Ratchet: Prototyping iPhone apps in simple HTML, CSS, and JS • Hacker News Board

Re: Ratchet: Prototyping iPhone apps in simple HTML, CSS, and JS

#11

Post by icambron » Mon, Nov 05, 2012, 11:22 PM UTC

Maybe I'm missing something, but it looks like you could extract just the CSS and build an HTML5 app with it (as in PhoneGap or trigger.io), without all of the push.js stuff. It looks really nice, and would be good for more than just prototyping.

Edit: clarifying what I meant by HTML5 app.

Re: Ratchet: Prototyping iPhone apps in simple HTML, CSS, and JS

#12

Post by asselinpaul » Mon, Nov 05, 2012, 11:22 PM UTC

netghost wrote: post #10

I was pleasantly surprised when I realized that as I scrolled the example on the right changed. Really nice site guys.

yeah same. Congrats

Re: Ratchet: Prototyping iPhone apps in simple HTML, CSS, and JS

#13

Post by DenisM » Mon, Nov 05, 2012, 11:24 PM UTC

Looks good.

To help put things in perspective - how is this different from Sencha?

Re: Ratchet: Prototyping iPhone apps in simple HTML, CSS, and JS

#14

Post by michaelmior » Mon, Nov 05, 2012, 11:26 PM UTC

Looks very cool. It would be nice to see closer parity to what's available with native UIKit, but super fast to get started and looks pretty nice. Great work!

Re: Ratchet: Prototyping iPhone apps in simple HTML, CSS, and JS

#15

Post by michaelmior » Mon, Nov 05, 2012, 11:26 PM UTC

DenisM wrote: post #13

Looks good. To help put things in perspective - how is this different from Sencha?

Judging by the title, Rachet isn't designed to build a complete app, but just a prototype for faster iteration before starting on a final native iOS app.

Re: Ratchet: Prototyping iPhone apps in simple HTML, CSS, and JS

#16

Post by yesimahuman » Mon, Nov 05, 2012, 11:29 PM UTC

Combined with the component set and push.js, it looks like a similar framework to jQuery Mobile. Thus, it would be great for building straight up mobile websites or HTML5 mobile apps. Am I right, or missing something?

Re: Ratchet: Prototyping iPhone apps in simple HTML, CSS, and JS

#17

Post by dhgamache » Mon, Nov 05, 2012, 11:36 PM UTC

michaelmior wrote: post #15

DenisM wrote: post #13

Looks good. To help put things in perspective - how is this different from Sencha?

Judging by the title, Rachet isn't designed to build a complete app, but just a prototype for faster iteration before starting on a final native iOS app.

This was our intention, but that's not to say it couldn't be used to build a real mobile app :)

Re: Ratchet: Prototyping iPhone apps in simple HTML, CSS, and JS

#18

Post by dhgamache » Mon, Nov 05, 2012, 11:38 PM UTC

yesimahuman wrote: post #16

Combined with the component set and push.js, it looks like a similar framework to jQuery Mobile. Thus, it would be great for building straight up mobile websites or HTML5 mobile apps. Am I right, or missing something?

Ratchet is starting with iPhone prototyping. It hasn't been tested on Android/Windows devices. That said, if the components were tested it could totally work for mobile web apps.

Re: Ratchet: Prototyping iPhone apps in simple HTML, CSS, and JS

#19

Post by rcchen » Mon, Nov 05, 2012, 11:41 PM UTC

This feels a lot more lightweight than jQuery mobile while retaining the look/functionality needed to work on a mobile web app. Does this seem like a suitable replacement for jQM for a basic mobile web application?

Re: Ratchet: Prototyping iPhone apps in simple HTML, CSS, and JS

#20

Post by bluetidepro » Mon, Nov 05, 2012, 11:44 PM UTC

Did you guys build your site using Bootstrap or at least Bootstrap as starting point? It looks like a lot of similar components function like Bootstrap ones. If you did, amazing work taking the bootstrap design and making it unique to your product and not "just another standard Bootstrap design!"

Also, great product! It looks beautiful and makes for fast prototyping! I can't wait to try it out! :)