Open Source Technology for Better Web Projects

With the way the tech world is changing, more and more businesses are moving to open source development. Open source customization provides the ability to create innovative and creative applications that could suit the business needs of any organization. It involves tailoring open source CMSs or scripts like Joomla, WordPress, OsCommerce and Mambo to grace the website with superior looks and functionalities.

WordPress and Joomla are the most commonly used open source tools for web development. WordPress is most common software preferred by the bloggers across the world. The seamless user interface of the tool makes content writing, publishing and organizing very easy and quick. It can be used to make a full featured website with functionalities like E-commerce, forum and Job-portal.

Joomla is a web based software that allows creating impressive websites even without the knowledge of of HTML, CSS or PHP. Its admin interface gives more control over look and feel of content in different parts of the website. There are numerous other amazing open source software as well; all having their own special features and functionalities.

Various companies employ open source techniques to set up their websites or improve the already developed ones. In the web development world there are numerous open source products available for creating vibrant websites and other commercial web applications.

The use of these technologies helps cutting down the expenses in the development of the websites or applications, to a great extent. It is because these open source tools are available for free of cost.

Customizing the open source resources consumes lesser time as compared to writing code for the entire set of features in the application. Customization can be used in every aspect of web development right from mere templates to high end CMSs, CRMs etc. With a customized open source service, the users can eliminate the chances of problems like lack of good documentation, user training problems, lack of product support etc.

Furthermore with this approach, users get the freedom from vendors and they are also free to change software. Open source customization has a huge community to support it and help the new developers. The amateur developers can get help to solve their queries, debugging problems, technical solutions and for regular updates.

Furthermore, those who are looking for an economical system that might require changes or additional functionalities within a given budget, must seek for open source customization services. Because, if they choose to buy a commercial software, not only they will have to incur the initial cost of buying, but also more money will be wasted on adding extra features, getting technical support etc.

With several open source technologies available in the market, there are many options to choose for web applications development. For customized web app development, you need can amateur developers, hire expert developers, who can build flexible, powerful and scalable websites and applications.

Magento : The Hot Cake for Ecommerce Development

Have you ever tried to create your online store with the help of world’s leading brand trust? Till date millions of businesses owners have built their online store using eCommerce Platform with the help of Magento Platform which is trusted by more than 11, 125,000 Merchants and users as per recent statistics of Newspaper. As We aware with the fact that every business requests need to be contend and requires to run efficiently online to make sure steady business growth. That’s why Magento ecommerce solution comes into picture and start playing vital roll for small businesses and big business at international level to fulfill huge ambition.

Are you incisive for open source e-commerce phase that appear with enormous flexibility and hold for online merchants? Magento provides such resolution of it. These days, Magento is hot cake for e-commerce development and conventionally prominent stage because of its improved petition, renowned reliability, extra flexibility and minor cost. Magento program is continually organized and utilize compared with any other frameworks or expansion stage and extremely pleasing choice of clientele.

We at Stepin solutions can proficiently design and develop your e-commerce website to dynamic web. Our team of specialist developers has skill in acclimatize the Magento effort solutions to most outstanding suit your business requirements. Our Magento development team will clarify you in adapt and make the most of the competence of your e-commerce website. Our Core Magento Web Development Services will be inclusion of Development of Ecommerce Portals with assist of Magento, Add-Ons development, Integration with Third Party Software, Migration and up gradation, Customization of Core functionality and Multi-store development.

There are quite a few other open source ecommerce platforms available these days which includes osCommerce, Shopify, zenCart to name a few. But considering our ecommerce development experience and clients’ feedback, we feel Magento has came out as the flexible, scalable and easy to manage ecommerce solution platform compared to others and leading the ecommerce market with supporting majority of ecommerce websites.

Mobile App And Mobile Website: What your business actually needs?

