Different design for desktop & smartphone?

[jojin.j]

Is it possible to have different design for the same application which will be used in both desktop & smartphone?

How is it done?

[g.cassanelli]

The same application can not be used for both web ("desktop" is not accurate even if you can install on a PC) for Mobile.

The logic and especially the interface are different, so when you create an application will need to choose whether mobile or web.

You can use the components to use the same procedures in multiple applications (web or mobile) but not the same form (due to very different interface).

EDIT: Sorry for bad translation :-(

[g.lanzi]

You can have more than one application inside the same project, for example you can have a Web Application and a Mobile Application.

If you use a Component in which you put the business layer of your app, both of the applications will be able to use the procedures, functions and classes in it.

So, we can say that you can write the business layer only once and design more presentation layers separately.

[davem]

I will step you back a bit and say yes and no to your question. I hope I fully understood your question.

scenario(an this has been done):

web app built and placed on a lan(using a server) for all in the lan to use by opening from a browser. Opened to the web is just like a hoted server somewhere else. Build the components for the mobile and you can run them from your own server.

In that sense, Yes.

Would I? NO

and this has been done.
also, if you use a web host, you can do the same thing. Just direct the browser to your work on the web and you can still have the phone capability as you need.

Would I? YES Have I, Working on it. It is multilayered with dorrs to the normal business workings, with different doors to the mobile side and general traffic off the web. It is like 3 apps in one.

[g.lanzi]

I'm sorry but I didn't understood well what you've said.
what to you mean by "build the components for the mobile and you can run them from your own server"?

I understood that you suggest a configuration that responds differently depending on the port used for the connection, some ports are for mobile users and others for desktop ones.

But in this way the application can't be used without connectivity, perhaphs it would be better to compile an application with the "enable offline" flag enabled.

[davem]

I did not say ports, I said doors. It is a presumption to a home. When a guest enters a home, it is front door. When a service(pool, carpet, other) enters the home, it is service entrance. when a worker(maid, butler) enters the home it is their maids entrance.

now think: guest as an internet browser person looking to purchase a product or read something , a service as a phone and the people at the desktops are the workers serving up the food and doing the cleaning. The iphone and the guest could be the same and the iphone and the c=worker could be the same.

Port is not a door in this broader sense here.
While developing for a company that has many different widgets for sale, a salesperson in the field makes a sale and creates an invoice for the sale of several widgets. He requires(due to connectivity problems) an inventory of widgets and client info sufficient to create that sale and invoice. He does not need anything else. His door to the application has nothing to do with bookkeeping and most other. When he completes his transaction, his door is there to submit.

A potential client off the web uses a different door and see all the widgets and a store where he can purchase.

A worker uses a dorr that allows more widgets, in store/phone sales, book keeping and other that must be done.

Careful design at the developers sight can make this easy or hard for the user.

[g.lanzi]

So you're suggesting that the solution is to design an application that is able to adapt the interface based on the current user & device, have I understood well?

[davem]

"So you're suggesting that the solution is to design an application that is able to adapt the interface based on the current user & device, have I understood well?"

Kind Of:

Leave out the device part. There used to be only one set of web pages. Those were the pages the programmer offered up and the visitors perused and/or interacted with those pages. Then came business web pages, where there were still visitors still came, but users took care of day to day work on those web pages just like what had been done on their desktops. Then came mobile with smaller memory and capabilities, but just as important to business in today's world.
r
Using the above:
a visitor does not need to see day to day business, so they visit the area designed for them(mostly html). a desktop worker visits the area of the app where they work every day. They are aware of the visitors html pages, but that is not where they work. The mobile user has two ways to go: the visitor part or the business part where they are(in my case) purchasing a car and adding it to car lot inventory from a tablet. The mobile visitor does not need to be in the car purchasing area of the app, so that door is closed to him.

Hope I have not caused confusion.

[g.lanzi]

I think it's clear enough. But in this architecture you have always to be connected, or able to reach the server on which the html pages are deployed.

The mobile offline application created by Instant Developer have a web presentation layer, with the entire application written in javascript and embedded in the native shell that empowers the javascript capabilities at a level very similar to the native code.

In order to correctly design the different screens of the server app (the every day worker) and of the mobile app, in the same Instant Developer project you can add a c#/java web application and a mobile offline app. Using the synchronization framework you can put on the device the propert set of data.

The mobile offline application created in this way have a big pro: they can be launched and used without connectivity, because the application code and the database are already on the device.