Author: Anurag Pattnaik

I help you to develop web & mobile applications according to your specific needs. I manage a skillful team of resources to deliver Ruby on Rails, iPhone & Android applications on a scheduled timeframe.

How To Integrate JWT in Python Django REST Framework?

Posted on by Anurag Pattnaik

Django REST Framework is one of the most popular Django web frameworks that has been used to build many successful projects. It provides a simple and easy-to-use interface for designing APIs and JSON web services, which is quite popular among startups. When working with the REST framework in Python, there are a few ways you can implement the JSON Web Token (JWT) type of authentication.

What Is JWT?

JWT is an encoded JSON string that is passed in headers to authenticate requests. It is usually obtained by hashing JSON data with a secret key. This means that the server doesn’t need to query the database every time to retrieve the user associated with a given token.

How JSON Web Tokens Work

When a user successfully logs in using their credentials, a JSON Web Token is obtained and saved in local storage. Whenever the user wants to access a protected URL, the token is sent in the header of the request. The server then checks for a valid JWT in the Authorization header, and if found, the user will be allowed access.

A typical content header will look like this:

[code language=”css”]
Authorization: Bearer gdh676hghu
[/code]

Work Flow of JWT

JWT Diagram

Advantages of JWT

  • No Session to Manage (stateless)
  • Portable
  • No Cookies Required, So It’s Very Mobile Friendly
  • Good Performance
  • JWT helps in securing APIs

Django REST Framework

Django REST framework (DRF) is an open source, mature and well supported Python/Django library that aims at building sophisticated web APIs. It is a flexible and fully-featured toolkit with modular and customizable architecture that makes possible development of both simple, turn-key API endpoints and complicated REST constructs.

Main Advantages of Django REST framework

  • Simplicity, flexibility, quality, and test coverage of source code.
  • Powerful serialization engine compatible with both ORM and non-ORM data sources.
  • Pluggable and easy to customize emitters, parsers, validators and authenticators.
  • Generic classes for CRUD operations.
  • Clean, simple, views for Resources, using Django’s new class based views.
  • Support for Model Resources with out-of-the-box default implementations and input validation (optional support for forms as input validation).
  • HTTP response handling, content type negotiation using HTTP Accept headers.

Implementing JWT in Django REST Framework

Django REST Framework comes with various default Authentication Classes. Basic Authentication, Session Authentication, and Token Authentication to name a few.

Token-based authentication is the most preferred method of implementing authentication in modern APIs. In this mechanism, the server generates a token for the authenticated user and the user has to send the token along with all the HTTP requests to identify themselves.

Install DRF and Django-rest-framework-jwt using pip

[code language=”css”]
pip install djangorestframework

pip install djangorestframework-jwt

pip install django
[/code]

In order to use JWT, we need to configure Django-rest-framework permissions to accept JSON Web Tokens.

In the settings.py file, add the following configurations:

[code language=”css”]
REST_FRAMEWORK = {

‘DEFAULT_AUTHENTICATION_CLASSES’: (

‘rest_framework_jwt.authentication.JSONWebTokenAuthentication’,

),

}
[/code]

Now add JWT API endpoint to the settings.py file as below

[code language=”css”]
from django.urls import path, include

from rest_framework_simplejwt import views as jwt_views

 

urlpatterns = [

path(‘api/token/’,

jwt_views.TokenObtainPairView.as_view(),

name =’token_obtain_pair’),

path(‘api/token/refresh/’,

jwt_views.TokenRefreshView.as_view(),

name =’token_refresh’),

path(”, include(‘app.urls’)),

]
[/code]

The above endpoint will be used to generate and refresh the JWT token on every API call.

We will make use of the Django-REST Framework JWT Python module we installed at the beginning of this tutorial. It adds JWT authentication support for Django Rest Framework apps.

Let’s define some configuration parameters for our tokens and how they are generated in the settings.py file.

[code language=”css”]
import datetime

JWT_AUTH = {

 

‘JWT_VERIFY’: True,

‘JWT_VERIFY_EXPIRATION’: True,

‘JWT_EXPIRATION_DELTA’: datetime.timedelta(seconds=3000),

‘JWT_AUTH_HEADER_PREFIX’: ‘Bearer’,

}
[/code]

  • JWT_VERIFY: It will raise a jwt. Decode Error if the secret is wrong.
  • JWT_VERIFY_EXPIRATION: Sets the expiration to True, meaning Tokens will expire after a period of time. The default time is five minutes.
  • JWT_AUTH_HEADER_PREFIX: The Authorization header value prefix that is required to be sent together with the token. We have set it as Bearer, and the default is JWT

Now you can use the JWT payload in your authentication method. Go to the views.py file and add the following code

[code language=”css”]
def authenticate_user(request):

email = request.data[’email’]

password = request.data[‘password’]

 

user = User.objects.get(email=email, password=password)

if user:

payload = jwt_payload_handler(user)

token = jwt.encode(payload, settings.SECRET_KEY)

user_details = {}

user_details[‘name’] = "%s %s" % ( user.first_name, user.last_name)

user_details[‘token’] = token

user_logged_in.send(sender=user.__class__,request=request, user=user)

return Response(user_details, status=status.HTTP_200_OK)

[/code]

Every time the user wants to make an API request, they have to send the token in auth Headers in order to authenticate the request. You can test the API endpoint using Postman or any other API testing tools.

