Develop Reference

Is it possible to develop mobile keyboard app in flutter

We want to develop mobile keyboard app - (Third party keyboard) that have some unique features (such translate on the keyboard).
We would like to know if there is a way to developed it once both for IOS and Android, with Flutter, or any other solution?

There's a long and a short answer to this. The short answer is basically no, it's not feasible at this time to do this.
The long answer is that it may be somewhat possible but with a fairly large amount of work for you to do. You're going to have to first create and appropriate project type in android and ios, and then import the dart code & set up the build. You may be able to start with a normal flutter application and modify the xcode/gradle builds to match the specifics for ios/android, but I'd guess that's somewhat unlikely. So you'll probably still have to maintain two separate projects, but which could import the same dart library for the UI.
Because Android and iOS use different APIs for their keyboards, you're going to need to write a Platform Plugin or at least method channels which communicate between your app and the native code, for each of iOS and Android. You'll also probably have to embed the flutter view yourself - see this example as I'd bet the normal FlutterApplication etc won't apply.
I'd guess that on android you could probably get this to work eventually with a lot of work (depending on how familiar you are with android, platform channels, and integrating libraries such as flutter's into the build); on iOS you might have luck but it's somewhat conceivable that iOS blocks certain features that flutter needs in the keyboard for performance or security reasons - just guessing from my experiences developing apps in native iOS although I haven't done a keyboard specifically.
That being said, if you do try this I'd be interested to hear the results, and if you were to go about it in a somewhat generic way that could be re-used it would be of great benefit to the flutter community!

React Native & Android?

I'm contemplating on using React Native for a new web app. Is it possible to ship both iOS and Android apps using it?
I know that it's on the roadmap, but it's unclear to me whether it's going to be a separate open-source project (e.g., React Android vs React Native), or just one (e.g., React Native).

TLDR: Most likely you can. But it depends on your use cases.
You can aim for about 80~99+% code reuse (depending on how much Android/iOS native views/modules you use eg. Do you have custom graphics code or low-level TCP networking code; Those can only be done in native code; And expose as API to your JS code. The amount of the platform-specific JS code is actually minimal. Plus you can also use platform check like if (Platform.OS === 'android'){} to solve that) of code reuse, which is pretty nice. Dropbox and other companies have done similar projects: using c++ to build a 'shared' component between iOS and Android project, while implementing most of the UI code in native iOS(Objective-c or swift) and Android(java). But now you are doing C++ with Java and Objective-C or Swift, more language to master, more complexity and more brain juice went down the drain. And it probably took some super tough gymnastic move to make different native code work in both iOS and Android, plus debugging...
React Native just makes it a lot easier to write almost everything in JavaScript. But there is a catch, only about 80% of the JS code could be shared. In the foreseeable future, you still need to write 'platform-specific' JS code for Android and iOS versions.
That's why FB said they aim for 'Learn once, code anywhere' instead of 'run' everywhere.
But it's still very nice other than code reuse(80+% code reuse is still a big improvement comparing to maintaining 2 entirely different versions: Android and iOS ya?)
Cmd +R to refresh the app is a GREAT boost for development speed. Waiting for a big project to compile just makes you felt you were dying inside.
Declarative UI you get for free, because of using React. This is another great plus! As you don't need to 'dig' into your specific UI code that often anymore. Data changed? Just 'flush' it and UI just update accordingly. No brain juice wasted.
I just ported my not so complicated Android React Native App to iOS. And it took me 3 days. The request for and iOS version for the App came as a rather abrupt and unplanned move. So could definitely be even faster had I built the Android with a plan for iOS too. Huge win:)
Another great benefit is able to do hot code push without going through the hellish 1 week app store review process. So no more, "YAY, our app is approved. Let's release. Oh Shiiit. Critical bug and our app keeps crashing(that's gonna keep happening for at least a week before your fix is live). And you have to beg Apple to speed up the process". This is possible because the major part of the code base would be written in JS and with tools like AppHub or CodePush, you could almost instantly deploy code to your users. This is conditionally allowed by Apple.
3.3.2 An Application may not download or install executable code. Interpreted code may only be used in an Application if all scripts, code, and interpreters are packaged in the Application and not downloaded. The only exception to the foregoing is scripts and code downloaded and run by Apple's built-in WebKit framework, provided that such scripts and code do not change the primary purpose of the Application by providing features or functionality that are inconsistent with the intended and advertised purpose of the Application as submitted to the App Store.
Lastly, as an open-source project, project longevity tends to be a concern. Not an issue for React Native. Internally used by(FB Ads Manager) and backed by FB(a dozen FB Engineers?) by Facebook, with close to 500 contributors and 25k Stars, React Native is full of life. Seeing is believing :) (https://github.com/facebook/react-native)
EDIT 1
I realized that I am apparently a bit biased and only talked about the good stuff about React Native. So do checkout https://productpains.com/product/react-native/ and Github issues to have a full picture. It's definitely not silver bullet. That being said, it satisfies most of my use case and I couldn't see me use native iOS or Android anytime soon.
EDIT 2
The Facebook F8 conference app released by Facebook (duh..) is 100% open source and they have a really nice tutorial to show you how you could have both iOS and Android native experience(90% as good as native ?), and at the same time, achieved 85% code re-use. check it out --> https://makeitopen.com
EDIT 3
You may also want to checkout Flutter and its pros & cons :)

