So I’ve been dabbling around in the Appcelerator Titanium framework for the better part of a week or two and find it intriguing how easy it is to make “native” iphone apps with it, and on the plus-side, with the help of the wonderful javascript language.
I find the desktop framework lacking in functionality though and would like to be able to create more native-looking desktop applications. So to my question.
What options do I have for making OSX desktop apps (without learning obj-c that is )? I have the following “requirements”.
- MUST be able to submit to the Mac App Store.
- Not done in Obj-c.
- Preferably with some sort of GUI builder.
- GUI components should look as native as possible.
- The cost for a license should be as low as possible.
- No real need for cross-platform, though it would be considered a plus.
I have checked the following frameworks:
- Real Studio
- Though i’m not too happy about using Basic, I have prior knowledge in it. This looks like my best bet so far.
- Mac Ruby
- Need to learn Ruby first, not necessarily a deal breaker though.
- MonoMac
- I guess C# is close to Java, which I know more or less by heart.
- Appcelerator Titanium
- Love the fact that it is javacript, to much hassle to do the gui though. Maybe I should just brush up on my html and css for this. I do love javascript.
I actually went with a hybrid-approach:
I started out using Appcelerator Titanium for the first version.
For the next version I added stuff into the framework (since it’s open source), like making “real” dialogs with custom buttons and such, and loading nib files with gui as dialogs and also some filesystem additions.
In hindsight I just wish I went all-out obj-c like andyvn22 recommended me to do, since I’ve learnt quite a bit about it now. The next “major” version might be a objective-c rewrite.