You can check the JWT token by using any of the PI test tools like Postman. Below is the screenshot of using postman to call the JWT API

JWTYou can find out the source code for the demo project here at Github

Conclusion

JWTs are the best way to securely exchange information between front-end and backend because they can be signed, which means we can be sure that the senders are who they say they are. The structure of a JWT allows us to verify that the content hasn’t been tampered with.

JWT makes the process of user authentication on the web much easier, providing a simpler way to exchange information between a server and a client.

The Django REST Framework is a RESTful framework for developing Django applications. It provides a high-level view on how to develop RESTful web services in Django.

An Introduction To BuildContext In Flutter and It’s Importance?

Posted on by Anurag Pattnaik

BuildContext is the object that stores information about the current build. It provides information such as the minimum and maximum supported Flutter version, the device’s screen size and pixel density, the currently active theme, and more.

The BuildContext is the set of inputs that Flutter uses to create an instance of a widget. It includes properties on the Android and iOS platforms, as well as properties related to the current device and environment.

It can be used to customize the behavior and appearance of your widget, but it’s important to understand how it works in order to avoid any issues.

For instance, you can use BuildContext.host () to get a string that specifies the current app’s host name. You can also use BuildContext.local (context).emulator so you can set up an emulator for testing your app on different devices without needing to change settings in Android Studio every time you want to switch emulators.

Flutter is one of the hottest technologies for cross-platform mobile development. It has been described as a new contender in the app development industry, competing with traditional frameworks like React Native and Xamarin.

Flutter builds on Google’s own Dart programming language and provides a library of scalable, customizable UI widgets to help developers build beautiful native interfaces that run across all platforms. It has been designed to help developers build high-quality, natively compiled apps that run on both Android and iOS from one codebase.

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What is a BuildContext?

The BuildContext is a locator that is used to point the location of the widget in the widget tree.

In Flutter we have to create widgets through the build method & we have to pass the BuildContext as an argument to the build method.

Each BuildContext is different for every widget. Each widget you create has its own BuildContext and they can locate themselves in the widget tree or reach out to the nearest widget.

This is how we create a widget

[code language=”css”]
Widget build (BuildContext context)=> MyAwesomeWidget();
[/code]

Flutter widget tree

Everything in Flutter is a widget. Whether it is a container, providers, text, button, image etc. everything is a widget, whether it reflects the UI in the app or not.

The UI or display in Flutter comprises stacks of widgets popularly called a widget tree. Each component is responsible for a small unit of the entire UI.

Flutter widget tree

The above image is an example of a widget tree in Flutter. We can observe that every widget has its own place in the widget tree i.e. the Button widget is under column widget.

Widgets are only visible to its BuildContext or to its parent’s BuildContext. That means we can locate the parent widget from the child widget. For the above image tree structure we can get Scaffold from Container by going up:

[code language=”css”]
context.ancestorWidgetOfExactType(Scaffold)
[/code]

You can also locate a child widget from a parent widget and for that, we use Inherited Widgets.

There are three main trees in Flutter:

  1. Widget
  2. Element
  3. Render

Widget

Widgets are immutable, they represent the structure for RenderObjects Fluorescence is optimized, which can easily create and destroy widgets without any significant performance implications.

The same can’t be said for RenderObjects.

Element

In the middle of Widgets and RenderObjects sits elements. These act as the glue between the immutable widget layer and the mutable render layer.

As the configuration of a widget changes (for example, the user calls the set state that triggers a rebuild), the element notices incoming changes and says to the corresponding render object,

“Hey! Please update. ”

Render

RenderObjects are what the visual pieces on the screen correspond to. Their purpose is to define areas on the screen regarding their spatial dimensions. They are referenced by the element. As a consequence we are dealing with another (third) tree here: the RenderObjects together form a tree which is called Render Tree whose root node is a RenderView (being a variant of a RenderObject). The RenderObject, on the other hand, are mutable objects that do the heavy lifting of turning the configuration supplied from widgets into pixels users can see and interact with on the screen.

Unlike widgets that are cheap and can safely be created and destroyed without any significant performance implications, the same cannot be said for RenderObjects.

For this reason, whenever the configuration of a widget changes, the framework looks at the change and updates the associated RenderObject instead of creating a new one each time.

Conclusion

Understanding BuildContext is very crucial to develop applications in Flutter. This improves our knowledge on how Flutter works and helps to build apps confidently.

BuildContext is a facade that provides a consistent API for implementing custom layouts and animations. The code is platform-specific, but the abstraction weaves some of the underlying platform-specific logic out of sight. BuildContext also helps reduce the need to know about the underlying platform details when implementing custom layouts and animations.

I’ve worked with the team at Andolasoft on multiple websites. They are professional, responsive, & easy to work with. I’ve had great experiences & would recommend their services to anyone.

