Platform independent development for mobile applications

Abstract

Mobile phone usage has been increasing drastically over the last years and mobile devices are nowadays not only a tool used for making calls and sending messages but also a personal device providing information and entertainment to the user. This increased interest in mobile devices resulted in a huge demand for the development of mobile applications and a huge need for rapid mobile development methodologies. The main problem that emerged with this new way of development is the number of devices and platforms available, which make it difficult for a mobile application to be compatible with all current mobile platforms. The MobileApp Translator system developed in this dissertation addresses this problem by providing a tool which helps developers in creating mobile applications independent on the particular mobile platform. The system consists of a web-based hybrid solution. The mobile application is developed by describing its entire functionality using web-based code (HTMLS, CSS and JavaScript). Using the developed build tool, the web-based code is parsed and abstractly represented using Java objects and translated into a native mobile application project which can be enhanced to support any device feature not supported by the hybrid solution. This can be done using either a Web View or a native components approach. In the Web View approach, the web-based code is not translated into native code, but is included in the native mobile application project generated and then rendered using the Web View components provided by each mobile platform. In contrast the native components approach translates all the web-based code into the respective native UI representations and code. Using this approach the outputted application will be smaller in size and provides better performance when compared with an application using Web View components. The developed system was designed using different modules so as to facilitate the addition of a newly emerged mobile device platform. In the current implementation, as a proof of concept, two most popular and architecturally diverse mobile platforms have been supported namely Android and iOS; however, future work may be done in order to support additional mobile platforms. Using the MobileApp Translator the development process for mobile applications will be facilitated and the results from the evaluation process were fully satisfactory.