to incorporate a ton of native UI/UX conventions that screwed us over royally. CSS transitions, layered divs, swipe gestures, all of these were far too complicated for a little phone to handle. Stay away from these, and do simple hides and shows. Or go the hyb…

Have you released your Cordova app? Can we take a look?

Not just yet. It'll be on the app store April 1st, assuming it passes Apple's tests.

Re: Building Cordova apps for Firefox OS

#20

Post by Jare » Fri, Feb 21, 2014, 12:18 AM UTC

Mikeb85 wrote: post #15

thebokehwokeh2 wrote: post #12

Cordova is wonderful if you know how to use it. It allows for cross platform apps with a single codebase. The problem lies in how it is used. Our project tried to incorporate a ton of native UI/UX conventions that screwed us over royally. CSS transitions, layered divs, swipe gestures, all of these were far too complicated for a little phone to handle. Stay away from these, and do simple hides and shows. Or go the hyb…

If you have Android Chrome, open this. Super smooth on Nexus 5 and Chrome... http://helloracer.com/racer-s/

There's very little processing power needed for that demo, outside access to the GPU via WebGL for rendering. It's a completely different model from HTML/CSS. And WebGL will not be available for Android WebViews (or iOS ones for that matter) for quite a while yet.