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Salesforce, Houston, Texas

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Flutter is an open-source mobile app SDK that is used to make a high-quality app with a beautiful and consistent user experience. Unlike native mobile development, Flutter does not require that an app has a single, complete codebase but instead lets you mix and match code for different platforms. It also provides a rich set of pre-built widgets and allows for shared state.

The BuildContext is the context in which the Flutter app is running and is used for determining where to find resources and strings. It can be thought of as the environment in which the app is being used. Flutter provides an abstract class called BuildContext that handles the loading of resources, without requiring the developer to use hardcoded paths. This abstraction is one of the things that makes flutter so easy to use.

Flutter provides a set of high-level classes to help flutter developers build reactive user interfaces. Are you looking to develop an application in flutter framework? Let’s discuss

How To Use JavaScript Promises and Fetch API

Posted on by Anurag Pattnaik

As an interpreted language, JavaScript executes code line by line. However, it does not wait for the dependent code to execute before executing the next line.

To achieve this feature JavaScript introduces the callback function. Basically this is associated with the asynchronous operations in JavaScript.

But the issue with the callback function is if we have more than one asynchronous operation running at the same time. So it became hell to manage the code using the callback functions.

The problems are

  • Hard to understand the codes because the code becomes lengthier and nested structure.
  • Hard to manage the codes, because it is not clear which callbacks are called when and also there are so many callbacks to write to perform a particular task.
  • Also need not satisfy all the requirements

Here JavaScript introduces the concept of Promises.

JavaScript promises represent the eventual completion or failure of asynchronous operations. Promises are either resolved or rejected. Hence, when it resolves or rejects multiple asynchronous operations, it returns either success or an error.

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Chaining Promises is provided to handle multiple asynchronous operations. So the code here is manageable and easy to understand. For your understanding, here are some examples of callbacks and promises.

Callbacks

[code language=”css”]
function validateMoney(money){

var interest = 100;

if(money){

return money+interest;

}else{

return money;

}

}

function getInterestMoney(money, callback) {

if (typeof money !== ‘number’) {

return callback(‘money is not a number’);

} else {

return callback(money)

}

}

const money = getInterestMoney(1200, validateMoney);

console.log(money);
[/code]

Promises:

[code language=”css”]
function getInterestMoney(money) {

return new Promise((resolve, reject) => {

if (typeof money !== ‘number’) {

reject(new Error(‘money is not a number’))

} else {

var interest = 100;

money = money+interest;

resolve(money);

}

})

}

getInterestMoney(1200)

.then((money) => {

console.log(money);

}).catch((error) => {

console.error(error);

});
[/code]

Fetch API:

Fetch() allows you to make network requests similar to XMLHttpRequest (XHR). The main difference is that the Fetch API uses Promises, which enables a simpler and cleaner API, avoiding callback hell and having to remember the complex API of XMLHttpRequest.

Here is an example of the fetch api

[code language=”css”]
fetch(‘./api/some.json’)

.then(

function(response) {

if (response.status !== 200) {

console.log(‘Looks like there was a problem. Status Code: ‘ +

response.status);

return;

}

// Examine the text in the response

response.json().then(function(data) {

console.log(data);

});
[/code]

Chaining Promises

One of the great features of promises is the ability to chain them together. For fetch, this allows you to share logic across fetch requests.

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If you are working with a JSON API, you’ll need to check the status and parse the JSON for each response. You can simplify your code by defining the status and JSON parsing in separate functions which return promises, freeing you to only worry about handling the final data and the error case.

[code language=”css”]
function status(response) {

if (response.status >= 200 && response.status < 300) {

return Promise.resolve(response)

} else {

return Promise.reject(new Error(response.statusText))

}

}

function json(response) {

return response.json()

}

fetch(‘users.json’)

.then(status)

.then(json)

.then(function(data) {

console.log(‘Request succeeded with JSON response’, data);

}).catch(function(error) {

console.log(‘Request failed’, error);

});
[/code]

Hope the aforementioned guidelines will assist you in effectively utilizing JavaScript Promises and the Fetch API. For further insights and detailed information, recommend referring to the resources available on Google Developers.

If you require expert assistance with JavaScript development, you may consider engaging the services of Andolasoft’s experienced JavaScript developers

Let’s discuss.

How To Use Service Oriented Architecture In IOS Swift

Posted on by Anurag Pattnaik

Talking about software and application architecture is always fascinating. In order to run smoothly, everyone needs to follow certain processes and principles. It’s always good to have clean, reusable, and bug-free code, and Service Oriented Architecture plays a crucial role in implementing that.

Service-oriented architecture makes our life easier by structuring the interaction between the high-level and lower-level implementations while keeping our code reusable and structured.

So now the question arises, what exactly service oriented architecture (SOA) is?

What is Service Oriented Architecture?

Service Oriented Architecture is an architecture pattern that consolidates functionalities and business logic in such a way that services can be injected into view controllers for use. This process easily and cleanly separates the front end user interface and the back end programming and business logic.

Service Oriented Architecture(Source – orientsoftware.com)

Why Service Oriented Architecture

Let’s take a look at a few benefits of Service-Oriented Architecture. The most important benefit is managing business changes quickly and supporting newer channels of customer interaction,

  • Improvement in the flow of information.
  • Flexibility in the functionalities.
  • Reduced cost in the developmental cycle.
  • Easy to manage.
  • Improvement in data confidentiality and hence more reliability.
  • Quicker system upgrades.
  • Testing has improved.
  • Re-usability of codes.
  • A standard form of communication is established.
  • Allowing scalability to meet the needs of clients.

