Jochen Krause
Top 7 Eclipse RAP features since release 3.0
Eclipse RAP has added a couple of cool new features for its current 3.14 release. These two made it into my favorites since the RAP 3.0 release.
Plan Your EclipseCon NA with the Conference App
EclipseCon North America is just around the corner, and the EclipseCon NA 2016 app has finally arrived to help you make the best of the conference!
How RAP Inspired a New Generation of Mobile Apps
Eclipse RAP is well-known for enabling the migration of complex RCP applications to the web, and providing a sustainable single sourcing paradigm. It’s been delivering on these promises for the past decade.
Dynamic i18n for Tabris.js with selectors and apply()
Internationalization is a common task for developers and can be easily solved with Tabris.js by working with language specific modules. This article explains the ability of Tabris.js to go beyond the simple use of modules by using the apply method for i18n.
Native Mobile Apps in JavaScript with Tabris.js
Developing mobile apps in JavaScript / HTML5 holds a great promise. Getting started is easy, Cross Platform is a given and the ecosystem of components and libraries is huge. Still, most apps today are developed using native code or as hybrid apps, combining native code and web technologies. Hybrid apps have emerged out of the need to combine the flexibility of HTML5 and server side content with the power of native UIs. Now you are getting a new option for native UIs on iOS and Android - with no need for switching to Objective-C, Swift or Java: Tabris.js
RAP at EclipseCon Europe 2014
EclipseCon Europe was another great event which showed us how active the European Eclipse Community is. It is really great to see Eclipse still thriving after more than 10 years. This year I had the opportunity to present a different aspect of RAP - as an enabler for a couple of our products. The interest in RAP is still rising, and I am happy to see new Eclipse projects like Dirigible are using RAP as their infrastructure.
JavaScript for Java developers
Most Java developers stick up their nose if it comes to JavaScript. Today I would like to present you a way of dealing with JavaScript that is less alienating than learning prototype based inheritance and all the caveats about this operator in JavaScript.
Introducing Eclipse 4 on RAP
Today I am happy to announce that RAP and Eclipse 4 can now be used together. Over the last couple of months we have been working with Tom Schindl, who will be reporting on RAP and Eclipse4 as a guest author on this blog.
Eclipse Lifetime Contribution Award goes to Markus Knauer
The Eclipse Community recognizes people that make longtime, major contributions to Eclipse with the Eclipse Lifetime Contribution Award. We are very pleased that this year, the Award goes to Markus Knauer, who has been a core member of our team of Eclipse specialists since more than 8 years.
Eclipse RAP at Allianz
It is always great to see the adoption of your open source project at large enterprises. It is even better when you receive positive feedback from those organizations. Without a doubt, it is best when those enterprises talk publicly about their positive experience.
Visualizing data with D3
Using visualization to extract knowledge from data is one proven approach for dealing with large amounts of data. Today I would like to introduce you to D3, an intriguing JavaScript library for visualization.
Firefox OS Rant
I have to admit that I am a little bit frustrated with Firefox OS, so here comes my RANT. I am not complaining that the system is at a very early stage with lots of issues, this has to be expected. I am complaining that the project is making it really hard to find out what’s going on.
Firefox OS Peak - First Impressions (Part 1)
On April 23rd, the Firefox OS developer preview phones became available in Europe - and were sold out in a few hours. The demand was so overwhelming that the supplier geeksphone had to shut down their online shop completely for a week. Now they are back online and have been busy delivering the phones - our’s arrived on Friday.
Revealing Tabris with reveal.js
Creating and sharing presentations using most of the tools available today is a pain. I think this is mainly due to the fact that they mix content and design in one document and often do a poor job in keeping these concerns apart when the user is editing. When I used Keynote for the first time I was really impressed, but over time I found it had the same issues as all of the other programs.
RAP becomes the Remote Application Platform
RAP is approaching its second major release in its 6 year history, and major releases should be accompanied by major new functionality - at least this is our take on versioning.
Mobile development survey - target mobile platforms, skills and look & feel
Last week we published a tool for giving developers hints on which mobile platforms might best suite their requirements with respect to platforms, skill and more parameters. Mobile Select-O-Matic does also provide interesting insights on the requirements that developers impose on mobile platforms / frameworks.