There has been much ado about the issue of mobile apps vs. mobile websites. The usability of mobile apps has been opposed by the evidently bigger numbers of mobile website users. And just as usual, it depends on the project, its orientation and functionality, and of course, on the target user audience and budget. Here we would like to present some of the most interesting and valuable tips that you might find helpful. Somewhere apps win, somewhere websites do. But in general, you only have to walk through these facts to facilitate your choice.

Devices and platforms. Mobile apps are designed for peculiar types of devices, and fully corresponds to its capabilities. If you for some reason target the audience of iPad users, an app is a must. Mobile websites are better for delivering their content across various mobile platforms. They are freely and instantly accessible for devices. Mobile apps have to be downloaded and installed from an application store of a peculiar platform. A great win is that mobile apps are able to run offline, unlike websites. Apps are also more capable of bringing direct returns.

Content and features. Mobile Website can display text, audio and video content, as well as several other features, such as location-based mapping and click-to-call. That is why for simpler solutions, a mobile website is a better option. Mobile apps can incorporate a wider set of platform's native features, thus have much wider functional opportunities. Turn to them when a website is not enough. Apps deliver a user experience unmatched by websites. At least for now. The situation might change with emergence of new platforms and because of varieties of devices within one platform. Then adjusting apps for all of them may become a laborious task.

Updates and changes. It is much faster and easier to update the content on a website, rather than in an application. Changes in apps can be very limited; moreover, users have to download and install updates. Changes on a website become visible straight away. Websites are easier to find and to share links. In the future, web development tools will expand the functional filling of a mobile website, thus bringing in new prospects.

Think all these issues over to draw up the entire picture of what you really need. It is generally more considerable to build a website as the first step of establishing mobile presence among a wide audience. It is faster and cheaper. That's a great solution for the sphere of marketing and eCommerce. Meanwhile the complex software that requires native features, the software for regular and offline use, the interactive software such as games - all these are implemented best as mobile apps. Other things depend on the peculiarities of your project, which your software developers will gladly advise you on.

Pros and Cons of Native and Hybrid Mobile App Development

In previous article about options of Mobile App Development we have narrated the basic understanding and differences of Native and Hybrid mobile app development as options.

In this article, we have listed the specific pros and cons of both the available options. Hope it helps.

Native app

Native apps are developed for one type of device, and then installed directly onto that device, usually from an online app marketplace.

Pros

• A native mobile app can produce the best user experience: fast graphics API and fluid animation, which is a very big deal when you’re using a lot of data or require a fast refresh.
• Obviously you can also get full control over what you are making. It’s easy for you to use camera, address book, geolocation and all other native features.
• A native mobile app usually developed by IDEs which can provide a full tools environment including building debugging, project management, version control, and other tools professional developers need.
• Native apps have the ability to work with a device’s built-in features, often making them faster and easier to work with on a device. Having an app fully integrated with a device can be extremely helpful.
• Each native app must get the approval of the app store, so the security and performance of the app is generally assured. Because native apps are associated with an app store, they also are easy for a user to find and download.

Cons

• Perhaps the biggest weakness of native apps is their lack of portability to other platforms.
• Native apps often cost more to develop and distribute because of the distinct language and tooling ecosystems, which require more investment in developer skills if you need to develop for more than one platform.
• Native apps tend to be more expensive to the developer. The costs associated with maintenance and updates are higher, especially if the app is compatible with more than one type of device. 
• While the app store can be beneficial to a developer, the process involved with approving an app can be arduous, and success is not guaranteed.

Hybrid app

Mobile hybrid apps are very similar to web applications, but they give you much greater access to different platform capabilities. For instance, on iPhone, your app can have access to the user’s address book, GPS, and many other features.