Why Service Oriented Architecture(Source – orientsoftware.com)

There are many patterns which can be used on the iOS development like MVC, MVVM, MVP, or VIPER. These architectural patterns handle only the higher level (UI) of our application. But soon after, we also need to implement the network managers, API clients, data sources, persistence containers, and so on.

In the following folder structure and piece of code we can view, how to implement a service-oriented architecture (SOA) in our iOS app development.

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Folder Structure

  • Classes
    • DataAccessLayer
    • PresentationLayer
    • WebAccessLayer
    • BusinessLayer
  1. The DataAccessLayer folder contains the persistence layer folders
    1. DBHelper
    2. CoreDataManager
    3. CoreDataObject
  2. PresentationLayer folder contains the user interface layer folders
    1. ViewControllers
    2. CustomCells
    3. CustomViews
  3. WebAccessLayer folder contains the
    1. APIManager
  4. BusinessLayer folder contains the business logic
    1. BusinessLogic
    2. BusinessObj

Sample Code

1. DBHelper

[code language=”css”]
func insertSportsToLocalDB(arrSports:NSMutableArray) ->Void {
}
[/code]

2. CoreDataManager

[code language=”css”]
funcfetchPrivacySettingData() ->Array<Any> {
do {
# fetch result from local db
} catchlet error asNSError {
# handle the sql exception
}
return results!
}
[/code]

3. CoreDataObject

[code language=”css”]
extensionCourts {

@nonobjc public class funcfetchRequest() ->NSFetchRequest<Courts> {
returnNSFetchRequest<Courts>(entityName: "Courts");
}

@NSManaged public varvenue_id: String?
…
…
}
[/code]

4. ViewControllers

[code language=”css”]
funcserviceCallToSaveGame() ->Void {
#show activity indicator
#prepare the service call request
letparams = ["user_id" : UserDefaults.standard.object(forKey: STRING_CONSTANT.KEY_USERID)]
#call the api manager web service call method
APIManager.sharedInstance.serviceCallRelatedToVenue(url: _API_PATH.kCreatePOI
param: params)(
#hide the indicator
…
}
}
[/code]

5. CustomCells

[code language=”css”]
a. CustomCells contains listview of user interface
[/code]

6. CustomViews

[code language=”css”]
funcdesignCustomListPopUp(withDataarrLists: Array<Any>) ->Void {
…
}
[/code]

7. APIManager

[code language=”css”]
funcserviceCallToGetProfile(withPathpath:String, withDataparam:[String:Any], withCompletionHandler completion:@escaping (AnyObject?) ->Void){

Alamofire.request(requestURL, method: .post, parameters: param, encoding: URLEncoding.methodDependent, headers: nil).responseJSON { (responseJson) in
}

}
[/code]

Advantages of Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA)

1. Reliability

With small and independent services in the SOA, it becomes easier to test and debug the applications instead of debugging the massive code chunks, which makes this highly reliable.

2. Location Independence

Services are located through the service registry and can be accessed through Uniform Resource Locator (URL), therefore they can change their location over time without interrupting consumer experience on the system while making SOA location independent.

3. Scalability

As SOA enables services to run across multiple platforms, programming languages and services, that is, services of the service-oriented architecture operate on different servers within an environment, which increases its scalability.

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4. Platform Independence

Service-Oriented Architecture permits the development of the complex application by integrating different services opted from different sources that make it independent of the platform.

5. Loosely Coupled

The loose coupling concept in SOA is inspired by the object-oriented design paradigm that reduces coupling between classes to cherish an environment where classes can be changed without breaking the existing relationship. SOA highly encourages the development of independent services to enhance the efficiency of the software application.

6. Re-usability

An application based on SOA is developed by accumulating small, self-contained and loosely coupled functionality services. It allows the re-usability of the services in multiple applications independently without interacting with other services.

7. Agility

Instead of rewriting and reintegrating each new development project, developers are able to build applications from reusable components or services, increasing SOA’s agility as a result of the ability to quickly respond to new business requirements.

8. Easy Maintenance

The above process should give you a good idea of how to implement a Service Oriented Architecture in iOS Swift. Service Oriented Architectures handle business processes easily and make software code more reusable and bug-free.

Conclusion:

Service Oriented Architecture handles the business process easily and makes the software codes clean, reusable and bug free.  SOA implementation in iOS Swift is interesting. I hope the above process must help you to get a clear picture of implementation.

At Andolasoft we have a team dedicated iOS app developer who has long expertise in implementation of SOA. Our developers can help you in all your mobile app development issues. So don’t hesitate to communicate with them. Book a free consultation to access them directly.

10 Popular Cross Platform Framework For App Development In 2022

Posted on by Anurag Pattnaik

Digital presence has become an important step to growing your business. It doesn’t matter in what sector or what scale your business belongs to, the thing that only matters is your online presence. With the Cross-Platform Frameworks, it has become a lot easier to grow your online presence and reach out to a target audience.

