[Gambas-user] gambas for iphone or ipad apps

[Rob]

On Saturday 21 August 2010 03:37, Iggy Budiman wrote:
> What about android on arm? Gambas can compile in arm right?
> There's a lot of cheap (made in china) android tablet in the market.
> If gambas (ide and compiled app.) can run on those platform, I'd like to
> order some of those.
> Would be nice too, since we would be able to make android application
> using gambas, even develop on it too.

Android is Linux-based but doesn't run X.  You code for it in Java using 
Google's own APIs.  But they recently came out with a "native development 
kit" to allow easier porting of games, and it might be that parts of Gambas 
could be ported to that.  

Someone has started working on porting Qt to Android, also using the NDK.  
Until that's ready, you'd have to either roll your own interfaces in SDL or 
write your own widget set for Android, though (I think a gb.sdl.interface 
component has been a long time coming but haven't had time myself.)  Either 
way, you'll be running into the problem that your apps don't look native, 
so you might as well just be writing a web app.  But it should be possible.  

I've been writing Java code on and off for about 12 years, so I've been 
doing some Android development myself, using Eclipse and some plugins to 
make GUI development less of a pain.  But it's not as elegant as Gambas, 
and likely never will be.  

Google also has "App Inventor", which allows you to make basic Android apps 
with little to no coding, but at a much higher level than Gambas, with far 
less control (they provide pre-coded graphical "blocks" to assemble your 
program logic, flowchart style, instead of controls and methods/properties 
like Gambas).  It's more like one of the old game construction kits from 
the 90s than a development environment, but all they're doing is changing 
commands and parameters to little puzzle pieces you fit together into 
"blocks" that are essentially lines of code.  

You have to request an invitation, so I haven't tried it yet.  I also don't 
think you can start an app in there and finish it by writing code in 
Eclipse.  But I guess that's what I'd recommend trying for a Gambas 
programmer who wants to develop for Android, at least until someone ports 
Gambas in a way that makes it feel native.

I've been waiting for a cheap Chinese tablet with a multitouch capacitative 
touchscreen as a test device, since most phones coming out now are 
multitouch and capacitative (use your finger, not a stylus).  If you know 
of any like that and could send me a link privately, I'd appreciate it.

Rob