> > Builders are mobile, and would love access to the accounting file in the > office. Those apps will each do just one thing (e.g. enter a purchase or > check an estimate).
I know this is the Cocoa devs list... but why not make a website? It would be easier to develop, completely crossplatform, no app store complications, you would be in total control of your stack, etc. On Fri, Oct 11, 2019 at 12:10 PM Turtle Creek Software via Cocoa-dev < cocoa-dev@lists.apple.com> wrote: > After we finish the Windows update, the plan is to write small phone/pad > apps that will talk to it. Builders are mobile, and would love access to > the accounting file in the office. Those apps will each do just one thing > (e.g. enter a purchase or check an estimate). Swift and the current Cocoa > will work great for those. No need for any C++. One screen or maybe a > couple. Not much interface. I don't know quite what the network technology > will be yet, but phone-to-desktop will have advantages over pure > cloud-based apps. Cocoa and iOS seem strong at passing data over the > Internet. We'll do iOS first, then subcontract matching Android apps > later. > > Desktop business apps are more complicated, and that's where Cocoa failed > for us. Cocoa probably is difficult for any code base that does something > complex, and wants to be cross-platform for the model layer. It would be > insane for us to write payroll code in two different languages. Not just > the programmer time, it's also a lot of extra testing and debugging. Twice > the maintenance, forever. > > At the beginning we assumed that the hard part would be learning > Objective-C, and finding a way to link C++ to it. Those were surprisingly > easy. Basic architecture also was easy. Powerplant was pretty much just > V, but we evolved into MVC very early on. There already are RecordViewer > classes that act very much like a NSViewController, so we just link them. > > After 3 or 4 months the app was already starting to look and work like the > current version. Then we discovered NSOutlineView and MFC's CTreeView, and > designed a single-window setup that was much better than our current > many-windows approach. At that point we were extremely optimistic. > > Then began the long slog to get everything to actually work right. > NSComboBox was almost perfect, but we needed it to only allow existing > items. Apple docs said it was possible but we never got it to work, even > with suggestions from this list. So it required a text field, popup and > table view, with complex interactions between them. Meanwhile CComboBox in > MFC did it right with just a single parameter. Our data entry tables have > complicated interactions between cells. Trying to get them to work in a > NSTableView burned up almost a year. We finally gave up and changed the > interface entirely. Constraints were a constant hassle. Looking ahead to > how much detail still needs a rewrite was the last straw. There are still > about 40 windows currently made in MW Constructor that will each need a nib > and controller. At one week apiece for those, the horizon receded too far. > > Casey McDermott > TurtleSoft.com > > On Fri, Oct 11, 2019 at 11:35 AM Gary L. Wade < > garyw...@desisoftsystems.com> > wrote: > > > Clarification: For long-time Mac and now available in SwiftUI, you can > > even write “no” code to do some things with bindings. > > -- > > Gary L. Wade > > http://www.garywade.com/ > > > > > On Oct 11, 2019, at 8:31 AM, Gary L. Wade < > garyw...@desisoftsystems.com> > > wrote: > > > > > > For Mac and SwiftUI, you can even write “no” code to do some things > with > > bindings. > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > Cocoa-dev mailing list (Cocoa-dev@lists.apple.com) > > Please do not post admin requests or moderator comments to the list. > Contact the moderators at cocoa-dev-admins(at)lists.apple.com > > Help/Unsubscribe/Update your Subscription: > https://lists.apple.com/mailman/options/cocoa-dev/pierbover11%40gmail.com > > This email sent to pierbove...@gmail.com > _______________________________________________ Cocoa-dev mailing list (Cocoa-dev@lists.apple.com) Please do not post admin requests or moderator comments to the list. Contact the moderators at cocoa-dev-admins(at)lists.apple.com Help/Unsubscribe/Update your Subscription: https://lists.apple.com/mailman/options/cocoa-dev/archive%40mail-archive.com This email sent to arch...@mail-archive.com