According to a report, 6 out of 10 small businesses are serving online. 47% of customers look for the online presence of the businesses from where they are planning to buy to check the reviews and recommendations.

In such a scenario the business can’t afford to lose its online presence on platforms like Apple App Store and Google Play Store. In a report by TrendForce, the global market share of mobile is valued at 1.39 billion in 2022, which will be a 3.8% yearly growth.

Business wants to penetrate deeper into the markets by developing highly intuitive and engaging mobile applications and increased revenue.

In today’s rapidly advancing technology, you need a strong Cross-Platform framework to develop a secure and user-friendly application.

Our many international clients demand cross-platform application development, as this helps them to get larger benefits in their business and helps them to save a large amount.

It is estimated that in 2023, the total number of application downloads will be 299 billion, up from the approx 247 billion global application downloads in 2020.

Mobile App Downloads(Source: Statista)

What is Cross-Platform Application Development?

A Cross-Platform Application development aims to create a single application that runs identically on various platforms. It uses platform-agnostic technology like HTML and CSS that helps businesses to cover many end devices at a very minimal price.

Cross Platform Mobile App

It is one of the popular methods used for application development. Many top mobile application development companies unlike Andolasoft use this framework.

Difference between Native and Cross-Platform App Development

As there are two app-building approaches to develop mobile solutions, i.e. – Native and Hybrid/ Cross-Platform.

Both have their benefits and challenges that will be suitable for your project depending on your needs and scenario.

The Native development relies on the programming languages and tools that are designed particularly for one platform. These are designed for a particular device and operating system.

Cross Platform Frameworks(Source: Appinventiv)

Whereas the Cross-Platform development aims to develop a single application that will run identically on various platforms. It ensures hassle-free implementation, affordable production, and robust functionality.

Why Choose Andolasoft Cross-Platform Application Development?

Mobile applications have become an important element in growing your business. It is because of the growing number in the digital customer base. With mobile applications, businesses can grow rapidly by developing an instant connection with the target customers.

We at Andolasoft are experts in developing cross-platform applications in platforms like Flutter, Xamarin, PhoneGap, and more.

We have worked with many customers in various domains such as retail, hospitality, education, Fintech, and more. Our experienced mobile app developers convert your ideas into reality by using the latest tech stacks.

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In this blog, I have listed the top 10 cross-platform app development frameworks that you can use in your business mobile application development.

Here you go,

1. Ionic:

Ionic is one of the best hybrid application frameworks because it bridges the properties that are in demand. It allows the developers to use a combination of languages, such as HTML5, CSS, Cordova, and JavaScript to access the native platform controllers.

Features:

  • It is an Open Source front-end framework. It allows alterations of the code structure that is suitable for each developer and saves lots of time.
  • It is based on AngularJS, which makes it easier to offer extensions to HTML’s Syntax, with core functionalities to imbibe the most useful yet attractive features and components in your applications.
  • The ionic framework uses Cordova plugins that enable access to devices with inbuilt features that include GPS, Camera, and Audio Recorder. It is one of the major benefits of Cross-platform development tools.
  • Ionic (mobile app framework) gives a native-like feel to the application which makes it the favorites among developers. With this framework, the developers can perform perfectly on various platforms.

Ionic (Source: Ukad group)

Benefits:

  • In the Ionic framework, you can get access to many ready-to-use UI components.
  • The developers should know Angular, CSS, HTML, and JavaScript to develop applications using Ionic.
  • The Ionic framework is mostly designed for mobile OS because it is based on the SAAS UI framework.
  • As it is an Open- Source- front-end framework, it enables the developers to change the code according to their requirements.

Challenges:

  • It consists of several unstable native plugins
  • Applications that have lots of graphics and animations are not suitable to develop using the Ionic framework.
  • With the Ionic framework, debugging becomes quite difficult

Developers Tool:

  • Firebase
  • Visual Studio Code
  • Ionic app flow

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2. React Native:

When you talk about a Cross-platform framework, it is difficult to not include React Native language. It is a framework, built on JavaScript. It is used to write neat code and gives a Native -like feel to your mobile application, which works easily on both iOS and Android.

React Native(Source: Fortunesoft)

Features:

  • React Native is an Open- Source cross Platform app framework, the same as ionic, for which it has a large community of support that helps in supporting and fixing the bugs, improving and introducing more advanced features.
  • It requires one-time coding to develop applications for diverse platforms like iOS and Android.
  • React Native framework is highly compatible with third-party plugins like Google Maps.
  • It focuses on UI to a greater extent rendering a highly responsive interface. The React Native language eliminates the time taken for loading and delivers a smooth interface for the applications.

Benefits:

  • React Native focuses on the UI, which enables the developers to create a highly responsive UI interface.
  • It is a leading cross-platform mobile application development framework, the developers need to code only once in React native. With the one-time coding, the application can run on diverse mobile OS platforms like iOS and Android.
  • It has a large developer community that helps the developers to get adequate support in times of distress during application development projects.
  • It is compatible with all the leading third-party plugins like Google Maps.
  • You can develop mobile applications for different iOS and Android platforms like macOS, tvOS and Android TV, etc. Also, React Native can be instrumental to develop immaculate applications for Windows and UWP.

