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Could anybody with experience building mobile webapps comment on jQuery Mobile vs Sencha Touch? It seems like if you are not building with responsive HTM5/CSS3

Could anybody with experience building mobile webapps comment on jQuery Mobile vs Sencha Touch? It seems like if you are not building with responsive HTM5/CSS3 you may as well use a JS library for better UI. These are the two biggest names I have seen and it is difficult figuring out if either one is worth the time.

krat0sprakhar 14y ago
I was working on making a mobile web app a few weeks back and after quickly deciding that a js framework would be better than a responsive site (lots of widgets, built-in ajax functionality and push-state) I tried both jQ mobile and jQ Touch[0]. Both are quite similar in most respects(learning curve, widgets, etc.) However, if you're looking to completely overhaul the look then jq Mobile, IMHO, is not that great. I found the themeroller[1] to be clunky and difficult to use and would've preferred writing css. jqTouch, on the other hand, is quite customizable (allows SASS based theming). [0] - http://www.jqtouch.com/ http://www.jqtouch.com/ [1] - http://jquerymobile.com/themeroller/index.php http://jquerymobile.com/themeroller/index.php
- proexploit 14y ago
  There's nothing that prevents you from writing CSS for JQM. The ThemeRoller is simply a setup tool intended to make it easier for the masses. I've actually found there's very little customization needed based on the JQM structural base CSS. See: http://code.jquery.com/mobile/1.3.0/jquery.mobile.structure-1.3.0.css http://code.jquery.com/mobile/1.3.0/jquery.mobile.structure-...
camus 14y ago
Sencha Touch is derived from jQtouch code base and is really fast compared to jQueryMobile. jQM is slow but is easier to start with than Sench Touch. But Sencha Touch really is a great product.
jakejake 14y ago
Sencha and jquery mobile have slightly different techniques. With Jquery your app is an HTML page with your own markup which is then styled and functionality is added to your elements by the framework. I find it more designer-oriented compared to sencha. With Sencha your app is usually just a single div and everything is done through JavaScript. I find it more programmer-oriented. It has been a couple of versions since I used sencha seriously but that is how it was at the time.
lux 14y ago
Can't compare with Sencha Touch, but the one app I built with jQuery Mobile started out okay, and seemed to be saving us time at the prototyping stage. We also hoped it might save time later by reusing the same codebase on both iOS and Android. The reality was that though it helped while prototyping, it required workarounds to do anything more complex than the token tabs+list-view/sub-view style app, and we ended up disabling all of jQuery Mobile's transitions and effects in order to get it to be performant (BIG difference there!). In the end, I'd say the costs outweighed the benefits in our case. Next time, I'll just use one of the more general-purpose JS frameworks and custom style the UI myself.
nobleach 14y ago
I've used both on apps that have been released to the various app stores. I've used jQuery for years so logically I thought jQuery Mobile would make the most sense. I used version 1.2 and it was just mediocre. It'll get the job done. There were definitely some hurdles. I liked being able to design my interface in HTML with CSS. My experience with Sencha was completely different. It was very hard getting started as I had to relearn the Sencha/ExtJS way. I began to like the way each page/panel is "described" as JSON in a JS file. It's a completely different way of skinning a cat. Things like stores/models/views/controllers are baked into the framework. Support was absolutely abysmal. I think there were a couple of guys on their dev forums that actually knew their stuff. Quite a few "it works fine for me" type answers. Things blatantly left out of the docs which may be fine for normal users, but was extremely painful for a newbie. In the end, I really liked the results from Sencha far more than anything I'd ever done in jQuery Mobile. I will say, my app in Sencha was extremely "templatey" which means it looked like a stock iPhone app... nothing custom at all.

krat0sprakhar 14y ago

I was working on making a mobile web app a few weeks back and after quickly deciding that a js framework would be better than a responsive site (lots of widgets, built-in ajax functionality and push-state) I tried both jQ mobile and jQ Touch[0]. Both are quite similar in most respects(learning curve, widgets, etc.) However, if you're looking to completely overhaul the look then jq Mobile, IMHO, is not that great. I found the themeroller[1] to be clunky and difficult to use and would've preferred writing css. jqTouch, on the other hand, is quite customizable (allows SASS based theming). [0] - http://www.jqtouch.com/ http://www.jqtouch.com/ [1] - http://jquerymobile.com/themeroller/index.php http://jquerymobile.com/themeroller/index.php

proexploit 14y ago
There's nothing that prevents you from writing CSS for JQM. The ThemeRoller is simply a setup tool intended to make it easier for the masses. I've actually found there's very little customization needed based on the JQM structural base CSS. See: http://code.jquery.com/mobile/1.3.0/jquery.mobile.structure-1.3.0.css http://code.jquery.com/mobile/1.3.0/jquery.mobile.structure-...

camus 14y ago

Sencha Touch is derived from jQtouch code base and is really fast compared to jQueryMobile. jQM is slow but is easier to start with than Sench Touch. But Sencha Touch really is a great product.

jakejake 14y ago

Sencha and jquery mobile have slightly different techniques. With Jquery your app is an HTML page with your own markup which is then styled and functionality is added to your elements by the framework. I find it more designer-oriented compared to sencha. With Sencha your app is usually just a single div and everything is done through JavaScript. I find it more programmer-oriented. It has been a couple of versions since I used sencha seriously but that is how it was at the time.

lux 14y ago

Can't compare with Sencha Touch, but the one app I built with jQuery Mobile started out okay, and seemed to be saving us time at the prototyping stage. We also hoped it might save time later by reusing the same codebase on both iOS and Android. The reality was that though it helped while prototyping, it required workarounds to do anything more complex than the token tabs+list-view/sub-view style app, and we ended up disabling all of jQuery Mobile's transitions and effects in order to get it to be performant (BIG difference there!). In the end, I'd say the costs outweighed the benefits in our case. Next time, I'll just use one of the more general-purpose JS frameworks and custom style the UI myself.

nobleach 14y ago

I've used both on apps that have been released to the various app stores. I've used jQuery for years so logically I thought jQuery Mobile would make the most sense. I used version 1.2 and it was just mediocre. It'll get the job done. There were definitely some hurdles. I liked being able to design my interface in HTML with CSS. My experience with Sencha was completely different. It was very hard getting started as I had to relearn the Sencha/ExtJS way. I began to like the way each page/panel is "described" as JSON in a JS file. It's a completely different way of skinning a cat. Things like stores/models/views/controllers are baked into the framework. Support was absolutely abysmal. I think there were a couple of guys on their dev forums that actually knew their stuff. Quite a few "it works fine for me" type answers. Things blatantly left out of the docs which may be fine for normal users, but was extremely painful for a newbie. In the end, I really liked the results from Sencha far more than anything I'd ever done in jQuery Mobile. I will say, my app in Sencha was extremely "templatey" which means it looked like a stock iPhone app... nothing custom at all.