1

Native Mobile Applications USING Open Source

2

Today’s Agenda• Titanium Mobile Overview• Hello World and Project

Walkthrough• Building Titanium Apps:

Fundamentals• Code By Numbers: Oh Snap!• Where To Go From Here• Questions and Answers• Independent Hacking

3

About Appcelerator• Open Source Software

Company based in Mountain View• ~25 employees and

growing• Developing Titanium for

about two years, with Mobile coming in the last year• 95% Developers

4

About You

New To Mobile Development Mobile Dev Veteran

5

Either way, you’ve come to the right place.

6

Amazing Mobile Platforms

7

Which is great and exciting!

8

...only how do we target all these cool platforms?

9

Well, you could build native, but...

• Which platforms do you choose?• How many codebases do you want to (or even

can you) support?• How long will it take to build native on N

platforms?• How much effort will be duplicated?• What if you bet on the wrong platform?• Who writes the code? Hire out? Retrain/retool

yourself or your devs?

10

The Web Is An Option...• ...and should be preferred when

feasible• Mobile browsers are progressing

fast and converging around WebKit• But there are limitations• Native apps are inherently more

capable than web apps• Native apps run faster and

smoother on resource constrained devices

11

Ideally, we build cross-platform native apps...

12

...but we don’t want to “write once, suck

everywhere”*

*Loren Brichter, creator “Twitter for iPhone”/Tweetie

13

X-Platform Requirements

• Target multiple platforms from a single codebase• Apps must feel like they belong on the platform• Apps need to perform like native• Bonus: Open source and extensible• Bonus: Use skills we already have

Hmmm, I wonder if he has a specific technology in mind...

14

Enter TitaniumTitanium is an open source framework for

building native mobile (or desktop) applications using open web technologies

(JavaScript - optionally HTML and CSS)

15

Titanium Key Facts• Open Source (Apache 2.0)• Professional Services, SLA

Support, Training, and Analytics available from Appcelerator

• Titanium Platforms• Desktop: Win32, OS X, Linux• Mobile: iOS, Android,

BlackBerry, webOS (soon)

16

Titanium Projects

• Titanium Developer (1.2.1)• Titanium Mobile SDK (1.3.0)• Titanium Desktop SDK (1.0.0)• Versioned separately,

different release schedules• We will focus on Developer

and the Mobile SDK

17

Titanium FeaturesNative UI

Location APIs

Local and Remote Data

Social APIs

Rich Media APIs

Open Source and Extensible

Integrated Analytics

Development Tools

Real native tables, tabs, sliders,and views

Native Maps, Compass, and Geolocation

Local SQL Database, LightweightKey/Value Store, XHR

Integrated Facebook Connectand YQL

Local and streaming audio andvideo, media recording

Extend Titanium with custommodules in native code

Baked-in analytics APIs to measureresults and behavior

Develop and distribute your app formultiple platforms from a single tool

18

Who Uses Titanium?• NBC Universal• PayPal• MTV• Anheuser-Busch• Computer Sciences

Corporation• Intridea (Oil Reporter)• 1000s of Titanium apps

hitting the stores each month

19

Titanium Architecture

• Desktop is HTML focused

• Can use other scripting languages

• Mobile: JavaScript interpreted at runtime

• JavaScript API >> native APIs

20

What Titanium Mobile is not:

• Not a native wrapper around a web view (PhoneGap being an example of this approach)• However, you do have a web view component for

HTML/CSS UI if that is your preference• Your JavaScript code is invoking native APIs for

UI and other native functions• Think MacRuby/Hot Cocoa on the desktop or

some AAA mobile games which ship with a Lua interpreter

21

Example

22

Example

23

Example

24

Titanium Developer• Manage and run Titanium

applications• Package applications for

distribution• Run on a device for

testing• Manage Appcelerator

account

25

Demo: Hello World!• Creating a mobile project• Mobile project structure• Editing code, adding UI

widgets to the app• Deploy to simulator

26

Demo: Kitchen Sink• Example Code• Living Reference Document• Demonstrates API coverage

27

Questions So Far?• Titanium as a product• Titanium capabilities• About Appcelerator

28

Titanium Fundamentals• A Titanium application is a

JavaScript program that is interpreted at runtime on the device• app.js defines the root

execution context of the app• Note that we are not running

in a browser • We use the WebKit KJS

JavaScript engine (iOS) or Rhino (Android/BB)

29

Titanium JavaScript API• Organized into logical namespaces• “Titanium” (or just “Ti” for short) is the root

namespace for all Titanium functionality• A few other odds and ends in the global space– setTimeout/setInterval– alert– JSON

30

Typical App Composition

• A single window or stack of windows• Tab Group

containing many windows• Windows

contain views

31

Windows and Contexts• Windows are the top level container for Titanium

applications• Applications usually consist of one window or

several windows in a tab group• Windows usually create new execution contexts• Execution context == A unique JavaScript symbol

space• Such windows are “Heavyweight” windows• Can also create “Lightweight” windows (for apps

that run in a single context)

3

32

Demo: Contexts• New Project - Two Tabs with

“Lightweight” windows• Switch to contain urls and

contexts• Symbols not defined in

other contexts

33

The View Hierarchy• Views are the building blocks

of Titanium UIs– Specialized views: table views,

image views, map views, etc.

