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NativeScript has proven to be an invaluable tool for developers across various industries. For a fitness startup, NativeScript enabled …
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What is NativeScript?
NativeScript is an open source framework that allows you to create native iOS and Android apps, with one codebase, using ​the web skills you already have (JavaScript and CSS) and ​the libraries you already love​.
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What is NativeScript?
NativeScript is an open source framework that allows you to create native iOS and Android apps, with one codebase, using ​the web skills you already have (JavaScript and CSS) and ​the libraries you already love​.
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7 - Optimizing the Startup time of NativeScript Angular Apps
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Optimizing startup time of NativeScript Angular apps
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What is NativeScript?
NativeScript is an open source framework that allows
you to create native iOS and Android apps, with one codebase, using ​the web
skills you already have (JavaScript and CSS) and ​the libraries you already
love​.
NativeScript Features
- Supported: Reuse web skills (JavaScript, CSS) to create truly native mobile apps for iOS and Android
- Supported: Deep integration with popular JavaScript frameworks like Angular or Vue to minimize learning curve
- Supported: Extensive code sharing between mobile platforms (including UI) and web apps (when used with Angular)
- Supported: Deliver high-quality mobile apps to multiple platforms faster, using web developers you already have
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NativeScript Video
This spring and summer have been full of new NativeScript features, tooling options, and improvements. NativeScript is evolving into something more than just an open source framework. In this webinar, we'll talk about all the new goodies for you and show you how you can crush it in mobile app development
NativeScript Competitors
- Xamarin
- ReactNative
- Ionic/Hybrid
NativeScript Technical Details
| Deployment Types | On-premise |
|---|---|
| Operating Systems | Windows, Linux, Mac |
| Mobile Application | Apple iOS, Android |
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NativeScript has proven to be an invaluable tool for developers across various industries. For a fitness startup, NativeScript enabled them to launch their app in just six months, providing a fast and efficient solution for their mobile development needs. Another company in the e-learning education industry is testing NativeScript as a potential alternative to their current app built on Ionic v1, with the goal of achieving an offline-first experience and improved performance.
Customers in the customer service industry have found NativeScript to be particularly useful due to its compatibility with the Angular web framework. This has allowed them to implement mobile and web-based cross-platform applications seamlessly, leveraging their existing knowledge and skills. Additionally, NativeScript's access to system APIs and seamless integration with third-party libraries has empowered developers to have full control over platform-specific functionalities, enabling them to build robust and feature-rich applications.
Countless developers have also turned to NativeScript for its ability to reuse existing frameworks and achieve native performance. It has been successfully used by consulting companies looking for a mobile app development platform that offers native performance, native UI generation, and ease of cross-platform development. These companies have praised NativeScript for allowing them to leverage their existing skills in Angular, TypeScript, and CSS, resulting in faster development cycles and cost savings.
Notably, NativeScript's versatility has made it an excellent fit for organizations that need to develop mobile applications for different platforms. By avoiding the need for separate codebases, they can save significant time and effort while still achieving native performance on both iOS and Android. This has made NativeScript a go-to choice for many developers working on projects at various stages of development.
Overall, NativeScript has garnered positive feedback from its users who appreciate its compatibility with modern web frameworks like Angular, its access to system APIs, and its ability to achieve native performance while maintaining cross-platform capabilities. It is clear that NativeScript offers a powerful solution for mobile app development needs across diverse industries.
Extensive repository of plugins: Many users appreciate the extensive repository of plugins available in NativeScript, which allows them to enhance their development speed. This feature has been praised by numerous reviewers as it enables developers to quickly add functionality to their apps without having to build everything from scratch.
Flexibility of architectural choices: The flexibility of NativeScript's four architectural choices - JavaScript, TypeScript, Angular, and Vue - is highly valued by users. This flexibility has been mentioned by a significant number of reviewers who appreciate being able to choose the framework they are most comfortable with and easily transition from prototype to final product.
