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What I would really like to see is something that leverages all of the skill available for and effort put into web development directly for native application d

What I would really like to see is something that leverages all of the skill available for and effort put into web development directly for native application development, with minimal impact on the developers it's trying to win over. E.g., an HTML+CSS+JavaScript compiler that will take your web-app code and generate a native application for whatever target that behaves just like that source code would have if it were rendered in a browser. One of Microsoft's really good, ahead-of-the-time ideas was HTML Applications, which are essentially that and have been around (but pretty much forgotten) ever since IE5. Not a compiler, but a special interpreter based on a browser that runs HTML+CSS+JavaScript as a native application, with a special execution environment that gives script access to the operating system and some extra HTML tags for window styling.

untog 15y ago
E.g., an HTML+CSS+JavaScript compiler that will take your web-app code and generate a native application for whatever target that behaves just like that source code would have if it were rendered in a browser. You are looking for Adobe AIR.
- gliese1337 15y ago
  Possibly. I looked at AIR briefly a while back, just before my lab transitioned away from Flash development, and while it does seem like it's on the right track, all I got out of it was that it's supposed to be used with ActionScript and runs JavaScript in an even more restricted security environment than browsers give you. Maybe it does do what I want if you strip away all the Flash junk obscuring it, I just haven't seen that demonstrated. Aside from being interpreted rather than compiled, Microsoft's HTML Applications are really the closest thing I've seen to my Ultimate Vision, and I've actually used that platform to build major desktop applications.
  - untog 15y ago
    IIRC, you can make AIR apps using just HTML+JS. It has multiple modes (including Flash)- the HTML mode is a Webkit-based engine.
  - srid68 15y ago
    Will you be interested in testing such a application framework and are you sure that this will be useful for a lot of people. I am not sure why this is difficult. There are already solutions like this. The only problem i see are they are not cross platform or made simpler to experiment I visualized a service where I would like to upload my Web App (Html/Js/Css) and download a native apk/iap so that I can sign using my keys and submit to the App Store/App Market as My Native App. (First Version) I am sure this is solvable by lot of people in Hacker News. What I have working is just a cross platform micro web server embedded in exe, apk, iap, dmg* to run on Android/IOS/WP7*/Win/MacOsX/Linux which can host Html Applications (Html/Css/Javascript), but currently working on server side handlers to access native features. I am not sure whether there is any market for this type of app framework. I am exploring this to reduce my own workload in developing apps as a Senior Project Manager(Cannot create Enterprise Apps in 3 different Architectures (Java/ObjectiveC+/C#) even though you can unify the syntax to C# using Unity3D/MonoTouch/Mono for Android. My personal goal was to iterate faster on development and use C# & Native Code where appropriate. I don't want to be locked into any one architecture.

untog 15y ago

E.g., an HTML+CSS+JavaScript compiler that will take your web-app code and generate a native application for whatever target that behaves just like that source code would have if it were rendered in a browser. You are looking for Adobe AIR.

gliese1337 15y ago
Possibly. I looked at AIR briefly a while back, just before my lab transitioned away from Flash development, and while it does seem like it's on the right track, all I got out of it was that it's supposed to be used with ActionScript and runs JavaScript in an even more restricted security environment than browsers give you. Maybe it does do what I want if you strip away all the Flash junk obscuring it, I just haven't seen that demonstrated. Aside from being interpreted rather than compiled, Microsoft's HTML Applications are really the closest thing I've seen to my Ultimate Vision, and I've actually used that platform to build major desktop applications.
- untog 15y ago
  IIRC, you can make AIR apps using just HTML+JS. It has multiple modes (including Flash)- the HTML mode is a Webkit-based engine.
- srid68 15y ago
  Will you be interested in testing such a application framework and are you sure that this will be useful for a lot of people. I am not sure why this is difficult. There are already solutions like this. The only problem i see are they are not cross platform or made simpler to experiment I visualized a service where I would like to upload my Web App (Html/Js/Css) and download a native apk/iap so that I can sign using my keys and submit to the App Store/App Market as My Native App. (First Version) I am sure this is solvable by lot of people in Hacker News. What I have working is just a cross platform micro web server embedded in exe, apk, iap, dmg* to run on Android/IOS/WP7*/Win/MacOsX/Linux which can host Html Applications (Html/Css/Javascript), but currently working on server side handlers to access native features. I am not sure whether there is any market for this type of app framework. I am exploring this to reduce my own workload in developing apps as a Senior Project Manager(Cannot create Enterprise Apps in 3 different Architectures (Java/ObjectiveC+/C#) even though you can unify the syntax to C# using Unity3D/MonoTouch/Mono for Android. My personal goal was to iterate faster on development and use C# & Native Code where appropriate. I don't want to be locked into any one architecture.