The User Interface Layer
Rocky Heckman · 2016
There are two methods to get applications from one platform to another, including porting, and wrapping. Porting the code over which involves writing the code again in the language native to the target platform, and wrapping the code in something that provides an interpretation layer. This chapter first reviews multi-client development tools, and discusses what people should consider when choosing cross-platform development languages. When one writes the user interface (UI) layer for the app itself they need to use whatever language is supported on the device. The three top runners are Java, Objective-C, and C#. With cross-platform tools like PhoneGap, Microsoft Visual Studio, and Xamarin, one can create apps that have a common code layer, but different UI screens for each platform from a single codebase. People will want to decide on their approach, either wrapping or porting up front.