Mobile Select-O-Matic - find the right mobile technology
Over the past year we have been actively researching the landscape of mobile development solutions for business. There is a vast amount of different approaches with different strength and weaknesses. To find “the right” solution you need to consider a rather complex decision tree. As developers hate repeating themselves we decided to make my findings available to the broader community.
So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish
Current and future viability of Eclipse
No, this is not another farewell. We have had too many of them over the last few years. Following the recent discussion [1][2][3] about Eclipse Juno one can get the impression that Eclipse is going to be “demolished” anytime soon to make space for a new hyperspace bypass. Reality is, there is no new hyperspace bypass. Not even a plan for one*. Eclipse is the market leading IDE, and receives millions of downloads with a trend going up. The dolphins can stay another decade. But how is it possible that a) the internal community is shrinking b) people are getting criticized for their open source work?
The future of GWT?
Last month I was researching options for writing multi-platform mobile apps in Java. Beside our own framework Tabris the Google Web Toolkit is an obvious option. When I started to dig a little deeper I stumbled upon Google’s announcement at Google IO 2012 to go from “gatekeeper to peer” regarding the development of GWT. It was not really a formal announcement, rather it had been mentioned as part of a presentation on “The history and future of GWT”. The announcement did not contain a lot of tangible information beside the introduction of a steering committee and its members. Now six weeks have passed since the announcement and there is still only very little information available. The steering committee website is still not live (as of Aug 14, 2012) and the associated mailing list is exposing pieces of information without providing enough context. So what is going on?
Is Eclipse awesome?
Today, there is one major ingredient for successful technology marketing:
Github everywhere with venture funding?
Github has announced a Series A round of venture funding today. They are taking 100 million USD from Andreessen Horowitz - and at least the first part of the name should be familiar to software developers.
RAP mobile is now Tabris - Tabris SDK available for download
We are happy to announce the availability of the Tabris SDK as a free download. Tabris, formerly known as RAP mobile, is a platform for building mobile apps for iOS and Android.
Does the Google App Engine still matter?
Although it started three years ago with the promise of almost infinite scalability and a big echo in the community, it has become quiet around the Google App Engine. Google trends reveals that search traffic is flat and the latest news listed is 2 years old. That does not indicate a lot of interest. Despite the App Engine team pushing out new releases and features regularly, we are asking ourselves the question, “Does supporting the App Engine with Eclipse RAP still matter?”
Tabris - iOS and Android apps written in Java
Industry experts have predicted that mobile computing is going to have a huge impact on the software industry. I agree. That’s why we asked ourselves if OSGi, RAP and Eclipse RT can help overcome some of the challenges in mobile app development.
Eclipse Modeling in Germany - now at EclipseSource
I am happy to announce that EclipseSource is finally entering the modeling world and would like to introduce Max and Jonas as our new team members in Munich. Both are well known in the modeling community for leading the Eclipse projects, EMFStore and EMF Client Platform.
redView at EclipseSource
We recently had a workshop on redView with the developers of the project, probably many of you know ekke. We wanted to evaluate it and gain a better understanding if we could use it in the context of a project in the insurance space.
The right groove?
Wouldn’t it be cool to have some sort of rap for a project called RAP? Here is a first try:
Safari 4.0 - or closing the gap to RCP
Apple has released a beta of the next major release of the Safari web browser. Beside having a couple of cool new features like a preview of your top sites on the start page and coverflow for bookmarks/history it introduces the new JavaScript engine “Nitro”. Nitro makes a difference, it makes JavaScript apps much more responsive.
The RAP book finally arrived
This is an exciting moment for me - the first book about Eclipse RAP has now finally arrived in print.
The e4 RAP and RCP/RAP single sourcing webinar
e4 is now an official incubating project under the Eclipse project, the review ended positively and uneventful.
PresentationFactory for RAP
As Neil pointed out in Having fun with RAP and OSGi there is a challenge for us rappers: Provide a look & feel of RAP applications suitable for the web. We do not claim that we are completely there, but introducing the PresentationFactory is a big step forward.