Native API access and performance: The fact that NativeScript offers 100-day zero Native API access is seen as a major advantage by many users. Multiple reviewers mention this feature as it allows them to leverage the full power of native UI and achieve better performance compared to other frameworks like Ionic or PhoneGap. This capability gives developers more flexibility and control over their app's performance.
Lack of ready-made UI collections: Several users have expressed frustration with the absence of ready-made UI collections in NativeScript. This means that users have to build their applications using default UI elements and then manually style them, which can be time-consuming and require additional effort. Users feel that this limitation hampers the ease and convenience of designing user interfaces for their applications.
Default UI elements not intuitive or user-friendly: Some users have found NativeScript's default UI elements to be less intuitive or user-friendly than they would prefer. This has made it more challenging for them to quickly and efficiently create applications. They believe that a more intuitive interface would greatly enhance the development process.
Lack of built-in support for customizing UI elements: Another concern raised by users is the lack of built-in support or guidance for customizing UI elements in NativeScript. Users feel that they could benefit from more assistance or resources in this area, as it would make customization easier and faster. They believe that having readily available options for customizing UI elements would greatly improve their experience with the software.
Users have provided several recommendations for Native Script based on their experiences. Based on the feedback, the following are the three most common recommendations:
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It is advisable to do a few tutorials and check if the desired functionality is supported through plugins or if the user is willing to create them. This implies that there may be cases where certain features are missing in the software, and users should be prepared to address this by exploring plugins or creating their own.
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Users recommend trying Native Script to learn something new and explore interesting features. This suggests that Native Script offers a unique learning experience for those interested in expanding their skills and discovering new capabilities.
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However, users do not recommend using Native Script for production-ready applications. While the software has its merits, it may not be suitable for developing applications intended for deployment in a live production environment.
These recommendations highlight the importance of familiarizing oneself with Native Script's capabilities through tutorials, being open to exploring plugins or creating custom functionality, and considering the software's limitations when deciding whether it is appropriate for specific use cases.
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In an effort to move from having separate projects for Angular web development and Android Studio for Andriod app development, I have been trying to replace the multiple projects with a single NativeScript project and add support for iOS devices. I have worked as a consultant for other organizations who also tried to use NativeScript for the exact same reason. One of the prior organizations was a large US government department, and another was a private organization who facilitates the trading of goods internationally.
- Executes really fast compared to other alternatives
- Compiles down to native code and runs as a native app
- Provides a way to split custom content, including CSS styles, into separate files per target platform
- The ABSOLUTE WORST documentation I have ever seen for an environment which advertises direct involvement with Google and other vendors. Their website content appears to be written once as a version comes out, and then is never updated again as follow-on versions with significant changes are released.
- Examples provided are often written from an expert's view, making far too many assumptions, and containing too much outdated content, to be useful to any developer who is just learning the environment.
- Some areas of considerable interest, such as the development of composite plugins (draw on the use of existing components as opposed to new native components), are void of ANY useful support.
- Support is left up to the use of stackoverflow.com questions and answers, and several of those who respond frequently, do so with language which comes across in an arrogant manner, and only serves to help in a specific instance, not in a global manner which would be useful to all.
- The description of the environment is misleading. One is often led to believe that use of NativeScript will significantly reduce development effort and time. I would venture to guess that in most cases, this is untrue. A lot of effort is spent trying to keep the web app and the mobile apps at the same level of development, because the NativeScript components DO NOT support web pages. The user interface of a web app is still almost entirely new development.
- The appearance of an Android mobile app is only like that of an iOS mobile app about 90% of the time. You cannot develop an app in NativeScript for an Android device, and expect it to look the same for iOS apps. Organizations who read about NativeScript, are misled into believing that the will be able to reduce staff by eliminating all Android developers or all iOS developers. To do so, is unwise, and in most cases, I believe that organizations will find it easier to develop for one mobile platform and then have the other mobile platform follow one version behind.
