I will start to develop a mobile app using a cross platform.The app has multiple pie charts and graphs. App needs to run on Android, iOS and Windows platform. I am evaluating 2 options for cross platform:
1. React Native
2. Xamarin
I've gone through the documentation for RN windows platform(https://github.com/ReactWindows/react-native-windows)
It appears that React Native has limited support for Windows app development as of now.
Has anybody developed a full-fledged windows mobile app using React Native? If there are blockers for React Native windows, I would choose Xamarin as a development Platform.
Can someone please guide me regarding this? Thanks.
React Native Windows has several sample applications, namely Facebook's own f8 app that prove it works well on Windows 10 mobile, desktop, or even Xbox One and Xbox Series S/X consoles. If you run into specific issues, you can file them in the GitHub project.
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We've been developing a cross-platform app in Xamarin on Windows and now we are moving to make GUI for iOS counterpart.
If I'm understanding correctly we need to switch to Visual Studio for MAC, on a MAC machine, and continue our GUI development there.
Is it possible to develop everything on Windows and just publish an app on the MAC machine?
How do we include the logic and everything from the android app?
You can use Xamarin.Forms to develop UI for both Android and iOS.
But if its already native then you can still continue developing it in Windows.
For the build and testing you definitely need a MAC, if you don't want to use a VM then you can build it on the cloud using a https://www.macincloud.com/ or other party that uses the same service, and use a simulator on windows.
If its cross platform then I assume you're using a .NET Standard for the shared codebase. So there would be no problem using the same logic for both the Android and iOS.
It is up to you. Many apps will work by just publishing on the Mac. Of those many will have some artifacts that shouldn't be in the end version.
To simplify it is like asking whether you should publish the app without testing and fixing. In 99% no, but sometimes it may work.
I want to build a game with React Native. I am doing my testing locally on a personal Android device using the Expo app but ideally would love for the app to be cross platform. I do want to release it to a public store or have it be available for folks to play in some format.
Is it OK if I am using Visual Studio Code (on a Windows machine) to build my app, using node.js command line to run expo commands and testing with live reloading on my Expo app? Do I need to have a Mac + XCode if I want to edit iOS code?
What is the typical development process/toolset used?
React Native IS cross-platform, building the apps for production on different platforms, however, requires a different procedure. What makes it cross platform is that you write the source codes including all of the components (Well most of them) one time, and it automatically generates the native codes for Android and IOS.
There's no typical toolset for writing code, you can use any code editor you prefer (I use Sublime for example), but you should have the needed requirements listed in the getting started page in the official official docs including node.js.
Expo helps in testing the app on both android and ios without the need of a Mac (it has some other cool features too!). So if you want to release to apple store, you'll definitely need a mac (or a virtual machine running MacOS like VMWare)
In order to generate the release apk for android: Android Release APK
and for IOS: IOS
I am looking to develop a Windows 10 Universal app based in HTML, CSS, and JavaScript for use on Microsoft Surface tablets primarily. I have found information that says it can be done on this page, but at the very bottom of the page it says it is in beta. However, I can't seem to find anything more than that post. No updates, or documentation or anything. Does anyone know if you can do this from the PhoneGap app on Mac OS?
If not, I guess the next best option it to do it on a Windows machine using Visual Studio 2017 and Cordova?
Any information anyone has on this subject would be helpful.
Thanks!
No, I am pretty sure you can't build UWP apps on macOS. The reason is quite similar as the reason you cannot build iOS apps on Windows - you could build the JS portion of your code, but the problem is the fact that UWP build tools and SDKs are OS specific and unless Microsoft specifically ports them to macOS, they cannot work there.
You could use Parallels and run Windows as second OS, or use a build server to build the app in the cloud. Visual Studio App Center is a very good solution for you purpose as it allows you to configure a full build pipeline including UWP, iOS and Android builds.
You can actually develop a UWP app using phoneGap on Mac if you are building it using web technologies. (HTML, CSS, Javascript) But you can not build/publish the app on Mac, but if you have a Creative Cloud account, you can use Phone Gap Build to upload it to the service and have it built there.
In Visual Studio I am trying to decide which type of application I should start with. I want to make it available to as many devices as I can.
If I make a Windows desktop application (.NET/WPF), I could convert it to a UWP but it only targets desktop applications, which is pointless device-wise.
But if I make a UWP, it would work with Microsoft devices, but not ones running a Windows older than Windows 10. A lot of people still use older versions of Windows, and I would rather make a Windows desktop application than limit the use to a specific version of Windows.
It would also be cool to be able to make it work on other devices like Android.
QUESTIONS: Is there a way to convert a Desktop application to a Universal UWP (with or without the code)? Is there a way to convert a Universal UWP to a Desktop application (or make it run on older Windows machines)? If not, what would be the best application type and why?
Also, is there a different application type I should use instead that I'm not thinking of?
NOTE: Microsoft Project Centennial converts Desktop applications to UWP's, but they only work on desktop machines.
I would go UWP and use Xamarin forms if I were you.
Using Xamarin you can write the one UWP app and deploy to Windows, Android, and iOS.
You answered most of your question yourself already. You have the following options (considering you want to continue using your .NET/XAML skillset as you mention WPF and are not looking into a web alternative):
Write a desktop app in WPF: you want to support Windows 7 or need features that are currently not available yet in UWP (some APIs, sandboxed UWP, ..). As you mentioned, you can use the Desktop Bridge to bring the app to the Windows 10 store as well with the downside of not running on mobile, HoloLens, Xbox (as of today). Then again, WPF doesn't run on those platforms either.
Write the app from scratch in UWP: run on Windows 10 on all available platforms. Yes, you will leave the Windows 7 users in the cold but not that Windows 7 is already in the extended support block so people will have to upgrade at some point.
Write the app from scratch with Xamarin.Forms, creating a single app that runs on Windows 7 (WPF), UWP, Android and iOS. Note that this is a somewhat different XAML dialect right now, but XAML Standard is working on unifying the dialects in the future.
A bit more work is to share most of your code with .NET Standard or PCL libraries and write multiple native UI's on top of it (which can be done with Xamarin).
If you're looking for longer term support pick either UWP (the way forward for Windows) or Xamarin.Forms.
Try Microsoft's Desktop Bridge tool for UWP. Using the Desktop Bridge, you can gradually migrate your code to the Universal Windows Platform (UWP) to reach every Windows 10 device, including phones, Xbox One, and HoloLens
Using Desktop bridge tool, you can
Convert MSI to APPX package
Upload your Desktop app (after conversion to APPX package) to Store
Take advantage of UWP features like Live tiles, Push Notification and many more)
And, for Android and iOS app try Xamarin. UWP project cannot converted to xamarin project. You've to write seperate project. I recommend you to try Xamarin.Forms which allows you to boild UWP, Android and iOS app with shared code.
I have developed an app using PhoneJs framework for all mobile plateforms like Android, iOs, BleckBerry and Windows Phone. Now I came to know that PhoneJs doesn't support Windows Phone 7. I have to launch my app in next two days everything is ready except WP7. Can anyone suggest me some alternates for WP7 using PhoneJs. or how can I do porting for WP7.
While Windows Phone 7.x platform is not officially supported by PhoneJS, most apps will work, with partially degraded UI and performance. For example, I just checked the TipCalculator demo on HTC Mozart browser.
Packaging for WP7 can be done with PhoneGap Build.