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No hijacking, it's good to hear others' opinions. Tend to learn a lot from (software) discussions here. The thread is dead effectively for a while anyway now. The way i see it, a minimum expectation (for 'universal' coverage scenarios) is: windows, iOS, android. Perhaps OSX too. There are cross platform solutions for the desktop, but that would still require 2 extra versions to cover the minimum standard. Soon you might be able to do iOS with Eto, but until it gets android support that would mean you still need to implement the mobile UI twice and port the backend code at least once (a feat that i thought was harder when i started than i do now; but maintenance would still be hell). So you might lead to the idea of doing a cross-desktop app and a webapp with phonegap etc for mobile. This allows you to support more platforms (WP7/8, FFOS, BBx, ubuntuPhone?). Tablets are going to want a more in-depth UI than a phone, so then you have 2 layouts. By the time you have a flexible layout system, adding a third may even sound preferable to porting everything to .NET, even if you are familiar with it! Yes you want extra features such as keyboard/mouse support, and more in-depth editing etc, but you do get the nice bonus that your android app will have those too (benefiting stuff like the transformer prime), as well as keeping all touch function on the desktop where touchscreens are taking off-- that probably wouldn't seem worth adding if it were a separate desktop app (same for smaller window-sizes). It's very reassuring to know that almost any feature implemented should work across all platforms. You could even extend a basic version for PS3, wii, TVs, chromeOS etc without too much trouble. There are definitely shortfalls; lack of code privacy, still some browser issues on the mobile side (scrolling?), the DOM sucks, localStorage is tiny, etc! Phone processing improvements are fast whittling away at performance as an issue for many types of basic app though. IMO neither method (HTML vs 'native') are there yet, and different apps will suit each approach. To me cross-mobile/desktop apps are the future, although i concede that it isn't practical (or possible) for a lot of use cases today. |