[LRUG] Frameworks for Mobile Development with Ruby

[Kenneth Lee]

Any mobile app can talk to any back-end so my first point is not worth 
discussing, as all you're doing is talking http via xml or json.

As for building mobile apps that's a topic of it's on. You can simply 
build a mobile web optimised site which essentially is like a webpage 
(HTML/JS/CSS) that looks good on a mobile browser. One up from that you 
can take that site and extract the HTML/JS/CSS and wrap it in a WebView 
App, common one here is PhoneGap which is just an app that fires up an 
internal browser and loads the webpage using local files (bit like 
double clicking on a index.html file on you computer) and uses JS 
bridges to access native components.

Third way is go more native but use other tools to achieve like 
RhoMobile (Ruby/HTML/JS/CSS) which is WebView based but actually has a 
local web server on the phone, Titanium (HTML/JS/CSS) actually converts 
your code to native components.

Fourth way is going totally native, possible using Titanium with JS.

If you really need to use Ruby then RhoMobile is you only choice I 
think. Although building desktop apps you can use Ruby with Titanium for 
some reason.

I've done the PhoneGap route and pure Native route. Depending on how 
complicated your app is, my personal experience is Native if you're 
doing a lot of synchronization and offline capabilities otherwise simple 
apps PhoneGap is brilliant.

Good luck,

Ken
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> 	Jairo Diaz <mailto:jairodiazs at yahoo.com>
> 15 April 2011 12:44
>
>
> Answers below:
>
> - On Fri, 4/15/11, Kenneth Lee <kenfodder at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> From: Kenneth Lee <kenfodder at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [LRUG] Frameworks for Mobile Development with Ruby
> To: jairodiazs at yahoo.com, "London Ruby Users Group" <chat at lists.lrug.org>
> Date: Friday, April 15, 2011, 12:32 PM
>
> What do you mean by "with Ruby on Rails"? I'm assuming you mean the
> mobile app that will talk to an API or view HTML served from a Ruby
> on Rails server?
>
> Yes, this is what I intend to say. In the examples I have seen, a ruby 
> on rails controller might be slightly modified to account for 
> differences in the protocol received from the handset, that may 
> include additional HTTP headers, etc.
>
> Or there is possibility of building an mobile app using the Ruby
> language in that case Rails has nothing to do with it?
>
> Yes, this is another option and I am interested in this one, too. You 
> can have ruby on top of a SDK for a given handset. I have seen that 
> JavaScript is being used with SDKs for iPhone.
>
> I can recommend stuff but I'm unsure what you are asking in the
> first place. Hope this gives you more clarity.
>
> Thanks Kenneth, both would be relevant depending on the application 
> functionality. If the mobile application needs access to resources 
> from the Web, then a ruby on rails back-end could be used to provide 
> these inputs.
>
> Thanks a lot for your reply.
>
> /Jairo
>
>
> Jairo Diaz wrote:
>
> 15 April 2011 10:11
> Hi all,
> Can someone recommend please a framework for Mobile
> Development for Android/iPhone with Ruby on Rails?
> Many thanks,
> Jairo
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