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Hey, there are some posts out there discussing mainly Sencha Touch and jQtouch.

I understand that Sencha is more for heavy apps. Read here: http://9-bits.com/post/723711597/jqtouch-and-sencha-touch

But what about GWT mobile vs. XUI vs. jQuery Mobile? Anyone tested them? GWT mobile looks quite nice... But I did not dig deeper yet. Any other good mobile dev frameworks?

ThinkingStiff
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j7nn7k
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    Personally, I like jQuery Mobile, but you haven't listed any of your criteria for evaluating/comparing frameworks. No way to answer this question without some metric. – Matt Ball Feb 23 '11 at 16:27
  • Well I wanted more of a general discussion. Important would be cross plattform support. At least iPhone & Android. I figured that jqtouch does not work well on Android (e.g. slide transitions dont work). I anyone knows why and how to fix it... shoot ;) – j7nn7k Feb 23 '11 at 21:43
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    GWT mobile seems to only support the Database, Geolcation and Storage APIs. While the other frameworks are mobile-targeted widget based frameworks. – stan229 Mar 04 '11 at 16:52
  • my findings/alternatives mentioned here, especially **jqm4gwt**, may be interesting for you: http://stackoverflow.com/a/24942720/1915920 – Andreas Covidiot Dec 10 '14 at 11:49

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If you want cross platform, web based, mobile support for devices beyond only webkit browsers (iOS, Android, BB 6.0+), you need a scalpel, not a chainsaw. Sencha, jQuery Mobile, and the like are great and give you tons of functionality right out of the box, but as many mentioned, they are mostly catering to the big mobile players and will likely leave you wanting when it comes to supporting and lower end devices.

My choice of scalpel has been phonegap + xuijs and I'm loving it so far. While it is a bare bones JS library, it gives you the foundation to build a reliable, gracefully degradable experience across the entire spectrum of smart phones (with wp7 on the way). Write your transitions, skinning, etc... as CSS and browsers that don't support them will simply deliver the content without the flare of sliding views, round corners, gradients, shadows, etc...

Tony Lukasavage
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Here is an interesting thread discussing pros and cons of jQuery Mobile and Sencha Touch:

http://www.quora.com/Were-deciding-between-jQuery-Mobile-currently-in-alpha-and-Sencha-Touch-What-are-the-pros-and-cons-for-each

... and here a blogpost covering more mobile cross-plattform solutions: http://interfacethis.com/2011/adventures-in-html5-part-one/

j7nn7k
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Unless you have no clue about html&css - gwt (mobile) is a bad choice. GWT makes a abstraction of the javascript in java which has some advantages but also brings big disadvantages. For example you can't use javascript language functions that are not available in java like closures. The Developer mode gets very slow on bigger projects. And you have need the complier for every new Browserversion. etc. My favorite is jquerymobile. Sencha could be an alternative but does not feel so native to HTML (IMHO)

Oh but If you have no clue about html&css. Or a big Team with Native-Ui-Java-Developers that has no exp with html&css. GWT could be a good choice. So it depends on you/your teams skill.

Matthias
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  • Well thanks for your insights. I had The same Impression of sencha as you describe it. And if gwtmobile works as you say it doesn't sound suitable for a "usual" web dev. And since jqtouch is not working with Android properly (anymore/yet) there is basically only jqery mobile left. How is it about the robustness and features of jqery mobile? I'm asking cause the project is kinda new... – j7nn7k Feb 26 '11 at 09:30
  • It works pretty well/stable for me so far BUT as you know it's still alpha. And Alpha means that the Interface/API ist not fixed right now. So it could be possible that the API gets restructured from version to version until at least beta. But it should reach beta soon because the current alpha is already the third release. – Matthias Feb 26 '11 at 09:37
  • My question might add some to this discussion - http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5071369/is-jquery-mobile-ready-for-production-use – jimmystormig Feb 27 '11 at 13:58
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    I gave jQuery mobile a deeper checkup and I must say... well it's kinda OK. They added lots of useful features, but the performance on Android sucks (to date). I see a lot potential but in my opinion they should cut down on the features - especially the eye candy - and focus more on stability. What do you think? – j7nn7k Apr 15 '11 at 20:51
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    It is a common misconception that GWT is for Java developers who don't want to learn Javascript - but that is a path to ruin. GWT works best when you treat it as one of the most advanced Javascript compilers - which is what it is. It has amazing support for minimizing and optimizing the code that is delivered to the client - which is just what mobile needs. – Tom Carchrae Apr 16 '12 at 18:03
  • -1 "For example you can't use javascript language functions that are not available in java like closures.", you absolutely can, using JSNI. – funkybro Sep 10 '12 at 14:24
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I'm not super-familiar with javascript, so I really like Uranium. It's a pre-built set of widgets and all you need to do is include some attributes in your HTML. But it also comes with XUI, so if you need that it's there too. I find JQuery far too bloated... I want my mobile sites to be super-fast, so I want minimum excess.

michael
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