There is no doubt that MonoTouch is one of the great cross-compiler(s). Similarly, SenchaTouch is one of the great HTML 5 Web App Kit.
I know a little about both of them however i made a very small application using MonoTouch for iPad, certainly MonoTouch (and particularly with supporting XCode) is awesome. But i did not tried SenchaTouch
The advantage of using MonoTouch is that you can write c#; consequently i really enjoy it owing to the fact that i am a c# developer; In contrast a disadvantage of SenchaTouch for me is Java language and i really did not find any IDE like visual studio or xcode to Drag&Drop UI(s) and it generate the Xml Code
Many are in this view that on account of the fact that MonoTouch is a Cross-Compiler; Consequently the applications developed by MonoTouch is not as fast as others like SenchaTouch .
I am really looking for a good advise from you,
Your advise is welcome here.
Regards,
S. Peyman Mortazavi
Monotouch is not a cross-compiler, and even if it were that alone would not cause a performance penalty.
Monotouch is a .Net compatible runtime that runs on iOS embedded within a normal c/obj-c program. It includes bindings for more or less the same things you can do from normal iOS apps. Monotouch apps are AOT compiled rather than JIT compiled so in most cases they run just as fast as "normal apps"
The fact that SenchaTouch is a javascript framework suggests to me that you will be running mainly interpretted code. I'm sure the Sencha people have done a good job but I would be suprised if it were faster than mono. Looking at Sencha, one advantage is that you can write for android, blackberry and iOS. You can share much of your code between MonoTouch and Mono for Android, you need two licenses and can't share everything.
Don't forget that with the upcoming Windows Phone, you will be able to support this platform as well if you use C# - you will be able to re-use you libraries the contain the shared code.
Related
I know that Mono Touch enables developing with nearly one source code and deploy to Android, iOs and Windows Mobile. There will of course be 3 projects and some platform related code but I will have important common code in C#.
But I also need my development to work on standard Windows 7 and 8 (non mobile).
Can I do this with Mono Touch and I yes what is the development process ?
I think you should check out my answer to this question: Consuming ViewModels in MonoDroid / MonoTouch
In general, you should create a shared class library that will be used on all platforms.
This class library would then be consumed by as many UIs as you need, such as MonoTouch, Mono for Android, WP7, Windows, Metro, etc.
I'm developing an application separately for both Android and iOS using their native SDKs.
However, there's a some module in the application that should support basic 2D (it can also be 3D) abilities such as tilting, scaling, rotating of vector graphics + all kinds of optional fancy effects on simple textured planes for example.
I'd like to host this module inside some kine of a view and that its code will be shared between both the iOS and Android platforms, as much as possible.
I've been lurking around the web for all kinds of solutions.
First of all there's OpenGL, the problem is that I'm not familiar with coding for OpenGL and I wasn't able to understand if the code I will be writing with OpenGL will be shareable between the 2 platforms. It seems like no one actually had really tried to do it with NDK and such.
There are platforms like
a. Clutter (http://www.clutter-project.org/) - Which I couldn't find any example for its usage on mobile devices.
b. Platforms like Unity3D, though I don't think they could help me much because as far as I understand the whole application must run on their platform, and that's not what I'm looking for.
So, do you guys think that it is feasible to share 2d/3d code between the iOS and Android?
If so, is there any method you could recommend?
Or should I just go with each device's native method for 2d or 3d graphics?
Thanks!
Kivy: an open source cross-platform programming language for writing OpenGL-powered drawings, interfaces, visuals, anything, for Linux, Windows, MacOSX, Android and iOS. kivy.org
You can potentially drop using Android or iOS native widgets for Kivy widgets and you're apps will have the same OpenGL-powered interface on all platforms.
EDIT 9/27/11 1pm: I've done some more research. All in all, you should check out these 4 open-source frameworks for yourself and decide which one is best for you (I could list commercial frameworks, but those are easy to find):
Kivy (kivy.org)
Amazing GUI and Widgets library.
HaxeNME (haxenme.org)
Very nice 2D/3D API for making OpenGL graphics.
Amazing cross-platform support. The best of all the frameworks.
Unfortunately, no GUI or Widget library is built in though.
Qt Quick QML (qt-project.org)
Very nice 2D/3D API for making OpenGL graphics.
Similar to HTML, but for OpenGL. Already know HTML and JavaScript? QML (Quick Markup Language) includes basic necessities like text fields, radio buttons, check boxes, etc, which can be animated and controlled with event handlers. Animations, event handlers, etc, in your QML application are written in JavaScript; the difference is the JavaScript gets compiled instead of interpreted.
