Re: Multi-platform app development options for chicken?

[Jörg F. Wittenberger]

Hi Matt,

this is what I currently do to this end:

Since a while I'm using lambdanative.  It makes it easy for me to build
APKs.  Supports iOS too, though I never tried.  I make a Chicken build
for it (not avail upstream but I'll make it avail if anyone would like
it). Chicken running in a pthread talking to the Gambit pthread from
lambdanative via abstract socket.  To make it easier to control native
Android GUI elements, I ported the original JScheme (and very
slightly extended it, e.g., to enable contructors to dispatch on
argument types)[1].

The only thing I'm currently really, really missing is a way to have
select(2)able fd's for pthread-to-pthread communication under Windows.

My verdict: great it all you need is to quickly glue some GUI
together.  However: IUp is much more capable, but also harder
to use.

Complex user interfaces I rather do as Web applications.  The server in
Chicken on the loopback interface the GUI part (on Android) is the
webkit widget from Android, controled via LNjScheme.  (On Linux/Windows
it starts a Webbrowser.  iOS I did not tryso far.)

Best

/Jörg

[1]:
https://github.com/part-cw/lambdanative/tree/master/apps/DemoAndroidLNjScheme


On Sun, 19 Jan 2020 11:57:26 -0700
Matt Welland <address@hidden> wrote:

> Currently I've got windows and Linux covered  and I'm very happy with
> the Chicken+IUP combo (although getting that to work on old platforms
> with Chicken 5 is a challenge). However I need to try again for
> Android. The SDL build worked and has great potential for games but
> not so much for regular apps.
> 
> My thought is to learn Javascript and ramp up on something like
> Native ( https://www.nativescript.org) which begs the question, is it
> feasible to use Chicken as part of a Native app such that the core of
> the app is Chicken and the interface is Javascript/Native?
> 
> I'm looking for opinions and comments from Chicken users as to how you
> would approach this problem.
> 
> Thanks.
> --
> Complexity is your enemy. Any fool can make something complicated.
> It is hard to keep things simple. - Richard Branson.