![]() ![]() The author takes a refreshingly honest view of the JavaScript language. ![]() ![]() A number of my colleagues have a copy of Douglas Crockford’s “JavaScript: The Good Parts”, so, not wishing to learn about bad things, I thought this was a good place to start. I have not had a great deal of JavaScript experience, so before embarking on this development, I thought I should hit the books. You can read all about the development of this control in my previous CodeProject article. The following screenshots show the control that I developed in action: This works very well for data arranged by date or alphabetically. Clicking a jump button shows a category view where you can click to ‘jump’ the list to the desired location. The data in the list is arranged into categories, each with a ‘jump button’ at the top. However, if you are faced with a long list of information, having to swipe multiple times to reach a location near the bottom of the list becomes quite a chore! Mobile UIs typically forego visible scrollbars, replacing them with swipe gestures, thus saving on precious screen space. Whilst on the desktop, precise mouse movements can be used to grab and drag a scrollbar, navigating large lists of information. The Windows Phone 7 JumpList solves an interesting problem facing developers of mobile applications. I think it is a wise move for any developer to try their hand at developing the “JavaScript way”. Recent events aside, it is clear that the momentum behind HTML5 is growing. I’m not going to go into my own opinions on this matter I will instead direct readers to a blog post by Mike Brown which I think provides a pragmatic and measured summary of the current situation. This has led many to wonder what the future holds for Silverlight, which many feel should be the technology of choice for Metro interfaces. Microsoft has advertised that HTML / JavaScript will be an integral part of Windows 8 and its Metro themed user interface. Recent press regarding the release of Windows 8 has caused a great deal of worry and confusion within the development community. Fortunately, mobile browsers are ahead of the desktop in terms of HTML5 adoption, which is why I decided it would be an interesting exercise to port some Windows Phone 7 code I have written to HTML5 in order to have it run on iPhone, Android, and BlackBerry. Interestingly, while there are a number of technologies that can potentially be used for cross-platform web application development, for the mobile, there is just one, HTML5. The competing technologies of Silverlight, HTML5, and Flash/Flex make it hard to know which technology to choose, a subject which I have covered in depth in a recent white paper. There is no doubt that HTML5, and its potential as a platform for the development of cross-platform applications, is gaining popularity and momentum. ![]() Creating a cross-platform JavaScript equivalent has been on my list of things-to-do for a long while now. I wrote my original JumpList control for Windows Phone 7 a few months ago. You can also see it running in your browser on my blog. You can see the finished HTML5 control in action on an iPod Touch here: Instead I wanted to capture the difference in approach and the general ‘feel’ of developing with these two very different technologies. My aim in writing this article was not to compare HTML5 / CSS3 / JavaScript and Silverlight feature-by-feature if you squint a bit, you can map most features from one to the other. This article describes my experiences of taking a control written in Silverlight for Windows Phone 7 and making it cross-platform by re-implementing it using JavaScript and HTML5. Animating the Category Buttons (Hello CSS3!). ![]()
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