Qt Quick is really amazing; my personal favorite. Read up on Qt Quick QML then try the Animated Tiles app for Android to see Qt Quick's potential. The newest release of Qt (coming very soon) support iOS, Android, and Blackberry, and all desktop OSes. Windows Phone is a work in progress but will arrive soon considering that Qt Quick already supports Windows 8's Metro platform. Qt Quick is very nice, but it doesn't work on every single platform like HaxeNME does.
MoSync (mosync.com)
A hidden gem. This framework needs more exposure. The MoSync SDK provides a cross-platform OpenGL framework, an HTML/JavaScript framework similar to PhoneGap, a NativeUI framework for writing apps across platforms that use each platform's native UI widgets, and MAUI for writing C++ GUIs.
If you were gunna settle on just writing pure OpenGL, then I'd at least recommend checking out MoSync, as it provides a 1-to-1 implementation of OpenGL ES 1.0/2.0.
Also, if your app will be form based (not so much animated like a game), then PhoneGap might suit your needs. If you use the right features of HTML5, you can make apps that feel native (unlike the many horrible and discouraging examples out there). If you'd like to try an app made with PhoneGap that feels "native", try "Go 2012". The Go 2012 apps proves that if you use HTML5 correctly, you can take advantage of hardware acceleration across platforms (iOS, Android, Blackberry, and Windows Phone (I tested it on all)). The animations (scrolling, etc) in Go 2012 are all CSS3 hardware-accelerated animations. Don't let the poor quality of most of the app in the PhoneGap showcase fool you!
Use OpenGL ES and write the code in C. Write a NDK wrapper for Android. Theoretically, your open GL C code should be reusable between the 2 platforms.
Have you ever herd about small company name Adobe
Try using Air.
People do not appreciate the hard work that Adobe did, but it is the most strong cross platform available in market!
It support:
Windows with DirectX access to speed up your app, both in 3D and 2D.
Linux
Android (2.2 and above) with OpenGL background
iOS with OpenGL
BlackBerry
And many more... If you wish to work on the high level, use Air!
As the topic states - is there any technology that would let me write code for a simple commercial 2D game which could be then compiled to work well on Android, iOS and Web browsers or at least two of them (e.g. Android and iOS)? There is so much buzz about cross-platform nowadays that I was wondering if I'm missing something.
My goal (set by my producer) is to make this game for all of these three platforms, and so far I planned to use:
- Web browsers: Adobe Flex,
- Android phones: Java (since my favourite C++ is recommended only for short snippets),
- iPad/iPhone/iPod: Objective-C (are there any alternatives?).
It pretty much means re-writing the same source code three times. Is there any way to speed it up by using a technology that would work on at least both of them?
However, I don't want to use Adobe Flex for all three (though it's possible), because it requires Adobe AIR (works only with Android 2.2 and higher) and not a lot of phones have it (it's totally different with browsers where 98% of people have Flash).
I don't mind adding some platform-specific code for each version, of course.
Also, if you have any suggestions about choosing a fancier technology for any of the platforms (maybe some nice frameworks?), I'd really appreciate that, too.
Take a look at Corona and Moai both are Lua-based frameworks for game development targeting multiple platforms.
I would like to say that Multimedia Fusion was capable of doing this, but it isn't quite ready yet. There are currently a number of runtime exporters for the product which allow you to export your game to multiple target platforms which include flash, java and iOS at the moment. XNA and Android exporters are currently in the works. I should probably mention that I am only affiliated with these guys as a happy consumer of their products. It is probably worth checking it out even if they can't do everything you want yet. If it's not suitable for your needs it is still a very good choice if you wish to rapidly prototype your application.
See:
http://www.clickteam.com
On a side note, personally I would recommend against going down the js+html5 route, particularly if you are targeting mobiles. I should probably stress that it's simply an opinion I have and that there are plenty of people here who will disagree with me. In all javascript games I have played, I have felt the garbage collector. The issue is that without control over garbage collection it is free to run when it feels like, causing infrequent but very obvious pauses in the middle of your game. You can work around this but I don't see why it should be that difficult. I can definitely align with the ideals of being able to write the thing once and run it on all platforms, but I can't see it working just yet.
To offer some advice assuming you find no suitable tools for the job, your aim is to maximise reusability. This means all of your games resources and levels should be well defined as independent resources. For non-critical logic you can make use of embeddable scripting languages such as Lua, which will maximise your code reuse. C (or C++) code will also be reusable on a lot of platforms, and might be a good choice if you are familiar and confident with the language.
I'm personally using Phonegap and Zepto.js. But you may have more luck with jQuery mobile. Phonegap is nice because its website will compile the apps for you.
1) If you write your game in C++ you can use it for iPhone & Android (NDK) as well. Preferably, you write your game engine in C++, than you can use a OS specific layer for UI stuff..
