star-demo-es6

Introduction

This is a test/demo Titanium project designed to run on iOS and Android and based on the free Star Wars API (SWAPI). The App is written in Titanium using ES6, Promises and a custom framework I have called Erbium.

I am looking at using ES6 for Titanium development and really needed the focus of a tangible app to do anything meaningful. As I also wanted to put Promises into the app, I searched the internet and found this excellent article by Adam Paxton on Promises in Titanium (http://adampaxton.com/using-javascript-promises-in-appcelerator-titanium/). Which gave me some great info and the idea to base my investigations around the same API.

What is here

I have include all the source code (which resides under the src dir) except for the code in the src/system directory, the reason for this is that it is still VERY much WIP, and a bit untidy. Bt the files that current sit in src/system are:

• backbone.js - used at the moment for my Global Event Dispatcher
• underscore.js - included as backbone needs it (this is excluded from the babel transpile as it screws it up)
• promises.core.min.js - the bluebird core lib (as detailed in Adam's article)
• erbium.js - my 'untidy' code with a basic way of launching an app, the Global Dispatcher and a simple base Component class

Build overview

I have various npm scripts in the package.json that I am experimenting with, but basically my current build steps are:

• npm run copy-assets (only when they change)
• npm run build-app ( this transpiles into the Resources dir)

then I use the command line to run/build the actual app (i.e. Ti build )

I started the app off by creating a default classic project, added the package.json and then ran npm install.

Why

Because it's fun, I like a challenge and I get to learn an great deal about using ES6. I have also found out that some things when transpiled work on iOS but not on Android. This mainly seems based around defining exports, but it is also the reason I copy underscore.js in it's vanilla format, the transpiled version worked in iOS but threw an exception under Android.

Also Tried

I did have a version that attempted to use the React.createElement and the JSX plug-in ( I think it kinda neat the way you can use JSX to define UI). I did have some success, but it got a bit complicated so I parked it as I think it requires a JSX for Titanium developing to really work. Hence in my Component class I have a generateView() function that sort of replaces the render() function in React (but not quite).

App availablility

The demo app can be also be downloaded from:

• Google PlayStore Link
• iTunes