• Views can contain child views, which are positioned relative to the parent• Layout Options: Absolute,

vertical, or horizontal (currently iPhone only)• Vertical layouts require

height to be set

34

Custom Events• Use for cross-context messaging• Events are received across all ACTIVE contexts• Windows not yet open do not receive events• Use also as an inversion of control mechanism– Publish message when the database has been updated– Publish message when contacting a server– Using pub/sub messaging is very useful in a

component-oriented framework like Titanium

35

Demo: Custom Events• Now lets use custom events in

our new app• Events can have a data payload• Remember that events are only

received in active contexts

36

Hey, what about layouts?We’ll demo that later in the tutorial...

37

Cross-Platform Development

• Not all UI is available across platforms• Titanium != “Write Once, Run Everywhere”• We try to enable native apps that look and feel

like they were created in Objective-C or Java• Also note that even cross-platform UI

components (like table views) will render differently cross platform• Cross Platform testing is critical during dev cycle

38

Cross-Platform Tips• iPhone/Android

subdirectories• Ti.Platform.osname• Display height/width• OS version• Check Out Kitchen

Sink Platform example

10

39

Questions?• App Composition• Runtime environment• UI Layouts

40

“Code By Numbers”• Demo App: Oh Snap!• Condensed version of Snapost– Source: http://github.com/kwhinnery/Snapost

• App Features:– Multiple Window/Tabbed UI– Properties API– Camera and Local Photo Gallery– Upload to remote web service (TwitPic)

• Want to develop and deploy to a device in the space of a few minutes

41

A Nicer Version...• Our example will be

somewhat basic• For a nicer example

with better styling and slightly more robust handling of images, check out Snapost• 3D iPhone transitions,

laser noises!

http://github.com/kwhinnery/Snapost

42

iPhone SDK Users• Will need to download build to address iOS 4

issues that is not in basic 1.3.0 release• Nightly Builds:– http://builds.appcelerator.com.s3.amazonaws.com/index.html

• Let’s go through install of “latest and greatest” build...

43

0: Create “Oh Snap!”

• New Project via Titanium Developer• Grab new icons from

Glyphish• Configure tab icons,

new windows/execution contexts

http://gist.github.com/481044

44

1: Arrange Basic UI

• Create necessary buttons, image placeholders, text labels• Arrange using

vertical layout• Check out styling

options

http://gist.github.com/481058

45

2: Persist Un/Pw Combo

• Pre-populate text fields with Properties• Persist un/pw

combo• Add event listener

to save button

http://gist.github.com/481078

46

3: Select Media

• Open Photo Gallery• Show Camera• Dynamically update

ImageView source file

http://gist.github.com/481081

47

4: Upload Image

• Create HTTPClient object• Open a POST

request• Upload image media

and Twitter update

http://gist.github.com/481111

48

5: Deploy to a device• Demo: Deploy via Titanium Developer• On your own, provision your system for

development on device• Android == super easy• iPhone... not so much• Video Tutorial:– http://vimeo.com/10278960

• All Appcelerator Videos:– http://vimeo.com/appcelerator

49

Recapping Oh Snap!• < 200 Lines of code• Persistent App Preferences• Fully native UI (ugly, but see

Snapost for the pretty...)• Integrated camera/photo

gallery• XHR Upload to remote

server• 100% Cross-Platform

50

But wait, there’s more!

• Animation APIs• Social Networks• Custom Module

Development• iPad Development• HTML 5 and CSS 3• Explore Desktop!!!

51

Resources• Community Q&A• Reference Docs (new getting started guides just

finished)• Premium Support (Pro Subscribers)• Kitchen Sink and Demo Apps• Dev Blog: Tutorials, Updates from dev team,

developer-focused content• Follow @appcelerator for news and updates

52

You Call It• Questions? Comments?• Need Help? Let’s hack your project!• Want to get in contact with someone regarding

X, Y, or Z? I’ll direct you to the right folks.• Anything else at all

Kevin Whinneryhttp://kevinwhinnery.com

http://twitter.com/kevinwhinnery

IRC (irc.freenode.net): #titanium_app