Challenges:

  • Lots of performance issues were observed during the React Native Development.
  • With the abstraction layer present in this framework, if any bug occurs then it can cause an unexpected bug in the whole application

Developers Tool:

  • JS Editor
  • Emulator, Android Studio, SDK
  • Xcode

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3. Flutter:

Flutter framework has created a different image in the present-day market. As it is an Open-Source- cross- Platform app framework that was first released in May 2017 by Google.

Features:

  • Flutter programming Language promotes portable GPU that renders UI power which allows it to work on the latest interfaces.
  • It does not require updating the UI contents manually, because it holds a reactive framework. The Flutter App Developers only need to update the variables and the UI changes get visible after that.
  • With the Flutter framework, the developers can automatically remake a widget tree and comprehend its cost adjustments.
  • The Flutter mobile application development language has an inbuilt graphic engine. This makes it easy for the developers as they wouldn’t have to make any separate interfaces for iOS and Android.

Benefits:

  • As flutter has an inbuilt graphic engine, the developers don’t have to create separate interfaces for iOS and Android.
  • Using Dart, the developers get to write more structured programming codes. This makes it easier to maintain synchronized hierarchical structures even when writing complex applications.
  • The Flutter Cross-Platform app framework uses GPUs that enable UI power. This makes it easier for the developers to work on the latest interfaces.

Challenges:

  • Not stable
  • Lacks several advanced features
  • Comparatively new dart
  • The dart has few features and the existing ones are not properly refined.

Developer’s tool:

  • VS Code
  • Emacs
  • Android Studio

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4. Xamarin:

Xamarin was developed as an independent platform, which was developed in the year 2011, before being acquired by Microsoft. As it is an Open- Source Cross-Platform applications framework that has characteristics that make it unique from other applications.

Features:

  • The application developed on the Xamarin Framework are developed using c# which is a modern class platform application development language with the leverage to Objective-C and Java.
  • It supports a direct inclusion of Objective-C, C++ libraries, and Java. It allows the developers to reuse third-party codebases that are encrypted in Java, C++, and Java.
  • It reduces the cost and time of mobile app development, for it supports the WORA (write once, Run anywhere) and has various class libraries.
  • It offers robust compile-time checking. With this facility, the developers witness fewer run-time errors and get well-functioning applications.

Benefits:

  • It uses C# along with with.NET framework for mobile application development for any platform.
  • It provides continuously improved performance to match the native development standards.
  • With the Xamarin framework, you can get lots of learning resources
  • It offers an optimal user experience because of its UI-specific elements.

Challenges:

  • It faces many compatibility issues, using third-party tools and libraries.
  • There is a need for basic knowledge of native languages to use this framework.
  • It offers limited access to Open Source libraries.

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5. NodeJS:

NodeJS framework is one of the incredible cross-platform frameworks used for developing cross-platform applications. However, the NodeJS framework is a JavaScript runtime framework developed on the Chrome V8 JavaScript engine.

NodeJS

It is an open-source environment that supports the development of server-side and scalable networking applications.

Features:

  • The entire NodeJS API is asynchronous, it signifies that these are non-blocking in nature, which defines the servers are based on the NodeJS and it doesn’t essentially wait for the data from APIs.

It automatically moves on to another API after calling it, which works as a notification mechanism for NodeJS. It allows the server to get a response from the previous API.

  • JS library is very much speedy in its code execution process, as it is built on Chrome’s V8 engine.
  • It does not buffer, however, it outputs the data in chunks.
  • It delivers smooth and perfectly functioning applications. NodeJS uses a single-threaded model with the event looping functionality. This mechanism enables the server to reply in a non-blocking format, making them more scalable.

 Benefits:

  • JS framework has a large developers community
  • It reduces the response time for slow requests and every developer can execute the database queries simultaneously.
  • V8 engine present in NodeJS is the fastest dynamic language interpreter, which is constantly pushing the boundaries.
  • NodeJS offers a smooth and even application because it uses a single-threaded model.

Challenges:

  • Excessive memory usage
  • Unresponsive applications, such as hanging or looping
  • Bad performance
  • Various functional issue

Developer’s Tool:

  • io
  • PM2
  • Babel
  • JS
  • Meteor

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6. PhoneGap:

PhoneGap (Cordova) is an impeccable cross-platform framework used for mobile application development. It uses HTML5, CSS and JavaScript. It offers cloud solutions to developers by providing them the choice for sharing the application in the development process to get feedback from many other developers.

PhoneGap(Source: PhoneGap)

Features:

  • It enables the developers to develop cross-platform applications by using the existing web technologies like CSS3, HTML5, and JavaScript.
  • It supports the use of a single code base to develop applications for various platforms like iOS, Android, Blackberry, and Windows Phone.
  • As it uses an architecture that is plugin-able. This makes it possible to access all the native device APIs and it can be extended in a modular way.

