Digital Workshop

Wouldn't it be great if you could publish from Opus to create Android Apps?

+1 although I think it is not so easy to achieve. If it would be possible one day I am the first who will order it

T.

That's an interesting thought. So what is an "App" in this scenario? I'd certainly like to architect a Full Opus Professional pub and deploy it with SQLite DB. Then if in addition to running on Windows PC (.exe or installed)... it could magically port to the Android, that would be great. Realistically, I guess I'd have to start with different Chapter/Page layouts in Opus and design UI more specifically targeted to one mobile platform... then try to re-use content and scripts.

Having done a bit of research on mobile development, "what's an app?" and "what's an e-book or e-book+plus?" gets a lot of discussion. Also it's interesting to read some of the estimates on what it takes to "develop a mobile app" -- some cite $50K to $150K per App per platform (unless the 'app' is ~trivial, then as low as $10K).

The idea might not be all that insane.

If Opus Flex could generate SWFs based on MXML and AS3 - we could walk on AIR

Mack

In that approach, how would you achieve data persistence? What are the options? e.g., a DB, XML, JSON....?

What changes here (between old Flex... and AS3/Air) to allow external storage? [if the answer is not simple, I could re-post in The Lounge]

Oddly, I was going to follow T's post in Evolution, but decided to wait and collect some thoughts. Adobe Flex, as apposed to Opus Flex allows for the use of XML data in many ways and depending on where Opus is going...as an RIA development platform handling XML would seem to be a decent way of adding interoperability for data.

Though, I see your issue. It's not a suitable substitute for access to large volumes of data, especially transmitted over the wire as I think it would fail the first round of normalization with all those damn tags (been there had that problem) . I'm afraid, for my sins, I'm still very much PHP / mySQL (unless the new owners start charging) which seems to work well with AS3's E4X. Perhaps if Opus Script added this extension, then it's more how the data is 'got' as the language behind the manipulation of XML would be standardized once it's in the application.

Mack

Thanks Mack.
I'm not in Evolution, so appreciate some discussion here (The Lounge) as appropriate. I don't want to hijack this thread -- so maybe pick-up over at the bar. I've started looking at server-based Authoring/Publishing and CMS... this gets back to mention a couple months ago about separating content from (Opus) container... better maintenance of content and then multi-publish and re-use with alternative templates. I've come to some ideas how I will approach this and still include Opus, but still working on my shortlist. The Lounge?

Hey... you know Ellison has pushed San Francisco to host the next big sail-thing, so it is possible 'O' will look to monetize. However I think once the cat is out of the bag on this scale, it would be a strange licensing world to make it then a zoo animal and PPV.

Morning Lar,

Not a problem but you might need to clarify somewhat. My understanding of server-side authoring / CMS is the creation of content online as apposed to client-side which is where Opus / Flex IDEs would fall. Unless, your referring to the development of RIAs using Opus that would then be used for the server-side authoring?

By all means restart the thread in the Lounge. I think it might also be useful to answer your question about what constitutes an application. IMHO, Opus falls under 'multimedia development' but in light of other newer technologies it might be better defined under Rich Application Development extended from the RIA paradigm defined by Macromedia where the 'Internet' is lacking because of the dependency on a single platform. Additionally, technology that falls under the RIA umbrella, generally does so because it simulates traditional client applications and although Opus has some functionality to fulfill this requirement when placed next to solutions such as Adobe Flex, they are very different beasts.

Perhaps, the creation of SWFs / Plexus with Opus are better left in the arena of Rich Web Applications (who coined this?) where technology such as Ajax and HTML5 allow for interaction without the page reload but again there are many that would state this is simply RIA and throw blogging and social networking sites into the mixture - are these really applications?

Part of the question posed in Evolution, is simply just another thread of a much large rope many of which strands have already been raised out here in the open - including Opus' niche, your point of the cost of application development, etc. The interesting thing though was that it was asking for a comparison between Opus and other technologies which made me stop and assess the tool in relation to other products. I was brought up on the premise of mastering a language for the development of what a lot of older people would define as 'applications' - the spreadsheet, the word processor, the database, etc - but much of today's requirements for many good reasons - focus on the wonderful term of Rapid Application Development.

It's when you start to explore why this is possible, in part because basic concepts as logic and control structures are the same from BASIC as there are in newer languages and in part because they build on common agreements such as ECMA requirements that it's possible to jump from Opusscript to the Javascript required for canvas or the Actionscript required for Flex and although these all have a very powerful language bases at the core, their individual implementation does allow for fuzzy variations in what you would be better off creating. This begs the question, is a one glove fits all really necessary any more. Read a couple of books on AS3 or Flex and you'd be blow-away by the shear power of what you'd be able to achieve but in an age of Rapid Application Development for RIA / RAs, the roles of developer and designer are blurred.

Well it's not Monday and not Friday, and I'm still rambling

Mack

Thanks, Mack. I will collect some thoughts and bookmarks, and pipe this over to the Lounge area.