
Intel XDK: An HTML5 development IDE - moonlighter
http://software.intel.com/en-us/html5/tools
======
lazyjones
It's a good idea and apparently a slick package, but useless due to the
restrictive license and binary-only distribution.

I certainly won't build and distribute mobile apps with whatever obscure (and
non-removable according to ToS) "security features" Intel has decided to
bundle with the runtime e.g. to comply with arbitrary requests by various
rogue government agencies.

If they want us to build HTML5 apps for their own sake (Intel's, they want to
fight back against native ARM binaries), they'll have to try harder. Make it
Open Source and ask a lawyer who hasn't been stuck in corporate litigation and
patenting stuff for several decades to write a modern license (or use the
LGPL/BSD/MIT license...).

~~~
cabbeer
Can you please explain what the restrictive licences and "binary-only
distribution" are in layman's terms. I'm a front end developer this looks like
a good introduction to developing and distributing mobile apps.

How will the ToS hinder me from doing so?

~~~
lazyjones
For a complete analysis you'll have to ask a lawyer. But for me, the fact that
you "may not reverse-assemble, reverse-compile, or otherwise reverse-engineer
any portion of the Intel Materials provided solely in binary form"
([http://appcenter.html5tools-
software.intel.com/TOS/](http://appcenter.html5tools-software.intel.com/TOS/),
see II.2.C) is enough of a red flag already. I'm not going to use or
distribute something to my users for which I signed away my rights to examine
and see what it actually does.

Furthermore, they want the right to disable access to some content somehow if
they think it is illegal (i.e. they have rights to arbitrary censorship of
content and apparently also some mechanism built into the runtime to enforce
it). Am I going to distribute or even sell stuff to users that Intel can
disable any time they like? Certainly not.

If they wanted a license that puts off developers who have plenty of choices
nowdays, they succeeded.

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johnyzee
It is based on AppMobi that Intel bought some months ago. AppMobi was an
alternative to PhoneGap, but it attempted to streamline the whole process of
wrapping an HTML5 app into a native app, with an "IDE" (more of a GUI for the
build process) and a cloud-based assembly and provisioning platform. And of
course a lot of proprietary APIs for stuff like in-app payments, social
integration, etc.

I tried AppMobi early on but as a developer I much prefer something open like
PhoneGap, even if (or because) I have to glue the pieces together by myself. I
don't really see the demographic that knows how to develop an HTML5 web
application but prefers a closed black-box environment for putting together
the mobile app.

The AppMobi XDK was pretty slick though. But from the announcement it seems
like they pretty much tore it down and started over from scratch.

These days I hold higher hopes for real convert-to-native tools, that actually
translates HTML5 (f.ex. the canvas API) to native code.

~~~
phoboslab
AppMobi actually used Ejecta[1] for their Canvas2D rendering on iOS - which it
seems also made its way into the Intel XDK[2]. I believe they have their own
implementation for Canvas2D on Android, but sadly, it's all closed source.

I should really get a cross-platform effort for Ejecta going. We have CocoonJS
and Intel's XDK, but afaik there's no Open Source alternative right now.

[1] [http://impactjs.com/ejecta](http://impactjs.com/ejecta)

[2] [http://www.html5dev-
software.intel.com/amdocs/readmes/ios.ap...](http://www.html5dev-
software.intel.com/amdocs/readmes/ios.applab.readme.txt)

~~~
qubyte
There is an effort to port ejecta to android, which a company I used to work
for is now maintaining. That means accelerated canvas for the big two.

~~~
qubyte
I thought I'd put more detail in. The project is called ejecta-x.
[http://wizcorp.github.io/Ejecta-X/](http://wizcorp.github.io/Ejecta-X/)

------
RyanZAG
If you're curious why Intel is making an HTML5 IDE and what their goals are,
you can check out this blog post: [http://software.intel.com/en-
us/html5/blogs/why-intel-xdk-ne...](http://software.intel.com/en-
us/html5/blogs/why-intel-xdk-new)

~~~
webmaven
Dang, all those asterisks that don't actually refer to footnotes are really
confusing. I wonder if they are supposed to be trademark symbols...

~~~
sect
They're tiny ® (registered trademark) symbols.

