Today, most of us are familiar with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. These have been in use for several years now to create beautiful and mesmerizing websites. However, it is now possible to create a range of mobile applications with the help of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. In this article, let us discuss a few frameworks that allow you to build mobile applications faster.
#1. RAD.JS
The RAD.JS framework allows developers to build mobile applications faster. It is optimized for iOS, Android, and Windows Phone 8. It also supports all major browsers. The version 2.0 is a refined free tool kit from cross platform developers that helps cross-platform developers to expand their capabilities. The tool helps creating app that works on all major platforms and ensures high user satisfaction.
This framework consists of different modules that can be applied independently, thus enabling apps to be developed faster. Additionally, RAD.JS is fully compatible with other JavaScript frameworks, allowing for greater choice of the right tools. This platform is great for:
- Various PR related and branded apps with non-standard interfaces
- Apps that contain a lot of miscellaneous content
- Mass media apps and industry specific ones
- Online shops – which involve heavy data processing and calculations
Thus, RAD.JS steps in where developers make apps that fully satisfy user’s needs, making the second version even more powerful.
#2. LungoJS
LungoJS is yet another fabulous framework for creating mobile web apps. Powered by HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript, the applications that are created with it can work on all popular platforms such as iOS, Android, BlackBerry as well as WebOS. The framework has support for touch events such as tap, double-tap and swipe.
With LungoJS, everything is vectorized, so it does not use images. Yet another beautiful feature of LungoJS is that no web server is required and is fully customizable. Additionally, Lungo Sugars can be used to sweeten apps. Developers can build apps, games, catalogues and many others.
#3. Kendo UI
With Kendo UI from Telerik, you have everything for building web and mobile apps with HTML5 and JavaScript. It is a HTML5 and JQuery based framework that is used to build high performance interactive websites and apps for desktop as well as touch-screen devices. It is a tool set of virtually everything needed to develop your project from start to finish.
Kendo UI provides Angular JS and BootStrap Integration and is incorporated into various products and frameworks such as Telerik Platform, Telerik Analytics, SiteInfinity, Team Pulse, Test Studio, Google Chrome, Visual Studio, along with others.
Telerik’s Kendo is available in two flavors. The first version Kendo UI Core, which is the free and open source distribution, released under Apache License, version 2.0 and the second version – Telerik Kendo UI Professional – that is one of the commercial versions of Kendo UI. This comprehensive framework provides 70+ UI components and is suitable for creating professional websites.
#4. Ionic
Ionic is an amazing open source HTML 5 mobile framework, used to build remarkable cross-platform mobile hybrid native apps using HTML, JavaScript and CSS. To enumerate, hybrid apps are essentially small websites that run in a browser shell in an app. These have access to the native platform layer.
Ionic can be thought of as a front-end UI framework that handles all the look and feel and UI interactions for apps that need look compelling looks. It has support for a broad range of common native components, better animation and design.
However, ionic needs a native wrapper such as Cordova or PhoneGap in order to run as a native app. The developers strongly recommend Cordova proper for apps while the ionic tools use Cordova underneath.
#5. Sencha Touch
Sencha Touch can be described as the leading MVC-based JavaScript framework for building cross-platform mobile web applications. This framework provides high-performance UI components for a range of mobile devices by leveraging hardware acceleration techniques.
The framework consists of over 50 built-in UI components and native looking themes for the majority of mobile platforms. It has a novel and adaptive layout engine, fluid animations, and smooth scrolling features. All these facilities allow developers to build first-rate applications that are capable of responding to user actions almost instantaneously.
With the framework, users get a robust data package that is capable of consuming data from any backend data source. Also available is an advanced charting package that allows you to visualize data on mobile devices.
#6. PhoneGap
For those requiring cross platform mobile apps with HTML5, JavaScript and CSS, PhoneGap is an ideal choice as an open source framework. Created by Nitobi, which was purchased by Adope Systems in 2011, it enables software programmers to build applications for mobile devices using JavaScript, HTML5, and CSS3.
This framework does not rely on platform specific APIs such as those in iOS, Windows Phone or in Android. This framework extends the features of HTML and JavaScript to work with the device and results in hybrid applications.
This means that these applications are neither truly native not purely web based. The software that underlies PhoneGap is called Apache Cordova, which allows non-adobe wrapper around it, These include Intel XDK or Appery.io
#7. jQuery Mobile Framework
Yet again, the jQuery Mobile Framework is a suitable choice for developers as an HTML5 user based interface system that is designed to make responsive websites and apps that are accessible on all handheld gadgets such as smartphones, tablets, as well as desktop devices.
Specifically, this is a touch-optimized mobile framework that focuses on creating a framework that is compatible with a wide variety of smartphones and tablets. The jQuery mobile Framework is compatible with other mobile app frameworks and other platforms such as PhoneGap and Worklight.
This framework is compatible with all major desktop browsers and major mobile platforms such as Android, iOS, Windows Phone, Blackberry, WebOS and Symbian. Since it is built on top of the jQuery Core, it presents a minimal learning curve for professionals who are knowledgeable about the jQuery Syntax.
Conclusion
This is surely not an exhaustive list, but many other frameworks exist that can make developing mobile development a pleasure. Good Luck!
Images: “Media technology illustration with mobile phone and icons/Shutterstock.com“
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