It doesn't make sense to have a single codebase if you want a truly native experience. At the moment we have things like NavigatorIOS in React Native which provides an iOS-style UI for navigating between app screens, but if we were to just start using that on Android it wouldn't feel like a true Android app.
Therefore I'd expect to see a NavigatorAndroid component or similar when the time comes, and the same for various other components that behave differently between the platforms.
One benefit that you would get is that any application logic - maybe a store, or your backend interactions - could be written in a JavaScript file and then included by both iOS and Android.
So while you won't get that write-once run-everywhere developer experience from React Native I would expect to see a solution that gives first-class UI on both platforms while encouraging as much reuse as possible. I personally also hope to see strong build tools to help develop and ship on multiple platforms.

React Native for Android has just been released, Android folder will be creating along side with iOS folder upon creating a new project.

Just another tip as NavigatorIOS was mentioned. Facebook are not really maintaining the code for NavigatorIOS. Instead they are focusing on Navigator.

Yes. We're running it in production with about 5m registered users.
Some things are a little behind iOS but catching up quickly. It's a good wagon to be on.

React Native is designed so that you can deploy to both iOS and Android. There is a caveat, of course.
React Native has supported iOS for much longer, coming to Android only recently. So, there are some differences in terms of what is supported on each platform.
For example, if you place borders on Text, they will show up on iOS, but not on Android. In order to overcome this, you need to place a View around the Text, and apply a border to that. Luckily, React Native makes it easy to integrate separate stylesheets for each platform (or even platform-specific styling on a single stylesheet).
Support for Android is continuously evolving, so it will only be a matter of time before React Native for Android is on par with iOS. Nevertheless, this shouldn't deter you. In my experience, it's a great way to quickly develop for both platforms, and it does save some headaches.

you don't need to maintenance separate code base for android & ios. Actually you can use same code base for build android & ios. I recommend to read the react-native documentation(according to react-native version you are using) before using any inbuilt component in your code.
Eg:- TextInput component onKeyPress function supports for ios only.
if ur are using external lib check these lib support for both ios and android.
Anyway you have to configure external lib separately(install) both android and ios.
hope this will helpful.

Howto integrate static code analysis (SonarCube) into ship.io for mobile projects?

We have a setup where we want to use https://ship.io/ as our cloud-based continuous-integration server.
However we also want to have some kind of static code analysis (preferably SonarCube but that is debatable), which isn't supported officially by ship.io.
The Projects are classic mobile Projects (Android and iOS).
I have seen some posts of people mentioning that they managed to setup this kind of configuration. SonarCube just has released a gradle plugin http://www.sonarsource.com/2015/06/15/sonarqube-gradle-1-0-released/ so the Android part should be doable.
However at the moment i have no idea what would be the best way do do this for the iOS part of the project.
We already contacted the ship.io team on this issue but did not recieve a response yet.
Any suggestions/insights on this?

My name is Tim Rosenblatt and I'm one of the senior engineers here at Ship.io. I'm not sure why you didn't get a reply from our support email, and I'm glad you posted about this here.
As Viktor mentioned, we definitely support custom scripts. You absolutely can run whatever you like during your build process with this type of step.
I've got a few links that should be helpful for you in getting SonarCube added to your Ship job, but you can definitely get in touch with us if anything isn't clear enough for you. You can use the in-app support icon at the bottom right of your dashboard, or just email me personally -- tim at ship dot io
http://support.ship.io/environment/install-software
http://support.ship.io/environment/custom-shell-scripts
Thanks!

You should be able to write a script (bash, ruby, ...) which runs your static code analysis and then call that script on your own Mac or on any CI which supports running custom scripts. AFAIK ship.io does support this, our service (https://bitrise.io/ - CTO here) certainly does.

Portable Mobile/Tablet application proof of concept

I need to develop a portable application mainly for Windows 8.1 and iPad, but could be expanded for Android, WP and iOS later.
The application consists of calling web services to display data in grids and it contains CRUD operation, and it may save some local data for offline mode then synchronizes later when connectivity is up.
I'm torn between too many solutions, I need your advise for better solution.
1- Solution 1: Go Native for each OS (VS for Windows 8.1 [RT and pro] and xCode for iPad): this solution requires code duplication, logic and UI.
2- HTML5 with WebView app: I think this is a weak solution especially that we have local storage, checking for connectivity and calling ws ...
3- Using Xamarin: I think Xamarin does not support WinRT or Windows 8.1 to share logic code between iPad and Windows 8.1
4- Using Xamarin.Forms: Building the UI is tough and also it does not support Windows 8.1.
From your perspective, what is the best solution? please advices if you have any other proof of concept.
Many Thanks.

