Building Cross Platform Mobile Apps: An Introduction to Appcelerator TitaniumAdam PaxtonCode for Ft Lauderdale / Appcelerator MeetupAugust 26, 2015

Overview

• What is Appcelerator Titanium?

• Why use it?

• Pros

• Cons

• Tools Walkthrough

• Code Demo

Hello

• Mobile App DevelopmentPolanco Media, LLC (We’re hiring)

• 5 years working with Titanium

• TCAD, TCMD certified

• Titanium Titan User Group

• Co-organizer Titanium Cancun Meetup

• South Florida Titanium Meetup

github.com/adampax@adampax

Titanium Meetup: http://bit.ly/tisofla

We are:

• Web developers

• Companies with existing developer teams

• Startups

• Someone with an idea

We want to build:

• App for ourselves (or our community)

• App for our client

• App for our enterprise

What do we use?

• iOS - Objective C / Swift

• Android - Java

• Mobile Web - HTML5

• Windows Phone - C# / JavaScript

Another Option: Appcelerator Titanium

• Appcelerator, Inc - Based in Mountain View, CA

• Open Source

• Titanium SDK and CLI

• Alloy MVC Framework

• Paid (Free to try)

• Appcelerator Studio IDE

• Arrow - Mobile backend storage, push notifications, API builder

Titanium

• Cross platform development environment for creating native mobile apps

• Program with JavaScript

• Free and open source

• Not a webview wrapper or app generator - builds native apps

• Builds with platform SDKs

• Android SDK toolset required for Android apps

• Xcode (and a Mac) required for iOS Apps

How does it work?

How does it work?• Write your code in JavaScript

• Code is minified and packaged with with Titanium APIs and JavaScript interpreter (JavaScriptCore for iOS, V8 for Android)

• Ti SDK uses native SDK (Xcode, Android, etc) to package it all up

• JavaScript interpreter executes your code and builds connections to native objects using the Titanium APIs

appcelerator.com/product/

Pros

• Maintain a single code base across multiple platforms

• 60% to 90% code re-use across platforms

• Use your or your team’s existing JavaScript skills

• Faster ramp up with JavaScript for new developers

• Native interface, native controls, native experience

appcelerator.com/titanium/titanium-sdk/

Cons

• Does not cover entire API for all platforms

• Over 5000 APIs are supported

• You can extend the API to access any additional APIs you need

• Extra layer of abstraction means more to manage

• New feature release / bug fix in iOS / Android — must wait until supported /fixed in Titanium (This is getting faster, often same day as iOS release)

• Potential for bugs in Titanium

• As of version 4.0.0 (Spring 2015) Licensing of the tools (free vs OSS) is a bit of a pain

The Tools

• Titanium SDK

• Appcelerator Studio*

• Titanium CLI

• Arrow Cloud Services*

• Alloy MVC Framework

*Paid

Titanium SDK

• Everything uses the SDK

• Updates usually released monthly

• Current version: 4.1.0.GA

Appcelerator Studio• IDE used to build, test, package and

publish mobile applications across platforms

• Based on Eclipse

• Requires subscription

• Runs on Mac, Windows, Linux

• Code completion, debugger and breakpoints

• Wizards for configuring native SDKs, creating new app projects

Titanium Command Line Interface

• Node.js-based command-line tool for managing, building, and deploying Titanium projects

• Don’t want to use Eclipse/Studio? Use the CLI with your favorite editor

• SublimeText, Atom, VIM, etc.

• titanium build --platform android

docs.appcelerator.com/platform/latest/#!/guide/Titanium_Command-Line_Interface_Reference

Use Your Own IDE with Titanium

• Sublime: https://github.com/MattTuttle/sublime-ti-build

• Atom:

• Package: https://github.com/yomybaby/atom-titanium

• Guide: https://github.com/m1ga/titanium_with_atom

• IntelliJ IDEA, NetBeans: https://github.com/navinpeiris/jsca2js

h/t @FokkeZB

Arrow Cloud and API Builder• Collection of pre-built services for handling

Mobile Backend requirements

• Node.js hosting

• API builder

• ArrowDB, schema-less data store

• Integration with Studio, CLI

• Push notifications

• DB Connectors for Azure, Salesforce, MSSQL, MySQL, MongoDB

appcelerator.com/product/arrow/

The Code - Titanium ‘Classic’• Original syntax for Titanium code

• All UI, data, logic defined in js code

• Directly access Titanium API

• CommonJS modules

var win = Titanium.UI.createWindow({ title: ‘My Window’, backgroundColor: ‘#fff’});

win.open();

The Code - Titanium Alloy• MVC Framework — Model, View, Controller

• Recommended for new projects

• Structure code into separate sections for data, UI, logic

• Models— represent database records, API queries, etc. Based on Backbone.js

• Views — XML to define UI objects, TSS (like CSS) to style them

• Controllers - JavaScript containing logic — what happens when a button is clicked? etc.

Alloy

• Keeps your code cleaner, enabling re-use

• Can still use CommonJS libraries with Alloy. Popular libraries underscore.js, moment.js already included

• Built-ins for conditional code

• TSS styling similar to CSS, easy to setup and re-use styling

• A lot more features

Community Tools

• TiShadow - tishadow.yydigital.com - Rapid testing for Titanium, very useful!

• Platino - platino.io - build 2D and 2.5D mobile games with Titanium (Free to try)

• TiSlack Chat - topener.nl/tislack

• Gittio - gitt.io - search engine for Titanium modules and Alloy Widgets

• Ticons - http://ticons.fokkezb.nl/ - Generate app icons and splash screens for iOS and Android

• Material Palatte - materialpalette.com - Generate Material theme for Android (check the demo app for example)

Final Notes

• Use Titanium for faster mobile development

• Use Alloy for faster Titanium development :)

• Start downloading here: http://www.appcelerator.com/signup/

• Documentation: docs.appcelerator.com

• Help: community.appcelerator.com

Future South Florida Titanium Meetups

• Meeting monthly on a Tuesday or Thursday?

• Call for Speakers, ideas:

• Share a new process, library, module

• App walkthrough

• Discuss more at South Florida Titanium meetup page: bit.ly/tisofla

Thanks

• Thanks Rob and Code For FTL Team

• Thanks Sebastian @ Axis Space

• Thanks Appcelerator for the PizzaShow some code: github.com/adampax/TiCodeForFTL