Pros

• Many developers prefer hybrid applications over native applications because the development process is very similar to that of building a website. This is because JavaScript and HTML are typically used, amongst other familiar building blocks.
• Quicker development, especially for a long time experienced web developer.
• Ionic can offer a good full angularJS environment and works well with cordova plugin which means we can use some native capabilities like iOS native tab bar or Android native tab bar and so much more.
• Most hybrid tools can enable portability of a single codebase to the major mobile platforms.
• UI frameworks can achieve a fairly native look.
• Speaking of HTML, when it comes to the features that you want on your apps, hybrid is often a great choice because using HTML allows for very few limitations. This means you can have an app that is very rich in features, feel and animation.
• If your company has a BYOD policy, hybrid applications are typically a great option for you, as they are multi-platform. This means that you can use the app on a variety of different devices.

Cons

• Because developing a hybrid app is very similar to developing a website, many developers make the mistake of simply copying their web applications to mobile without any kind of redesign. However, this can result in a number of problems, such as a slowdown in page load time, or non-optimized components that aren’t made for mobile.
• One of the earliest concerns of early hybrid apps was performance. While a number of performance issues have been fixed over time, there are a number of framework methods and specific architecture fixes (typically a framework like JQuery Mobile) that can make a hybrid app perform more like a native app.
• Mobile phones (even today’s tablets) are not fast enough to smoothly run a hybrid app. Android platform is a nightmare, page transitions don’t work smoothly not to mention lacking CSS/CSS3 implementation. IOS fares better but still has a lacking CSS3 implementation.
• Not all device APIs can be accessed.

Conclusion:

Device feature : Native app is definitely better if you need device features like camera, notification and gesture etc. • Native app is better if you want your app to work when there is no connectivity. Although In-browser caching is available but it is limited. • Speed: Native is better in speed. • Maintenance: Multiple native code maintenance difficult more complex and expensive method. Hybrid is easier to manage.

Platform independence : If platform independence is important then you should go with Hybrid/HTML5 over native. • User Interface: If you want user experience to be consistent with the platform then native is better option. This does not mean that HTML5/Hybrid cannot have good UI. But native app will make more like actual platform.

Hybrid Mobile Apps vs. Native Mobile Apps

If you are thinking of developing for the mobile application market, an important decision is to decide between developing a native application or a hybrid one. Choosing to use native or hybrid mobile application is always the pain for everyone who wants to make their mobile apps.

From our experience working with mobile app development we have made following comparison.

Native apps are specific to a given mobile platform (iOS or Android) using the development tools and language that the respective platform supports (e.g., Xcode and Objective-C with iOS, Eclipse and Java with Android). Native apps look and perform the best.

HTML5 apps use standard web technologies—typically HTML5, JavaScript and CSS. This write-once-run-anywhere approach to mobile development creates cross-platform mobile applications that work on multiple devices. While developers can create sophisticated apps with HTML5 and JavaScript alone, some vital limitations remain at the time of this writing, specifically session management, secure offline storage, and access to native device functionality (camera, calendar, geolocation, etc.)

Hybrid apps are specific to a used lonic framework which include AngularJS and Cordova plugins, make it possible to embed HTML5 apps inside a thin native container, combining the best (and worst) elements of native and HTML5 apps.

Each option has it’s own pros and cons. Based on project requirement and matching the platform competencies you can take decision. Following are the detailed information about each option which will give you better ideas about what to expect from Native or Hybrid platforms for mobile app development.

Native mobile app:
 
In a nutshell, native apps provide the best usability, the best features, and the best overall mobile experience. Both, with iPhone App or Android App, There are some things you only get with native apps:

Additional Device Accesses : Multi touch: - double taps, pinch-spread, and other compound UI gestures

Fast graphics API: the native platform gives you the fastest graphics, which may not be a big deal if you’re showing a static screen with only a few elements, or a very big deal if you’re using a lot of data and require a fast refresh.

Fluid animation: related to the fast graphics API is the ability to have fluid animation. This is especially important in gaming, highly interactive reporting, or intensely computational algorithms for transforming photos and sounds.