Benefits:

  • It allows the users to use embedded payment systems like App Store and Google Play Store through the PhoneGap Cross-Platform App framework.
  • It provides the luxury to use JavaScript and other libraries like Sencha Touch, MooTools, etc. to manage all the interactions in the applications.
  • The applications that are developed with PhoneGap run very consistently on every leading OS platform that shows very minimal differences.

Challenges:

  • It is not suitable for an app that has several graphic elements
  • PhoneGap framework lacks descriptive documentation which is crucial for application development
  • It lacks support for plugins that have hooks.
  • PhoneGap language cannot be used for gaming applications.

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7. Appcelerator Titanium:

Appcelerator Titanium is an Open-Source Cross-Platform application native app development framework. It was developed in 2008. Its core features are, it includes API to access native UI, many device functionalities, and MVC framework functionality.

Titanium(Source: third rock techno)

Features:

  • It offers various tools that are used for rapid application development. It indicates that a prototype can be developed within very little time and effort that evaluates the users to interact with UI.
  • It processes pre-built connectors that are available for MS azure, Salesforce, MS SQL, the list is however very long.
  • It consists of ArrowDB- a scheme-less data store that allows developers to deploy several data models without putting any extra effort into setup.

Benefits:

  • It has a pre-built connector for Box, MSSQL, MS Azure, and Salesforce
  • It has various tools that make the development process faster.

Challenges:

  • Application Complexity increases
  • It limits the flexibility, as strange bugs and limitations increase.

Developer’s Tool:

  • Appcelerator CLI
  • Amplify

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8. Sencha Touch:

The Sencha Touch helps to accelerate the hardware techniques. If you are looking for inbuilt Cordova integrations, then the Sencha touch cross-platform application works best.

Sencha(Source: i95Dev)

Features:

  • It is famous to develop built-in native-looking themes for many, major platforms like Blackberry, iOS, Android, windows phone, etc.
  • It supports Cordova integration for the Native API access including the packaging.
  • It provides code compatibility between old and new ones.
  • It comes with 50+ built-in UI widgets. It also has several collections of rich UI like Forms, Menus, carousels, and toolbars, etc., that are specifically developed for mobile platforms.

Benefits:

  • It consists of more than 50 in-built and customized UI designs along with a rich UI collection.
  • It supports Cordova integrations, which makes it a lot easier to access the native APIs including the packaging.
  • It provides an impressive backend data package

Challenges:

  • The API designed with Sencha Touch does not give access to the contact, camera, and accelerometer of the device
  • It doesn’t allow push notification

Developer’s tools:

  • App Inspector for Sencha

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9. Corona SDK:

If you want to develop immaculate two-dimensional mobile applications for various leading platforms, then Corona SDK is the right choice. It is an open-source- cross-platform application framework that renders 10X faster mobile games and better application development services.

Corona SDK(Source: Arpatech)

Features:

  • It is a multi-faceted and lightweight programming language LUA.
  • It is used to develop gaming applications for various platforms like desktop, connected TV, iPad, etc.

Benefits:

  • It offers several plugins for media, analytics, in-app advertising, and several other things.
  • The developers can see the code changes in real-time as the cross-platform app framework responds to instant changes.
  • As it is based on the programming language LUA, it makes the framework more powerful and fast.

Challenges:

  • As it uses the Programming language LUA, which is a scripting language, for which you won’t be writing the native language
  • You won’t get the facility to use advanced and luxury technology

Developer’s Tool:

  • Xcode
  • Android Studio Project

Native Script:

Native Script is an amazing free Cross- platform Framework, which is based on JavaScript. It will not be wrong to say that NativeScript is a preferable choice for many developers who want a WORA functionality.

Features:

  • NativeScript offers accessible, beautiful, and platform-native UI, and without the web views. Developers are required to define once and this let’s the NativeScript runs everywhere
  • The NativeScript developers get complete web resources which come with loaded Plugins for every kind of solution.

Benefits:

  • NativeScript developers can write the platform based APIs in JavaScript only.
  • It supports components like AndroidArsenal, Cocoapods and calls these native methods from libraries.
  • It comes with all types of Plugins that eliminates the use of any third-party Plugins
  • It is a beautiful platform Native UI that can be accessed without the web views.

Challenges:

  • The NativeScript apps are larger than native apps
  • It has some buggy open source Plugins

Developer’s Tools:

  • CLI NativeScript

FAQ:

1. What frameworks are used for cross-platform development?
There are several frameworks used for cross-platform web development. Some of the popular cross platform frameworks are :

  • React Native
  • Flutter
  • Xamarin
  • Ionic
  • PhoneGap

2. How does a cross platform framework work?
A cross-platform framework helps to develop apps that are more compatible with major OS: iOS, android, windows, MacOS and windows. It is an alternative to many native app developments.  It uses one app code for different platforms.

3. How does a business benefit through cross- platform app development?
A business can benefits through cross platform app development in any ways such as:

  • Save lots of time and money
  • It provides high security and authentication
  • Cross platform allows automatic update

4. What the challenges are of cross platform application development?
The major challenge faced by developing a multi-platform application development framework is “how to manage the codebase”. As each platform needs a unique code, which means separate development and extra time required for each platform.

I’ve worked with the team at Andolasoft on multiple websites. They are professional, responsive, & easy to work with. I’ve had great experiences & would recommend their services to anyone.

