It's faster to develop for Android than Sailfish

feature-request

asked 2015-11-11 00:37:49 +0200

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Hi all, I'm a Qt software developer. I'd like to port some of my application to my Jolla but I saw it's faster to do that by creating an android apk than using Sailfish sdk. Creating a Qt app for android only require to install android sdk and Qt for Android from official site and you are ready to build every qt examples for android and install it on Jolla. If you want to use Sailfish sdk you need to download it, to download and install virtualbox (on linux sometimes it's not so easy) and when you set up all the environment you also can't built all the standard Qt Qml example because there aren't all Qt module in the Sailfish sdk. And you also have an old Qt verision.

Why does Jolla choose this way...?

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It's an early stage SDK? Compared to N9, its lightyears faster, trust me.

tortoisedoc ( 2015-11-11 08:30:01 +0200 )edit

Installing Virtualbox on Linux is easy as hell. Not sure what troubles you have had before.

Niju ( 2015-11-11 12:46:11 +0200 )edit

Sailfish uses it's own QT QML stuff, Silica. This is the problem. Not all the standard QML parts are available in Silica. This is a huge mis if you ask me. This limits the ways you can makeup your application even in some simple ways.

This means you "only" have to rewrite the QML part of your application to make it build able in Sailfish. On the upside there is only one module to include. In a normal QML application this can we a lot more.

DDH87 ( 2015-11-11 12:52:06 +0200 )edit

I know the question of Silica but this could become a limit... As example I usually build application for embedded systems like BeagleBone Black or RaspberryPI and it's easier than for Sailfish. All I need for RaspBerry is a cross-toolchain and a Qt build . If I format and reinstall my Linux PC or if I migrate my projects on a new Linux PC I only need to move toolchains and Qt build and I can start development in 2 minutes...

I think Jolla should consider a different approach to speed up the porting of existing application to Sailfish.. in my opinion...

Luca ( 2015-11-11 13:49:24 +0200 )edit

Luca: can you suggest something constructive that may be done with Sailfish's SDK given its constraints/requirements? TBH, the last time I tried Android it was a PITA in comparison to Sailfish's SDK. Also, and brace for harshness, I wouldn't trust a developer that finds it challenging to install VBox on Linux - programming a computer is a far more complex task than downloading software and running a pretty polished installation program.

gabriel ( 2015-11-11 14:29:40 +0200 )edit

answered 2015-11-12 11:54:17 +0200

Smar
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For future readers, I've summed up the conversation (options) here.

With Qt Creator, you don't need to use use emulator to do the building of packages (if you don't want to!), as @r0kk3rz pointed out. Instead, you can create slim chroot based system which Sailfish's Qt creator integration can use instead of the emulator.

For testing the program, it is not necessary to use emulator either. You can use your phone/tablet as deployment device, which works either over USB cable or if your phone is on same local network (or has public IP), you can just change the IP from Qt Creator's configuration to your device's IP and deploy test packages over the air.

For existing QML developers, it may be faster to start using MartinK's library universal_components that aims to close bridge between standard QML components and Sailfish Silica.

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It's faster to develop for Android than Sailfish

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