Built-in components : The camera, address book, geolocation, and other features native to the device can be seamlessly integrated into mobile apps. Another important built-in components is encrypted storage, but more about that later.

Ease of use : The native platform is what people are accustomed to, and so when you add that familiarity with all of the native features they expect, you have an app that’s just plain easier to use.
Documentation : There are over 2500 books alone for iOS and Android development, with many more articles, blog posts, and detailed technical threads on sites like StackOverflow.

Native apps are usually developed using an integrated development environment (IDE). IDEs provide tools for building debugging, project management, version control, and other tools professional developers need. While iOS and Android apps are developed using different IDEs and languages, there’s a lot of parity in the development environments, and there’s not much reason to delve into the differences. Simply put, you use the tools required by the device.

You need these tools because native apps are more difficult to develop. Likewise, the level of experience required is higher than other development scenarios, you don’t just cut and paste Objective-C and expect it to work. Indeed, the technological know-how of your development team is an important consideration. If you’re a professional developer, you don’t have to be sold on proven APIs and frameworks, painless special effects through established components, or the benefits of having your code all in one place. Let’s face it, today a skilled native iOS or Android developer is a rock star, and can make rock star demands.

While we’ve touched on native apps from a development perspective, there’s also the more important perspective: the end user. When you’re looking for an app, you’ll find it in the store. When you start the app, it fires up immediately. When you use the app, you get fast performance, consistent platform look and feel. When your app needs an update, it tells you so. Native apps give you everything you’d expect from the company that built your device, as if it were simply meant to be.


Hybrid Mobile App:

Hybrid development combines the best (or worst) of both the native and HTML5 worlds. We define hybrid as a web app, primarily built using HTML5 and JavaScript, that is then wrapped inside a thin native container that provides access to native platform features. PhoneGap is an example of the most popular container for creating hybrid mobile apps.

For the most part, hybrid apps provide the best of both worlds. Existing web developers that have become gurus at optimizing JavaScript, pushing CSS to create beautiful layouts, and writing compliant HTML code that works on any platform can now create sophisticated mobile applications that don’t sacrifice the cool native capabilities. In certain circumstances, native developers can write plugins for tasks like image processing, but in cases like this, the devil is in the details.

On iOS, the embedded web browser or the UIWebView is not identical to the Safari browser. While the differences are minor, they can cause debugging headaches. That’s why it pays off to invest in popular frameworks that have addressed all of the limitations.

You know that native apps are installed on the device, while HTML5 apps reside on a Web server, so you might be wondering if hybrid apps store their files on the device or on a server? Yes. In fact there are two ways to implement a hybrid app.

Local - You can package HTML and JavaScript code inside the mobile application binary, in a manner similar to the structure of a native application. In this scenario you use REST APIs to move data back and forth between the device and the cloud.

Server - Alternatively you can implement the full web application from the server (with optional caching for better performance), simply using the container as a thin shell over the UIWebview.

Netflix has a really cool app that uses the same code base for running the UI on all devices: tablets, phones, smart TVs, DVD players, refrigerators, and cars. While most people have no idea, nor care, how the app is implemented, you’ll be interested to know they can change the interface on the fly or conduct A/B testing to determine the optimal user interactions. The guts of decoding and streaming videos are delegated to the native layer for best performance, so it’s a fast, seemingly native app, that really does provide the best of both worlds.

Conclusion:

Device feature : Native app is definitely better if you need device features like camera, notification and gesture etc. • Native app is better if you want your app to work when there is no connectivity. Although In-browser caching is available but it is limited. • Speed: Native is better in speed. • Maintenance: Multiple native code maintenance difficult more complex and expensive method. Hybrid is easier to manage.

Platform independence : If platform independence is important then you should go with Hybrid/HTML5 over native. • User Interface: If you want user experience to be consistent with the platform then native is better option. This does not mean that HTML5/Hybrid cannot have good UI. But native app will make more like actual platform.