~~~
caw
Kind of. They're actually footnotes (asterisks), referring to the same
footnote. On this particular website it appears to be referring to the
"*Trademark" link, which has the extended legalese.

In the standard Intel style (whitepapers, etc), trademarks to other companies
are designated with an asterisk and a footnote to the effect of "These are
trademarks from companies other than Intel. They own the rights to the name,
and not us"

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aplummer
After playing with it, seems like Brackets (anecdotal guess, though I'm pretty
confident) wrapped with a bunch of mobile device stuff ala Ripple (does intel
own ripple now?) combined with a pretty deep build system.

Could be really handy for making quick apps for conferences or hi-fi
prototypes imo. Particularly the cross platform build system - seems really
easy.

~~~
ibdknox
I can confirm it's brackets.

------
anonyfox
Seems like the most advanced node-webkit [1] application so far. Great to see
how node.js is used for more and more crossplatform non-web apps. _Cites
Atwoods law here..._

[1] [https://github.com/rogerwang/node-
webkit](https://github.com/rogerwang/node-webkit)

~~~
moondowner
Has anyone tried to develop node-webkit apps with XDK? I'm using IDEA at the
moment with few workarounds, but if this works better I'll make the switch.

~~~
xmnboy
You cannot use the XDK to develop node-webkit apps. The XDK itself is a node-
webkit app, but you use it to develop HTML5 hybrid apps for mobile devices.

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desipenguin
Why _must_ I signup to Intel XDK ? This _should_ be optional

~~~
sbarre
Downloading it _is_ optional.

~~~
jbeja
That is not the idea

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simplehuman
Am I the only one who finds the UI is horribly ugly? The tabs make no sense.
Why is it all hogging the ide space when most of the things are rarely used
(services, build) - why not put them in the menu?

Products likes these are what give HTML5 a bad name.

~~~
jbeja
Yeah is ugly and dated and the users experience is not there, i don't know why
a big company like Intel doesn't know that the first layer of conversion is
the design. Make thing pretty and pleasant to use before launch!.

~~~
malkia
I feel that UX designer cannot be fulltime job at some of these places

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Trufa
Incredible, the website looks terrible on tablets and phones.

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marknadal
Really great engine, I highly recommend it. I'm even looking for somebody who
would know how to write native bridge plugins for it (or convert existing
phonegap ones) - I just want alarm clock controls that actually work on iOS
(android is easy). Anybody?

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mrinterweb
It is too bad that XDK is still on Cordova 2.9. 3.3 is out now and is a big
jump from 2.x.

~~~
xmnboy
Cordova 3.0 support is coming. :)

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jbeja
I love the Linux support, but why the IDE theme is so ugly?

~~~
general_failure
Not just the theme. The alignment, layout, heavy use of text everywhere is
just off-putting.

~~~
jbeja
Yeah it doesn't look well for my 1024x600 laptop, all looks chopped and
cluttered.

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camus2
is it open source ?

~~~
Intermernet
Doesn't look like it. [http://appcenter.html5tools-
software.intel.com/TOS/](http://appcenter.html5tools-software.intel.com/TOS/)

Seems fairly permissive, but has provisions to do with de-compiling anything
distributed in binary form so it looks fairly mixed.

This may though just be due to use of some legacy, licensed library somewhere
rather than deliberately restrictive licensing. I haven't looked closely at
what comes with XDK so I'm not sure what components are used.

~~~
treenyc
personally, I won't use for anything important to my software business on
license that is non open source.

Intel, I won't be using it for my money making business. This corporate
license thing is so 1990's.

Get with GPL alfaro. You will create way more wealth for the planet that way.

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walid
Why does an IDE require a username and password to use it?

~~~
xmnboy
The username and password is needed to manage your cloud account; a backend
server that is used for build services and to manage the wireless test and
debug features. If you are not connected to the Internet when you start the
XDK it will still function, but you will, obviously, not be able to use those
features that require access to the cloud services to function.

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michaelmior
Disappointed to see that it's Windows only.

~~~
_random_
They are just targeting the 95% of developers.

~~~
michaelmior
While there are certainly a lot of developers using Windows, I'm skeptical
that it's as high as 95% given the number of developers using Mac OS these
days.