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Salesforce, Houston, Texas

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Conclusion:

The above-mentioned list defines the top cross-platform application frameworks, which play a vital role in redefining your app development process.

I think now it will lot easier for you to choose the right platform for your application development after knowing the top ten cross-platform frameworks features.

You can seek the help of an expert mobile application development company, like Andolasoft. We hold 13 years of experience in application development. Our dedicated developers work effortlessly to provide a better cross-platform application that will fulfill all your requirements. If you are planning to develop a cross-platform mobile application for your business or you have ideas, then feel free to discuss them with us. We are here to help you with your quires.

Share your comments below if you have more information on cross-platform application frameworks.

How to Boost Performance Of Your Rails App Using DynamoDB And Memcached

Posted on by Anurag Pattnaik

With the increasing number of apps going live on the web, it’s becoming common to see that they use multiple servers. This is mainly due to scalability and availability purposes. But, these types of applications are also often not as responsive as they should be. Using a simple gem called DynamoDB and Memcached will allow you to achieve higher performance in your Rails app. Let me explain,

What is Memcached

Memcached is a high performance, free and open source distributed memory caching system used to speeding up dynamic web applications by alleviating database load. Memcached is simple yet powerful. Its simple design promotes quick deployment, ease of development, and solves many problems facing large data caches.

It is used for speeding up dynamic web applications by reducing database load. In other words, every time a database request is made it adds additional load to the server. Memcached reduces that load by storing data objects in dynamic memory (think of it as short-term memory for applications). Memcached stores data based on key-values for small arbitrary strings.

How does Memcached work?

Memcached is comprised of four main components

  1. Client software – Which is given a list of available Memcached servers
  2. A client-based hashing algorithm – Chooses a server based on the “key”
  3. Server software – Stores values and their keys into an internal hash table
  4. LRU – Determines when to throw out old data or reuse memory

Each item is comprised of a key, expiration time, and raw data.

At a high-level Memcached works as follows:

  1. The client requests a piece of data which Memcached checks to see if it is stored in cache.
  2. There are two possible outcomes here:
    1. If the data is stored in cache: return the data from Memcached (no need to check the database).
    2. If the data isn’t stored in cache: query the database, retrieve the data, and subsequently store it in Memcached.
  3. Whenever information is changed or the expiry value of an item has expired, Memcached updates its cache to ensure fresh content is delivered to the client.

A few important points about Memcached architecture include:

  • Data is only sent to one server.
  • Servers don’t share data.
  • Servers keep values in RAM. If RAM runs out the oldest value is discarded.

What is DynamoDB

Amazon DynamoDB is a fully managed NoSQL database service that provides fast and predictable performance with seamless scalability. With DynamoDB, you can create database tables that can store and retrieve any amount of data and serve any level of request traffic. You can scale up or scale down your tables’ throughput capacity without downtime or performance degradation.

DynamoDB is a particularly good fit for the following use cases

  • Applications with large amounts of data and strict latency requirements
  • Server less applications using AWS Lambda
  • Data sets with simple, known access patterns

Installing Memcached

There are a few ways you can install Memcached. Depending on which system you’re using, the method will vary. As outlined on the official Memcached Installation Wiki, installation from a package is simple.

Using Memcached with DynamoDB in Rails

Memcached is a quick in-memory protest reserving framework that can make Rails run much quicker with not very many changes. Memcached will work on any database used in Rails application.

When the table is small and request volume is low this isn’t much of an issue, but as your database and user volume grow, these can impact the performance of your application. In such cases Memcached plays an important role to reduce the database load by caching the request object in memory.

To use Memcached in Rails app, follow the below steps

Install dalli gem

[code language=”css”]gem ‘dalli'[/code]

Add “dalli” gem to your gem file and install it.

 Development/Production file

[code language=”css”]config.cache_store = :dalli_store</em><em> </em><em>config.action_controller.perform_caching = true[/code]

 Add the above lines in your development.rb or production.rb file as per the requirement

Add Memcached in your method

[code language=”css”]search_query = "user_id = :user_id AND is_approved = :is_approved"
search_param = {":user_id" =&gt; params[:user_id], ":is_approved" =&gt; ‘t’}
all_games = Rails.cache.fetch(‘all_lists’, expires_in: 2.minutes)
{
do_scan(Article.table_name,search_query,search_param)
}[/code]

The above query syntax is an example of combination of Memcached and DynamoDB. In this example once the query executed and the result will store in the “all_list” key of the Memcached and expire after 2 minutes automatically.

Conclusion:

DynamoDB and Memcached is a powerful combination for your Rails app. If you’re looking to improve the performance of your Rails application, this may be the solution for you.

DynamoDB and Memcached involves storing information in an external database, which can be retrieved with a single call. This will allow you to avoid the constant querying of data from your application’s memory.

There are many benefits to this gem, but most importantly, increased response time for your application. Faster response times mean less downtime and more satisfied customers.

You have rails application but don’t know how to maximize the performance with DynamoDB and Memcached. Andolasoft has experienced rails developer who has good hands on DynamoDB and Memcached. So fell free to discuss about your project. Book a free consultation