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[RETIRED] App Designer (UI layout tool)

PaulF_IntelCorp
Employee
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IMPORTANT: the Intel XDK App Designer component (aka the UI layout tool) has been retired. It was retired with the 3972 release (May, 2017). Existing App Designer projects will continue to work, but you will not be able to create new App Designer projects.

No bug fixes will be implemented for App Designer nor for any of the UI frameworks that were supported by App Designer.

If you have designed your layout by hand or by using an external tool, there are no changes to your project. This change ONLY affects projects that have been created using the App Designer UI layout tool. If you are just starting with the Intel XDK do NOT use App Designer to create your layout, since the editor will not be maintained and may eventually be discontinued.

There are many UI frameworks and tools available for creating UI layouts; too many to enumerate here. The vast majority of layout tools that generate standard HTML5 code (HTML/CSS/JavaScript) should work with no issue. The Intel XDK creates standard Cordova CLI (aka PhoneGap) applications, so any UI frameworks and tools that work in the Cordova CLI environment will work with your Intel XDK applications.

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PaulF_IntelCorp
Employee
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Diego Calp wrote:

Will it be possible to continue using the latest version that has App Designer for unlimited time?

The App Designer blank templates will be removed when the App Designer component is retired, making it difficult to start new App Designer projects. App Designer samples will start to disappear from the online samples feed, shortly. Existing App Designer projects will still be recognized as App Designer projects within the XDK; however, the deprecation notice means that bug fixes and support for App Designer has been discontinued.

Eventually those versions that do contain a working App Designer may quit working due to upgrades to the operating system on your dev machine, or due to changes to other system software components that are outside of our control; it is impossible to promise "unlimited time" of operation for any product.

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Diego_Calp
Valued Contributor I
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The App Designer blank templates will be removed when the App Designer component is retired, making it difficult to start new App Designer projects. App Designer samples will start to disappear from the online samples feed, shortly. Existing App Designer projects will still be recognized as App Designer projects within the XDK; however, the deprecation notice means that bug fixes and support for App Designer has been discontinued.

Yes, I already thought this, my idea was to keep some blank XDK project templates saved and start new projects copying them and changing the parameters.

Eventually those versions that do contain a working App Designer may quit working due to upgrades to the operating system on your dev machine, or due to changes to other system software components that are outside of our control; it is impossible to promise "unlimited time" of operation for any product.

This is clear too, none software will work forever. My question somehow is about the login that XDK requires. Is about the possibility of keep using the locally installed parts, without the deprecated features that require connections to Intel's servers.

Thanks

Diego

 

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PaulF_IntelCorp
Employee
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Diego Calp wrote:

This is clear too, none software will work forever. My question somehow is about the login that XDK requires. Is about the possibility of keep using the locally installed parts, without the deprecated features that require connections to Intel's servers

Most of the tools in the XDK will work without needing to be logged in or having access to the backend. The only parts that really require access to the backend are the samples and templates feeds (as in "start a new project"), the plugins feeds ("featured" and "core" plugins list), the Test tab and the Build tab. Only the Test tab and Build tab require that you be logged in. App Designer and the built-in Brackets editor have no reliance on the backend.

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John_L_11
Beginner
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Paul F. (Intel) wrote:

Quote:

Diego Calp wrote:

 

This is clear too, none software will work forever. My question somehow is about the login that XDK requires. Is about the possibility of keep using the locally installed parts, without the deprecated features that require connections to Intel's servers

 

 

Most of the tools in the XDK will work without needing to be logged in or having access to the backend. The only parts that really require access to the backend are the samples and templates feeds (as in "start a new project"), the plugins feeds ("featured" and "core" plugins list), the Test tab and the Build tab. Only the Test tab and Build tab require that you be logged in. App Designer and the built-in Brackets editor have no reliance on the backend.

Couldn't you guys just go ahead and deprecate the remaining tabs as well? This way, only the "File" menu will be left for us to work with :)

All kidding aside, I wish you would have just branched off the XDK with all the features it had (split it into two packages). Or at least, OpenSource the now deprecated portions.

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Nick_F_2
New Contributor III
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John L. wrote:

Quote:

Paul F. (Intel) wrote:

 

Quote:

Diego Calp wrote:

 

This is clear too, none software will work forever. My question somehow is about the login that XDK requires. Is about the possibility of keep using the locally installed parts, without the deprecated features that require connections to Intel's servers

 

 

Most of the tools in the XDK will work without needing to be logged in or having access to the backend. The only parts that really require access to the backend are the samples and templates feeds (as in "start a new project"), the plugins feeds ("featured" and "core" plugins list), the Test tab and the Build tab. Only the Test tab and Build tab require that you be logged in. App Designer and the built-in Brackets editor have no reliance on the backend.

 

 

Couldn't you guys just go ahead and deprecate the remaining tabs as well? This way, only the "File" menu will be left for us to work with :)

All kidding aside, I wish you would have just branched off the XDK with all the features it had (split it into two packages). Or at least, OpenSource the now deprecated portions.

There were 2 packages XDK for mobile app development and IoT development, Intel merged them a while back and started this whole farce off. The question of Open Sourcing has been raised but a definitive answer has not been forthcoming. To be honest I think Intel are too far down the road of killing off XDK for mobile app development to care about the user base anymore. We are very much on our own on this one.

The Xamarin solution is massively bloated now that Microsoft have got their hands on it. Last time I looked it was near 4.6GB to download all the parts you need.