Most of the html/hibrid frameworks like Cordova (cordova.apache.org), Ionic (http://ionicframework.com/), etc, uses a native WebView on Android. Until Kitkat the performance of WebView is not production-ready and if you've a list with a lot of elements, the scroll experience is really bad.
If you want to do a simple proof of concept, prototype or whatever, I think that html frameworks are a good alternative. But if you are going to put your bussiness on top of one of this framworks, I would not recommend.
There is an alternative to embed a Chrome using Cordova & crosswalk (https://crosswalk-project.org/documentation/cordova.html) but you will end with an APK ~40Mb for a simple hello world.

Just my 2 cents. I don't see a point in using libraries that are unsupported across the platforms you plan to release and support on. Personally, I'd code natively for each platform. While this takes a lot of work, if you have to ask for direction on which path you want to take your application, then this type of project sounds more like a "you reap what you sow" application. Also, you'll be able to directly support each problem without having to wait for patches, but there are 2 sides to that coin as well. Your opportunity cost is missing future features the library will provide, if it's worth it to you.

If you aim at quality, going native is the only way... You can reduce the amount of work like Google is doing: writing the business logic and unit tests in Java, then converting it to ObjC with J2ObjC and to Javascript with GWT.
In your case, being that Java is a dumbed-down version of C#, you can easily find tools to convert to the latter, finding yourself with native business logic for every platform! That should account for 50%-70% of the codebase...

I think going with HTML5 with webapp view is better option.
Using Cordova (Phonegap) most of the native features are easily achievable in HTML webapp.
PhoneGap Platform Guide
Alot of other plugins are available for the advances features like BLE, NFC.
Calling webservice is really not an issue in HTML5.
Simple ajax is enough, however now a days many advanced frameworks are available which makes your work easy. One of the best among them is Angular JS(maintained by Google ).
Angular JS
For database you can access native database of the target OS or SQLite db of the mobile device.
You can check this link
Storage options
So developing a webapp can be a more efficient solution in your case. It can be best way for you as per my view point. However, you can do some R & D and can find the appropriate for you.

how to use mono in my cross platform project

I've been searching solutions for my enterprise apps, at least 3 platforms need to be supported, which are iOS, Android and Window Phone. After a whole day's search, I finally set my eyes on 2 promising cross platform solutions, one is monocross and the other phonegap.
monocross seems to use c# and .net at all, is it possible to access native libraries and languages? I read somewhere it's compiled directly into binaries that can execute on target platforms.
And about phonegap, it uses webviews on each platform to provide the capabilities of presenting user interfaces to final users. As it's implemented via interpreted language and high level apis, the performance may not meet our needs.
Finally, we(my team) decide to give it a try with mono, the architecture is illustrated as bellow:
+++++++++++++++++++++representation layer++++++++++++++++++++++++++
[monotouch,monodroid,silverlight]or [native gui calls] or [html5/js/css]
+++++++++++++representation controller/business logic layer+++++++++++++++
[ mono/c# ]
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++server side+++++++++++++++++++++++++++
[ the cloud ]
I want to use mono/c# to write some common purpose business logic and data structures, and when it comes to some common platform features, like storage service, notifications, I'd like to wrap them up on each platform and expose uniform apis for c#(business logic layer) to use. As to the representation layer, we decide to choose from the 3 optional solutions listed above.
To make this happening, first I have to figure out if it is possible to call native frameworks.
So, my questions are:
1, How does mono work, I mean, are the c# codes compiled into binaries that can be executed directly on iOS, Android and Windows Phone?
2, Is there a mechanism to make native invocations? Like in cocos2d-x, I can call java methods via JNI, and in iOS, c++ can call oc directly. Can I call cocoa touch stuffs in mono with c#?
3, Is it possible to manage all these stuffs in one single project, and how to build them?
4, Are there any better solutions?
Any suggestions will be appreciated, thanks for your patience!

I wonder why Xamarin does not land on the first page of your search result,
http://xamarin.com/features
But that's what the Mono guys created for the C# developers that want to target mobile platforms. MonoTouch and Mono for Android are there each featuring a common library base with Microsoft .NET, and also platform specific bindings.
Your non-UI code should be able to be used in portable libraries and share among them. Microsoft's portable library is Windows specific, and right now I am not sure how much Mono guys can embrace that, but even if PCL fails, you can create multiple platform specific projects based on the same copy of source files (which I did in #SNMP). The remaining task is to develop platform specific UI for Windows Phone, iOS, and Android.
There are tons of articles showing the features,
http://docs.xamarin.com/
and also many successful apps
http://xamarin.com/apps
The best way to learn a product is to try it out (for free in Xamarin's case). This also applies to MonoCross (which is a framework built upon Mono).
I am not familiar with PhoneGap, so you need someone's advice on that.

Disclaimer: this is not a complete answer - but I do hope it answers at least part of your question
I encountered a similar problem when I started cross-platform dev using the Mono products 18 months ago.
The approach I've built since is called MvvmCross - it forked off of MonoCross a long time ago - now shares no code with it (but maybe we'll team up again one day!).
The approach uses PCLs to share code. This is not entirely painless, but is easy after you've done a few setup steps - http://slodge.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/cross-platform-winrt-monodroid.html
You can learn more about this approach on this video: http://slodge.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/mvvmcross-video-presentation-xaminar.html