

Prototype Android apps using HTML, CSS and JavaScript - jamesflorentino
http://jaunesarmiento.me/fries/

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amenod
It looks like this will be the first sceptical comment... ;)

I didn't try Fries, but I tried using PhoneGap for prototyping and found that
building such a web app is not much faster than building one in XCode (and I
was a web developer for nearly 15 years!). So why bother?

Another problem is that if I want to build prototype in your framework, I must
learn its conventions (what was that CSS class again, "buttonnormal" or
"button-normal"? Since the web frameworks can't really compete with native
apps in terms of user experience (behaviour of UI elements differs from what
user expects), I will have to build in Objective C - which means I have to
learn both iOS programming AND your framework.

Granted, such a tool would be useful if UX team wants to build prototypes and
they only have web knowledge - and you have a separate team for building a
final (native) version. Other than that I fail to see a point.

I would love to be proven wrong though. :)

BTW, my comment doesn't apply to Titanium which basically produces a native
app (but I don't use it for other reasons).

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jaunesarmiento
Okay, thanks for your comment bud. :)

I see a huge flaw in your understanding of Fries. You mentioned Xcode and
Objective C in your comment but the whole point of Fries is to prototype
Android apps on HTML, CSS, and JS.

Fries aims to make creating Android apps/prototypes easier. If that doesn't
apply to people who finds that doing it on Eclipse UI Builder is much easier
then Fries isn't for them.

If that doesn't answer your questions, hit me up with another comment. :)

Cheers!

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matchu
I think the parent comment is saying that, once I'm done prototyping with
Fries, I'm going to move to native technologies, so I'll have to learn two
systems total—and, since the parent comment asserts that prototyping in native
technologies doesn't take too long, it wouldn't save me much time to use
Fries, especially if I have to take the time to learn it.

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elietoubi
Pretty cool ... reminds me of ratchet <http://maker.github.io/ratchet/>

Why would you use that only for prototyping and not in production?

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jaunesarmiento
Actually, you could. :) It's really inspired by Ratchet that's probably why it
reminds of you of it.

I'm already thinking of putting up a tutorial on how to integrate it with
PhoneGap. So let's all hope that comes out soon. Cheers!

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elietoubi
That would be awesome! Thanks for the great work ... Companies like Google
should be in charge to maintain these kind of projects as it's going to bring
a higher volume of developers to their platform!

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jaunesarmiento
Wow, thanks for the awesome feedback! :)

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warrenmiller
Prototyping them in the IDE is pretty damn easy tbh..and you've done some of
the work to build them.

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sauravt
How is it different from using jQuery Mobile with phonegap(cordova) ,just
curious.

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jaunesarmiento
It's not all that different. Although, Fries aims to deliver components just
how you'd see them in a native Android app (check out Android Holo Dark theme)
and employs Android UI guidelines. Most prototyping frameworks out there all
look iOS-ish. That's where Fries is different.

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fmilne
This is really great. I was going to use Ratchet for a Android prototype but
having the native UI components sets better expectations of how the app will
look and fell. Thanks for putting it together

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jaunesarmiento
Yes, very well said. I was hoping someone would help me out explaining things
better. :)

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jaunesarmiento
Updated the docs! <http://jaunesarmiento.me/fries>

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hayksaakian
A visual demo would be nice too.

(If its there,via didn't see it on nexus7 4.2

