Debugging web app on the palm pre? - debugging

I have a web app that works fine on desktop browsers, but struggles on the palm pre browser (via the emulator). How do I debug the app on the palm pre browser? There doesn't seem to be any error console, dom inspector, etc... I'd expect such tools from a web-app oriented phone.

The debugging tools on the webOS platform are generally still poor, and thats speaking for the application development.
I dont think there is any debugger for the web browser. You're stuck with document.write and related.
And for applications themselves, its better, but not by much. There is a command line debugger that you can use to set break points and inspect. There is also an inspector based on Safari that you can use to inspect the dom and such. And there is basic info/warn/error debugging to syslog. But these are for applications using the Mojo framework, and not exposed to web pages.
That said, the browser is based on Webkit, so its fairly close to Safari 4. There are some good sized chunks missing in Canvas and advanced CSS support. Browsing the developer forums will help see what CSS and Canvas features are missing or broken.

Related

Wrapper around web-app under Windows

I have an application with web interface. Unfortunately, it has all disadvantages of being a web page:
It doesn't have a standalone window, so users cannot manage it via the taskbar.
Users see the address line with something like 'http://localhost:8080' that is not a good idea for home users.
If users click on a tray icon, there is no way to activate the tab in a browser, which contain the application interface.
So, it would be nice to have a wrapper application with a browser within.
In case of IE I know it's possible to create a window with Trident ActiveX component. But what if it's Windows XP with IE6 but installed latest Chrome? I'd like to prefer Chrome since it supports a lot more features which the user will never see.
So, is there a way to wrap a page into Chrome/Firefox and make it look like a standalone application, if one of them is presented in the user's system? (The application shouldn't install anything large, so Chromium build is not an option).
P.S. I'm not interested in supporting other platforms than Windows.
Regards,
Take a look at Chrome Apps.
I hope helps you.

Web app performance tracing on Mobile Safari?

We work on a web application (HTML5 / JS) where performance is critical (physics simulation).
There are a few great options to trace performance on desktops: Chrome Dev Tools timelines, chrome://tracing or the promising Web Tracing Framework. The last option seems like the most powerful one. It also supports remote control of Chrome for Android, but unfortunately Mobile Safari is unsupported.
Do you know any other tool that can be used to precisely measure performance on Mobile Safari?
I know I can debug pages on Mobile Safari with Mac Safari and perhaps access timeline and/or profile tools too. Is this the only option? Do you know other interesting ways of performance tracing a webapp on Mobile Safari?
Have a look into Weinre a fantastic remote debugging tool based on webkit's developer tools:
http://people.apache.org/~pmuellr/weinre/docs/latest/
The timeline tool is still in the early stages but you can create your own timeline events.
For webapp's performance,with enough experience you can tell from the page's debug borders(Compositing Render Layers) and repaint counters,they are not powerful like Web Tracing Framework does,but in many case they help a lot.Web Tracing Framework already works on android chrome,for mobile safari,mac safari's develop tool also can enable to inspect mobile safari's debug borders and repaint counters,also if you dont got a mac,you can just try MIHTool which you can enable debug borders and repaint counters in the app on you iOS device.
Check out Mobile Web Thursday: Dev Tools to learn more about it.

Debugging tools/methods for phonegap blackberry app

Are there any tools/methods for debugging phonegap Blackberry(5,6,7) app . Presently am using Alert for debugging which is very tedious .
Since you are using PhoneGap, its always better to view/debug you app on a webkit browser like Chrome/Safari. Also try Ripple emulator from BlackBerry which is the best web emulator for mobile devices: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ripple-emulator-beta/geelfhphabnejjhdalkjhgipohgpdnoc?hl=en
Since you are developing a web app, and as far as I know there's no "official" IDE for BlackBerry Webworks, this question is not BB or Phonegap specific. You are just asking how to debug JavaScript. There are a lot of questions in SO about this, just run a search. I'll give you my two cents:
As the JavaScript code runs in a browser, you need to debug in the browser. Most browsers have built-in debugger or extensions. For Firefox I'd reccomend Firebug extension, in Chrome the built-in debugger is pretty good. I can't tell about IE but I think there's something similar.
If you need to debug on device, then use console instead of alert.
Finally, have a look at WebStorm. Probably the best IDE for JavaScript right now, but you need to purchase a license. It allows you to attach to the browser debugger and debug in the IDE.

Debugger for HTML/CSS/JS in Android/IOS device browser

I have developed Lots of websites, where i use Developer tools on IE / firebug on Firefox & Chrome is also having inspect element function for Editing & Debugging. But When i started developing for Android/IOS browser i am not getting how to edit & debug.
Is there any way to do this coz, its eating lots of my effort.
weinre is exactely what you are looking for!
import the library into your index.html and make it point to your local weinre server or here and you'll have your device console into chrome.
pretty straight forward
You probably should use a remote debugger such as Pony or using Firefox.
You can also do this with Safari on IOS.

Do XUL applications work only on Firefox

I've seen an XUL-based application recently that supposedly works on the desktop. Isn't XUL the Firefox language? I thought it wouldn't work on anything other that Firefox and certainly wouldn't work as a desktop application.
Can someone who knows more about XUL confirm its compatibility with other browsers (IE, Chrome, etc.) and if it runs as a desktop application, its compatibility with operating systems (Windows, Mac, Linux)
check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XULRunner. it was created to run xul applications like firefox. songbird is also based in XUL. for more detail see this SO question.
to actually answer the real question, yes, desktop apps can be built in xul, as firefox is. the wiki page i linked to even points to a video game being built using it. at its core its just another application framework.
XUL is a descriptive language for UI used in Firefox but also used in other mozilla apps, like Thunderbird for example
There is a projet named Xul Runner which allow using XUL for desktop apps (see Pencil for example).
AFAIK, all Mozilla apps are compatible with Windows, Mac, Linux and other system for some.
XUL is a user interface language. It was created originally for mozilla/firefox, but is also used by thunderbird.
The Gecko layout engine is what renders XUL and any application that uses this engine can be built with it. See XUL Runner.
The layout engine has been written with cross platform concerns, so it runs on Windows, Linux and Macs.
XUL only works on xulrunner, and Firefox is built on top of xulrunner. Other applications are built on xulrunner (e.g. Thunderbird). You can also build applications on top of xulrunner.

Resources