New App Design Considerations Part 4 - Toolbox Controls to Avoid

I’ve seen where Bootstrap 4 “supersedes” Bootstrap 3. And I’ve seen where BS4 doesn’t do everything BS3 did. I assume using the two together is not a good thing.

JQuery is also suggested JQuery or Bootstrap? not to be used anymore. If it is not, then what about jqWidgets, which is based on jquery?

The common, date/time, multimedia, finance and social media - are these all supported?

Bottom line, what toolbox control sets are recommended for developing a new app?

We use Bootstrap 4 for new projects. It’s very widely used, attractive and well thought of. And Free.

jQWidgets is very good. It has a number of advanced widgets that do much more than anything in Bootstrap 4. It’s not free, but does have good support. You can use jQWidgets and Bootstrap in the same project.

jQuery Mobile should not be used anymore. It’s been 5 years since it was last updated, and relies on jQuery 2, which is obsolete and gets nasty messages from Chrome.

jQuery itself is fine, so long as you’re using the current version (3.x). 85% of websites use it. AppStudio uses it, as does jqWidgets.

The Common controls are all supported.

Oh, missed the distinction between jQuery 2 and jQuery. You mention AppStudio uses jQuery. Why is it not displayed as a toolbox control set?

jQuery is a library of functions originally developed by John Resig. It simplifies a lot of DOM handling and other stuff that’s tricky to do. It’s written in JavaScript itself. The current version is 3.4.1. Version 2 should not be used anymore.

jQuery Mobile is a set of controls. It came out around the same time as the original release of AppStudio and was one of the first frameworks we supported. While it uses the jQuery library, there’s nothing “jQuery special” about it. The group developing it lost interest years ago. It is not longer being actively developed or supported.
https://jquerymobile.com/

To expand on what George just said.

I’ve written about 15 apps with JQueryMobile (JQM) with users totaling about 3 million so I know it quite well.

The guy developing JQueryMobile and the guy who did JQueryUI (JQUI) were constantly butting heads. Finally the JQM lead was “over it” and left. This was as JQM 1.5 was entering beta. Since he left, all work on JQM has stopped and the JQ people are advising that no new projects be started using JQM. JQUI contains a lot of the widgets found in JQM but, frankly, they look antiquated and they don’t follow either the iOS standards nor Googles Material design.

Beyond that, some of the very basic functionality in mobile apps, while doable in JQM, is like pulling teeth with a tow truck hook… you can do it but the results are gonna be U.G.L.Y.

To add insult to injury, google is not approving apps that are based on JQuery 2.x or even 3.0 because of security issues. You must be at Jquery 3.1.x and JQM will not run with JQuery 3.x.

(UNLESS you install 3.1.4 AND the migrate plugin… then it seems to work.)

On top of all that, the guys who supported JQM in their forums were just jackasses… a real sign that they’d been doing their jobs just way too long (hardly a response is made that doesn’t include either a left handed or out right insult).

The frameworks I have looked at (because I have to migrate all those custom apps I’ve done for people) are Bootstrap, Vue, Framework7. I could just never get into Bootstrap. Vue looks a lot like Framework7 (or v-versa) and is really designed to be used on both desktop and mobile apps while Framework7 is just for mobile apps and has widgets that the others don’t.

I’ve taken a huge interest in React. Easier for my pea-brain to handle.
Vue looks pretty dope as well.

@PPetree, thanks for the backstory about jQuery Mobile.

We went with Bootstrap since we felt it was the easiest path for our users to take. Using it, we could make a converter which does most of the work of moving from jQuery Mobile to the new framework.
https://wiki.appstudio.dev/Converting_jQuery_Mobile_to_Bootstrap_4
https://wiki.appstudio.dev/Framework_Converter

The Framework Converter also helps in moving from Bootstrap 3 to Bootstrap 4.

Thanks for the input. Let’s see if I can summarize.

jQuery Modile - Do Not Use - based on obsolete jQuery 2

Bootstrap 3 - Avoid usage

Bootstrap 4 - Can be used with jQWidgets.

jQuery 3.x - Can be used
George has mentioned there is a new version of AppStudio coming very shortly which solves the Google Play Yellow Flag. But I assume that a simple recompile when this new version is released with remove any Yellow Flag issues.

jQWidgets - Can be used, but has a fee for commercial usage. Works with BS 4

Common Controls - Can be used.

Yes, you’re pretty much correct.

I should point out that jQuery 3.x is not like the others. It’s a helper library used for by many other things. It doesn’t have any controls of its own. The others you mention are all frameworks of controls.

jQuery 3.x - I assume the Common Controls are implemented using this library, as well as many other aspects of AppStudio projects.