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We use webviews, but try to intelligently integrate them into the app. Things like back button, transitions, caching, and offline mode are designed to work aut

by weiyin 12y ago

We use webviews, but try to intelligently integrate them into the app. Things like back button, transitions, caching, and offline mode are designed to work automatically w/ little or no configuration.

krrishd 12y ago
Out of curiosity, how hard is it to build something that could parse HTML markup and some CSS stylings and convert that into native views? Assume that the HTML markup and CSS is all done as per your documentation, so that the parser works as expected every time.
- nkozyra 12y ago
  Almost impossible in an automated fashion. You can extract all of the data but it's very hard to know what links are supposed to do, how pieces of content should be presented, etc.
  - krrishd 12y ago
    What if there was a standard created for the markup, so that the parser would know what the links were supposed to do and how the content shoud be presented, because there would be structured data everywhere specific to the parser?
    - nkozyra 12y ago
      I immediately thought about that after posting, but in reality markup is a clunky and expensive way to dictate this and it would create a lot of waste for something that would be used infrequently. An interesting idea that comes to mind is the concept of a Mobile Stylesheet / .mss file that would define elements by ID / class and dictate what those elements would represent in a mobile UI. Then you wouldn't have a bunch of needless data-mobile-intent="blah"
      - krrishd 12y ago
        That does sound like a good idea, definitely preferable to keep the markup a bit cleaner. Honestly, I don't know if I care as much for a web-view based product, as Phonegap/Cordova have already been serving that purpose (at least for me), but what you've mentioned, if implemented, would definitely be something I'd use.
- mike415 12y ago
  As @nkozyra says, understanding what all the links do is hard, however there are automated ways of converting common types of webpage layouts into structure data for native presentation. For example, our startup (shameless plug) utilizes a computer vision technology to automatically extract structured data from articles, images, products, and videos, etc: http://diffbot.com/products/automatic/ http://diffbot.com/products/automatic/. These can then be used to present native-experience views.
  - lbotos 12y ago
    Out of curiosity, I'd love to learn more about your stack. Any blog posts handy?
    - mike415 12y ago
      C++/Java/Python and turtles all the way down. More seriously, as a more researchy/deep-tech startup, most of our stack is homegrown, to address the very specific needs of web-scale machine vision.
  - cheese1756 12y ago
    I was actually just looking at your startup for an application I'm building. Nice to see you on HN! Do you have an email I can use to ask you about cross-promotional opportunities?

by weiyin 12y ago

krrishd 12y ago

Out of curiosity, how hard is it to build something that could parse HTML markup and some CSS stylings and convert that into native views? Assume that the HTML markup and CSS is all done as per your documentation, so that the parser works as expected every time.

nkozyra 12y ago
Almost impossible in an automated fashion. You can extract all of the data but it's very hard to know what links are supposed to do, how pieces of content should be presented, etc.
- krrishd 12y ago
  What if there was a standard created for the markup, so that the parser would know what the links were supposed to do and how the content shoud be presented, because there would be structured data everywhere specific to the parser?
  - nkozyra 12y ago
    I immediately thought about that after posting, but in reality markup is a clunky and expensive way to dictate this and it would create a lot of waste for something that would be used infrequently. An interesting idea that comes to mind is the concept of a Mobile Stylesheet / .mss file that would define elements by ID / class and dictate what those elements would represent in a mobile UI. Then you wouldn't have a bunch of needless data-mobile-intent="blah"
    - krrishd 12y ago
      That does sound like a good idea, definitely preferable to keep the markup a bit cleaner. Honestly, I don't know if I care as much for a web-view based product, as Phonegap/Cordova have already been serving that purpose (at least for me), but what you've mentioned, if implemented, would definitely be something I'd use.
mike415 12y ago
As @nkozyra says, understanding what all the links do is hard, however there are automated ways of converting common types of webpage layouts into structure data for native presentation. For example, our startup (shameless plug) utilizes a computer vision technology to automatically extract structured data from articles, images, products, and videos, etc: http://diffbot.com/products/automatic/ http://diffbot.com/products/automatic/. These can then be used to present native-experience views.
- lbotos 12y ago
  Out of curiosity, I'd love to learn more about your stack. Any blog posts handy?
  - mike415 12y ago
    C++/Java/Python and turtles all the way down. More seriously, as a more researchy/deep-tech startup, most of our stack is homegrown, to address the very specific needs of web-scale machine vision.
- cheese1756 12y ago
  I was actually just looking at your startup for an application I'm building. Nice to see you on HN! Do you have an email I can use to ask you about cross-promotional opportunities?