Porting DominoKit applications to native mobile applications (iOS and Android)

[jsfan3]

Do you know if there are any strategies to turn a DominoKit app as-is into a native mobile app (iOS and Android)?

My first idea is obviously a webview, but this solution has limitations. Are there more advanced strategies?

I haven't developed anything with DominoKit yet, I just want to understand if I have to do double or triple work by writing separate code for mobile app (with a different framework) and web app (with DominoKit), or if I can do everything with one code base.

[niloc132]

Domino UI is a tool that lets you build UIs in Java with JS and HTML, and compile for the browser using either GWT or J2CL.

J2CL (and GWT before it) combined with other tools like j2objc etc are used by Google for implementing client business logic in a single language, then building a native frontend for each language separately. Google sheets for example - the same Java codebase is said to run on the server and in all clients, with a specialized UI for each runtime. Loading sheets now, I see a webworker that loads a file called https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/j2clritzapp/static/client/js/1330248548-calcworker_j2cl_core.js.

DominoUI could be one of those frontends, specific for running in browsers, or it could serve as a "stopgap" using a webview for platforms you arent ready to fully invest in. It is not, however, built to abstract away the notion of the browser DOM into something that can be all things to all platforms. Consider tools like Flutter or React Native for that - but also consider the uphill battle that each application takes place in trying to get each of those other platforms jankfree at "no cost". Odds are if you want a native-feeling experience for each platform, you're going to end up needing native development work on each platform anyway, the question is "how much of the UI has to be written just for that platform".

Many iOS vs Android idioms aren't 100% consistent anyway, so even native apps that insist on retaining the exact same experience will suffer in usability - and for what? how many users change platform to platform often enough to be surprised by subtle differences in the same app, but not often enough to be used to how the platforms work?

[FrankHossfeld]

AFAIR I had a request in Nalu to avoid leaving the application (when going back) because it was used on Android. We added the stayOnSite-feature. I think the Author was @masterdanny