- NativeScript advertises that it provides great support for Angular and other environments. While I cannot speak directly to those other environments, I can say that the integration between NativeScript and Angular is CLUNKY and PROBLEMATIC! What is easily accomplished in Angular, is a headache in NativeScript, and ends up degrading the quality of use within Angular. For example, Angular allows for developers to very easily develop components which reduce code duplication. Developing a NativeScript UI plugin (aka composite plugin) is made so difficult through the abundance of BAD information on the NativeScript website and manual operations to get it to work within Angular, that it defeats the purpose of building them. I see developers spending more time trying to fix the integration of a UI plugin than they spend in actually using the plugin.
- The poor quality of NativeScript documentation has the potential to weigh heavily on development timelines, budgets, and QA resources in a NEGATIVE manner.
- The poor interoperability of NativeScript plugins can significantly increase development time.
- The need to seek out professional instruction to learn how to use NativeScript effectively may become a burden on your budget.
- The number of breaking changes between versions of NativeScript, may cause your development efforts to lag further behind the most recent releases of NativeScript and your other chosen environments than you are accustomed to.
- NativeScript still does not support the latest major version of Angular. Any significant changes to the other environment components of your systems may hold you back even further while NativeScript plays catch-up.
I have use AngularJS and Angular for many years, and when it came time to build a mobile app, I was asked to use Android Studio. I did not have any trouble in developing apps separately with these two technologies. By trying to combine web app development and Android app development via NativeScript, I find that NativeScript is still quite immature in its development, and strongly recommend that anyone considering the use of NativeScript, do so after performing several proof-of-concept of their existing needs.
April 10, 2018
NativeScript - Mobile App Development on Steroids
I work at a fitness based startup. Our app, "AnyGo" is built entirely using NativeScript. I was the one who proposed to the team, to use NativeScript. And today when I look back, I'm glad that I found NativeScript. We were able to launch our app in 6 months, all thanks to NativeScript. I worked on the app, while 3 other developers built the backend on NodeJS.
- NativeScript has a large repository of plugins at market.nativescript.org for the times when you want to boost your development speed.
- NativeScript gives you 100% day zero Native API access.
- NativeScript doesn't use any webview to render the UI. So you get Native UI, and therefore better performance, when compared to things like ionic or phone gap.
- With NativeScript you get 4 architectural choices, JavaScript, TypeScript, Angular and Vue. Choose the one you are comfortable with.
- Nativescript runs everything on a single thread. i.e., the UI thread. If you want to offload some processing, you have to use web workers. This experience can be improved in the future releases.
- Currently NativeScript only have hot reload when you change the UI file or Css file. There is no hot reload when you change Js/Ts file, unlike Google's Flutter. This is also something which NativeScript will get in the future releases.
- In current version of NativeScript, there is no livesync when building with webpack. This feature will be added with NativeScript 4.x. (an RC version for 4.x is already available)
- With NativeScript we were able to goto market sooner than what we expected. We were in market in just 6 months.
- Customers are happy with our products, in just a month, we reached 200 active users for AnyGo user app, and 17 active partners for AnyGo Partner app.
- We were able to build all the features that the business requires, using NativeScript. We even built some new plugins for this app. Example nativescript-paytm for payment gateway integration.
- React Native and Xamarin
Unlike its competitors, NativeScript offers its users 4 architectural choices.
It shines in the area of offering 100% day zero Native API access.
The development experience is great and feels like you are home, if you are a web developer coming from Angular or Vue background, or even vanilla JS.
No
Although paid support is available, I don't pay for it. Because the community support is already top notch. Also I work at a bootstrap startup, which can't afford any paid support plans yet.
Yes
I have reported serveral bugs on Github, for NativeScript. All of those were resolved in time.
Since it is open source, they even support community PR.
I had reported a bug in the side drawer once, which caused a jaggered feel when slowly opening the drawer on android.
The nativescript ui team let me in on their private repo, and i was able to fix it and submit a PR.