2) Implement your game in HTML & Javascript. iPhone/Android users will have to use a webbrowser to play your game. For iPhone, you can even create a launcher, that looks like an app, but actually is a webview with HTML & Javascript
Unity3D should be able to do this for you, if you purchase some extra sprite addins to handle 2D (like Ex2D or SM2 or Toolkit 2D). Also right now until Apr 8, the iOS and Android license is free.
Game Maker Studio. It has a package that let's you deploy on all of the platforms you outlined.
http://www.yoyogames.com/gamemaker/studio
I know C# rather well and just love Visual Studio as IDE. :) Yet now I want to start developing for android...
I found out about MonoDroid and wanted to ask if it has any downsides to it that would make Java more preferable, or should I uninstall Eclipse and dive straight into MonoDroid?
If I understand right, MonoDroid deploys/compiles native android applications and does not need any additional .net-like framework or anything?
Are there any significant limitations to what I can do with MonoDroid? For example, having the app run in the background or using some external .net libraries for image editing, etc. ?
I've been worrying about the same thing - productivity in C# instead of playing with an unfamiliar language, vs developing how the OS developers intended it to be.
Its easy to list pros vs cons -
pros (of monodroid, for C# developers)
familiar dev environment, can develop using Visual Studio
C# instead of Java
Reusable code assets - you can use a lot of code in your iphone project or Windows phone 7 project using monotouch and the WP7 SDK.
cons -
debugging could be difficult, due to lack of api documentation from Google. Will have to depend solely on monodroid documentation.
there could be a lag when it comes to latest cutting edge features - safe to assume that the monodroid team will require some time to wrap around the latest android features every time there is a new OS release
availability of libraries - I am not sure how you can use the open source libraries that would have evolved around the android platform, that could cut down on development time
Much of the documentation available is in Java: so if you run into difficulties with phone behavior when using MonoDroid you won't really find that much help or debugging information so you may want to stick with Eclipse.
There's a lot more than just a set of wrappers running under davlick, truth to be told, there is much more of a horizontal relationship between MonoDroid and Android;
When did using the same language as the OS developers become a big issue? There's lots of C++ programmers wondering how to use BSD or SVR5 and many C programmers who want to know what the heck to do on Windows++...
If you will write in c# anyway you will be have to wrap it into a Java code, so what's the point ? Also you may head with a very difficult issues while trying to understand the APIs who written for Java programming...
Here are some points that you can mull over:
Android applications are predominately written with Java. The Android SDK itself is natively written in Java.
Working in Mono may not provide all the functionality available in the Java SDK.
If you are a C# Developer you wont be able to find, in Java, some of the (cool) features available in C# (like Property Delegates etc).
Code written in .NET can be re-used for other environments - this may save a lot time that would have been spent learning a new language/environment (like Objective C), and coding in it.
.NET extends the Android development stack with it's existing libraries and API's.
I think both are good for certain reason. It will be very hard to say which one is preferable for Android development - in the end that is up to you too decide.
Also note that any release build using monodroid adds an additional 4mb to the apk filesize and increases app startup time with a few seconds.
For simple apps this can mean a 500-800% increase in filesize - whic is pretty bad in my book.
I'd like to start creating Android apps but I don't like Java. I read that scala can be used to do it. Are there another option?(Clojure?)
I'm a Python/Django developer so it would be great to learn a pretty different language.
At this point Scala is the one that is most mature..I wanted to try groovy myself but its not even out of alpha..
Plus Scala on android has docs..:)
It's not hard to do with Mirah (formerly Duby), a very young language based on Ruby that compiles to bytecode that's basically indistinguishable from Java's, but adds some great new features like closures, type inference, and obviously a Ruby-like syntax. It's particularly well-suited for Android because it has no runtime or standard library (it uses compiler plugins instead) outside the JDK, whereas basically all other JVM languages bring along a lot of baggage, especially languages that weren't designed to target the JVM (like Ruby and Python).
http://github.com/technomancy/Garrett
Much nicer than writing Java!
for clojure development a useful tutorial: http://riddell.us/ClojureAndAndroidWithEmacsOnUbuntu.html
Clojure gets a LOT of benefit from android-2.2's JIT compiler and has not really been widely adopted on previous versions.
Appcelerator Titanium is an awesome environment for using web-ish skills (like HTML, CSS, and JavaScript) to build native apps for Android (and iPhone, and desktops, etc.). For example, the gang at Intridea have made several popular Android & iPhone apps with Titanium Mobile, including the OilReporter app that has been used for gathering data on the extent of the Gulf oil spill.
If you use Python, maybe SL4A (Scripting Layer for Android) is a good choice.
You could write python script that runs on Android and use Android API, but it also has a drawback that you need install Python/SL4A runtime library on your Android device.
In addition to the other solutions listed here previously, you have:
PhoneGap
Rhodes
AIR (pre-release)
AppInventor
Clojure
Another immature implementation is JRuby/Ruboto: http://blog.danieljackoway.com/first-ruboto-release.html