Journyx Presents: jPint  Web-Based iPhone Dev

 

jPint is a set of libraries designed by Journyx to allow developers to build web-based applications that look and feel as much like native iPhone apps as possible, while retaining the ability for those apps to be used by people who, for whatever reason, don't actually have an iPhone handy.

The real point of jPint is, of course, to allow developers to build mobile applications for as large an customer base as possible. Ah, capitalism.

Anyway, there's lots of good reading on jPint below. Or you can just download it and start mucking around. Whichever works best for you.

jPint In Action

Check this out. What you've got here is an actual instance of jPint running in an iframe.

In addition to being able to interact with the enclosed application via your plain old web browser, you can access the app via your iPhone as well. Go ahead. Try it. You know you want to.

Supported Environments

  • iPhone
  • Safari and Firefox as a standard web page
  • Google Gadgets for the aforementioned browsers
  • Coming soon: Internet Explorer

Known Issues In The Current Version

jPint is a work in progress, and though we've managed to solve a number of key issues in developing an iPhone-flavored web app, there are a few things hanging. These include:

  • Never tested in IE. Will shatter over the floor and make your feet bleed.
  • Scrollbars don't act quite right in a Google Gadget.
  • The page jumps around (due to scrollTo) as a Google Gadget.
  • Buttons in the Notes demo app should be brown. Some of them, anyway.
  • The use of addListener in jPint.js could be replaced with prototype observation.

If you manage to work out a solution to one or more of these problems before we do, drop us a line. We'd love to hear from you.

Feature Requests

  • Compressed versions of the JS and css files for transmission speed.
  • JS workaround for position:fixed on iPhone
  • CSS wrappers for different views based on iPhone orientation
  • More animation types (slide up over IconMenu, for instance)
  • More iPhone page types:
    • doc at bottom of IconMenu ala the iPhone main screen.
    • graphics at left of EdgedList li ala "Photos - Albums" and "iPod - Albums"
    • grid of pictures like the view of a specific album under Photos.
    • picture display like when you are viewing a photo in Photos
    • on/off widget like the one on the Alarms page (and the taller gray edgedlist styling?).
    • alphabetical browser along the right edge like in Contact, Artists, etc...
    • content above RoundedList, like the Contact Details page with the photo up top
    • list items with two links, like the Favorites page with a main link and one at the right
  • The toggleDeleteMode() and toggleSortMode() stuff is bit clumsy, perhaps.

The Road Map To 1.0

The 0.7 version of the jPint libraries is the first public release. The version 1.0 libraries will be released later in 2008, concurrent with the release of mobile time tracking functionality by Journyx. We have left room for two interim releases (0.8 and 0.9), one of which will include Internet Explorer support. The other should be considered a "wildcard" release which may or may not occur, depending on whether there are significant contributions or unexpected developments.

None of this should be taken as committal. We like you, but we're not sure we're ready.