Developming Mobile Apps with Appcelerator

I have been interested in learning to develop mobile apps for quite some time, but the thought of learning a new programing language has been putting me off. I recently discovered Appcelerator Titanium studio. It allows you to build native apps for Android, iPhone and Blackbery using languages you may already know.

Appcelerator allows you to create a project then design the user interface using simple Javascript like code. Lets say we want a window with an image at the top (like a company logo)

 var window = Titanium.UI.createWindow ({
    title: 'place your window title here',
  });

var logo = Titanium.UI.createImageView({
   
    url:'logo.jpg'
});

window.open();
window.add(logo);

When placing code Appcelerator Titanium Studio offers syntax highlighting, auto-completion and code snipped insertion. My main experience of using an IDE to generate an interface is through VB.net, and as a result the work flow mythology makes sense. Its a lot like using name spaced in vb.net to create variables and event handlers.

I have only been using Appcelerator for the past couple of days, but I will be sure to post more details when I have a firmer grasp of the system and what it is possibilities are.

Appcelerator Titanium Studio works well with the Android SDK. When you write or create an application you can run it or debug it usng the Android emulator. This allows you to clearly see a workign version of your app as it would run on an android device.

You can also use Appcelerator to develop for iPhone and blackberry using the same code base. IN order to install the Apple development tools you do have to me running Appcelerator on an Apple machine.

Appcelerator homepage

Mack.