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by
Abhishek Nalwaya | July 2011 |
Open Source
Mobile devices are very powerful today and are getting more dominant with time. The success behind the phenomenal growth of smart phones is the mobile application loaded in them, which increases their functionality exponentially. Mobile applications can be developed by using different frameworks and programming languages based on the type of mobile device. Different mobile devices use different hardware components, therefore, mobile software and mobile applications have to be developed using different software architectures. It is a very painful process if we have to develop applications for all of the smart phones in the market. So Rhomobile came up with the idea of developing an application with one code base and building it for all smart phones. Rhomobile products are large and part of a fast-moving framework.
In this article by Abhishek Nalwaya, author of Rhomobile Beginners Guide, we will take a look at some of the most frequently asked questions on Rhomobile for first time users.
| Read more about this book |
(For more resources on this topic, see here.)
Q: Does Rhomobile create a pure Native Application?
A: Yes. Rhomobile creates a pure Native Application. This Application is similar to an Application available in i-store. This application can use device capabilities such as GPS, PIM contacts and calendar, camera, native mapping, push, barcode, signature capture, and Bluetooth. These are much faster than Browser-based applications.
Q: I am new to Ruby should I use Rhomobile?
A: Although you need to know Ruby to write Rhodes applications, we realize that many folks learn both Ruby and Rhomobile at the same time. As Rhomobile products require an elementary level of Ruby knowledge, this will not affect your learning curve. But I recommend that you go to any Ruby tutorial online.
Q: Is Rhomobile Free?
A: Rhodes is free and open source under MIT Licence. To use RhoSync, you must purchase a commercial license when development commences or you must open source your app under the GPL license. The pricing and details can be found at www.rhomobile.com.
Q: Is support available for Rhomobile?
A: Yes. However, you have to purchase a Rhodes Enterprise License and the Rhodes Commercial License to get commercial support. Apart from the Rhomobile support, there are various webinars and tutorials available on www.rhomobile.com. Another good support resource is the Rhomobile Google group, where Rhomobile experts are there to help you.
Q: What about Rhomobile security?
A: Both Rhodes and RhoSync support use of https as a transport. In fact it is easier with Rhodes than with native code. You just list the https URL and Rhodes will connect to the backend appropriately. This is simple in contrast to underlying SDKs where significantly different code is written to connect to an https URL.
Q: Does Rhomobile support HTML5?
A: Yes, Rhomobile supports HTML5 tags provided the device you are targeting also supports them.
Q: Can we write unit test case for the code?
A: Yes, we can write unit test case in Rhodes.
Q: Can we use Ruby gems with Rhodes?
A: Yes, we can use Ruby gems with Rhodes. We have to include them in the Rhodes configuration file.
Q: Do we need to have knowledge of different device databases?
A: No, we don't need to have prior knowledge of those databases, Rhodes will take care of this. We write our query using Object-relational mapping (ORM) called Rhom and it is the work of ORM to shape the query.
Summary
In this article we saw some of the most frequently asked questions on Rhomobile.
Further resources on this subject:
- An Introduction to Rhomobile [Article]
- Getting Started with Internet Explorer Mobile [Article]
- jQuery Mobile: Organizing Information with List Views [Article]
- jQuery Mobile: Collapsible Blocks and Theming Content [Article]
- Fundamentals of XHTML MP in Mobile Web Development [Article]
About the Author :
Abhishek Nalwaya
Abhishek Nalwaya is the author of the book, Rhomobile Beginner's Guide (PACKT Publishing, July 2011 ). He is a Ruby enthusiast and loves participating regularly at ruby/rails meetups. He works for Mckinsey and Company IT. He has talked at many conferences and meetups and was the speaker at RubyConfIndia2012 and RubyMotion Conference 2013
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