I want to know if it's possible to design my android app UI with HTML5 and CSS3.
If it's possible, is there any performance issue?
Android has WebView which can render HTML content, but it doesn't provide the same user experience as native apps so its use is generally discouraged.
Yes it possible. As rhoadster91 stated, you can use a normal Android WebView which loads your "index.html". All your HTML files should be in the "assets/www" directory. But you'll find plenty tutorials out there which explain everything step by step. Have a look at Googles developer site.
A second possibility would be Phonegap. It is a little tool which helps you to deploy your app for various devices (Android, iOS, WP,...) while coding your app only once in HTML.
I experimented with jquery mobile, native application and phonegap. Building a web application at first seemed very attractive at first as the coding is a lot easier compared to native applications. Here is my opinion based on my research:
Using phonegap slows your application responses, it loads slowly and together with jquery mobile the response and load time increases. So I didnot use it.
Using jquery alone was no different in Gingerbread mobile and on emulator you can clearly see the lag in switching between one div to another div. I didnot use it either.
What I did was use android Webview. I wrote my own javascript and css and placed them on the head section of my page. Used div for changing pages on button click. This approach worked really good giving nearly native performance.
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I have to design a android,ios application for my website.I searched and find out that phonegap can be good one for that.Please provide me info that how to get the content of website in phonegap?On the first page i have buttons like home,contact etc.On click of home button,the home page from website should be shown.
PhoneGap is set of libraries like jQuery.
You normally write html pages and include javascript files from phonegap.
Check out phonegap example project.
Look, what you are talking about is .html,.css,.js files that you can easily get after saving any web page from your web-browser.
Rest you can use in the www folder of your phonegap project. And I
would rather suggest you to go for webview present in the native
android that is nothing but actually would provide you the same
functionality that you have been looking for.
---Edit---
Now as you have said that you want the home page buttons like about us etc. that would be copied via web browser and would be there for you as far as the html code is concerned but if you want it to look well on a small mobile device that you should create a responsive designed html and you should read some good articles about responsive web design. That would actually change your way of thinking about creating applications via html within mobile devices.
I don't quite understand the cordova plugin procedure.
I found out that it works through the Cordova Webview, but I don't know which
functions and classes are necessary.
It would be great if someone had the time to explain it, a sequencediagramm would be the best for understanding.
greetings, Kurt
This may help you to understand more:
Using WebViews
A WebView uses the same rendering and JavaScript engine as the browser, but it runs under the control of your application. The WebView can be full screen or you can mix it with other Views. The content for your WebView can come from anywhere. The WebView can download content from the web, or it can come from local files stored in your assets directory. The content can even be dynamically generated by your application code.
and
Android WebView, Javascript and CSS
I have come across some situations where I had to use a WebView to display some HTML content. Displaying HTML content is pretty straight-forward. But when it comes to controlling the web view, it gets a little complex. Things like showing alerts, manipulating divs and controlling the activity (closing/finishing). This example shows a few techniques that will get you going with Javascript and CSS with WebView.
I have developed a Phonegap application, and am now trying to run it in the android emulator. My problem is that the application doesn't scroll in the emulator or device, but it works well in a normal browser like mozilla or chrome. Butwhen I test in the emulator or device then it doesn't scroll.
Here is my html file http://pastie.org/3981916
And here is my css file http://pastie.org/3981918
I am not able to find a solution to this problem, can any one help me out please?
well you cant get the normal html scroll behavior when trying to create a app using phonegap on android.
you cant get the overflow:scroll effect for any of the html elements.
you'll need to make use of third party libraries such as jquerymobile, iscroll4, etcfor getting the native look and feel.
or also you can construct your own logic
I am programming an Android keyboard. Right now I reached the point where I have to rewrite the KeyboardView and I'm asking myself why not to switch to an Webapp instead of a native Android app. Thereby I could later easily deploy the application for other platforms whithout the need of rewriting.
My approach would be to use the Android App as an container for my web app probaply in combination with GWT. I am also considering using PhoneGap.
The problem is that so far I haven't found anything about people using webapps for an InputMethod. Now I'm wondering if it's reasonable or even possible to use webapps for this task or if they are only suitable for normal activities.
Has anyone tried doing this before or some hints why or why not it is possible?
i have developed an app, running on iphone and android, using phonegap and jquery mobile.
The combination of them is really great.
To support multi platform, I have also evaluated some other platforms too, but the problem that i have is that the UI does not feel native (and although not a problem for most apps performance cannot be compared with native).
The only solution so far giving acces to native UI seems to be monotouch.
Do you have any suggestions on platforms offering native ui at least on iphone and android, regardless of language used?
Thanks.
The only way to have native UI response is to write native apps.
The native UI is a puzzle indeed. You need read HIG firstly, cook UI with color and images to get close with system default ones. But if you are using PhoneGap thing, why do you even worry about it? Just rely on framework to get close the look and feel. Get your app really useful is more attractive than looking accustomed for user.
But it is important to adjust interactive design to avoid conflict. For example iOS navigation bar has return button in left most part, don't put it at right. And Android user will get disappoint if there is no response for long pressing or context menu key pressing.
for now i will go with a mixed on js based on phonegap and native controls plugin which i will extend as needed.