Been looking at NSBasic AppStudio and this might be a viable solution. I've had a play, but it does lack the simplicity of XDK and the ability to create responsive content. As far as I can tell you cannot edit the backend form controls as HTML code as you could with XDK which I find a bit restrictive. There is no way to import a current html5 project so migrating from XDK means starting afresh.

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Peter_H_
Beginner
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The UI designer tended to crash and the way the TwBS elements were intergrated was not ideal to create real apps. But it was helpful for quick edits and testing. Probably Intel was faced with the decision to either invest heavily or to remove a feature which was not state of the art anymore. However a pity that alternatives such as open source have not been considered because, with all its weaknesses, it was the best designer for quick "non professional" Cordova app designs on the market.

Actually not for the UI designer but when I read the news about the depreciation of the cloud build function I was disappointed and I had a very close look at alternatives, in particular Visual Studio. The advantages of VS compared to XDK are the better editor and the integration of versioning tools, the disadvantages are a less smooth plugin handling and the local build function (so all SDKs need to be installed and MacOS computer  or cloud service available). Altough easy by theory, migrating projects from XDK to VS is not that easy due to all totally different approach to the config files, also trying to compile VS Cordova projects using the Adobe cloud is not a good idea.

A huge plus of the XDK solution, which is also the reason why I will continue with it for now, is the App Preview. It has strong limitations in Adnroid and Windows for network-related features (not on iOS for some reason) but for the rest it is fast, easy and reliable. Other emulator-based options offered by VS and others take more resources and require a much higher effort in terms of installation as well as maintenance.

XDK is a great solution and I think, especially if they invested in an improved designer, better interaction with external editors and versioning tools, and app deployment services in particular for iOS (similar to wenz.io but integrated), there could have been a good chance to make it become a commercial product. Why does everything have to be either free or discountinued? Poeple will pay for value!

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PaulF_IntelCorp
Employee
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Nick F. wrote:

Been looking at NSBasic AppStudio and this might be a viable solution. I've had a play, but it does lack the simplicity of XDK and the ability to create responsive content. As far as I can tell you cannot edit the backend form controls as HTML code as you could with XDK which I find a bit restrictive.

If you want to control the build process (e.g., by using PhoneGap Build or Cordova CLI), and/or you want to continue to use the XDK for general debug and development, I recommend finding a UI development tool that is "platform neutral" -- meaning it exports or saves as standard HTML/CSS/JS files (or files that are easily translated into HTML5 files, such as LESS and SASS, etc.). Those tools will be the most flexible to adopt to the ever changing palette of HTML5 development tools available.

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John_L_11
Beginner
1,725 Views

Paul F. (Intel) wrote:

Quote:

Nick F. wrote:

 

Been looking at NSBasic AppStudio and this might be a viable solution. I've had a play, but it does lack the simplicity of XDK and the ability to create responsive content. As far as I can tell you cannot edit the backend form controls as HTML code as you could with XDK which I find a bit restrictive.

 

If you want to control the build process (e.g., by using PhoneGap Build or Cordova CLI), and/or you want to continue to use the XDK for general debug and development, I recommend finding a UI development tool that is "platform neutral" -- meaning it exports or saves as standard HTML/CSS/JS files (or files that are easily translated into HTML5 files, such as LESS and SASS, etc.). Those tools will be the most flexible to adopt to the ever changing palette of HTML5 development tools available.

Well we spent about 4 hours this afternoon playing around with NSBasic AppStudio, actually building a simple app. Was going along fine, saving every few minutes, then all of the sudden it just wiped out all the forms and controls we added to the UI. Controls, all the code, graphics, just... GONE! Ok so we reloaded the previous save, and it was still all all wiped out. Slightly ticked about this. Would like those 4 hours of my life back. No way to recover anything we did. :/

Going to take a shot at Visual Studio next. At least it is less likely to intermittently trash a project.

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Nick_F_2
New Contributor III
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Paul F. (Intel) wrote:

Quote:

Nick F. wrote:

 

Been looking at NSBasic AppStudio and this might be a viable solution. I've had a play, but it does lack the simplicity of XDK and the ability to create responsive content. As far as I can tell you cannot edit the backend form controls as HTML code as you could with XDK which I find a bit restrictive.

 

 

If you want to control the build process (e.g., by using PhoneGap Build or Cordova CLI), and/or you want to continue to use the XDK for general debug and development, I recommend finding a UI development tool that is "platform neutral" -- meaning it exports or saves as standard HTML/CSS/JS files (or files that are easily translated into HTML5 files, such as LESS and SASS, etc.). Those tools will be the most flexible to adopt to the ever changing palette of HTML5 development tools available.



Hi Paul

You still haven't enumerated some suggested free UI development tools you mentioned where available in this thread. Your quoted comment above refers to platform neutral with HTML5 and LESS support, which tools are these that support that function.

On the basis of the demise of XDK for mobile development I think many of us would value your thoughts on this. No one will hold you to account on the alternatives success or otherwise, but you do seem to have avoided the question that many have asked.

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PaulF_IntelCorp
Employee
1,725 Views

Nick F. wrote:

Hi Paul

You still haven't enumerated some suggested free UI development tools...

On the basis of the demise of XDK for mobile development I think many of us would value your thoughts on this. No one will hold you to account on the alternatives success or otherwise, but you do seem to have avoided the question that many have asked.

Just to be clear, this is what I posted at the beginning of this thread, regarding alternative UI layout tools (emphasis added):

Paul F. (Intel) wrote:

There are many UI frameworks and tools available for creating UI layouts; too many to enumerate here. The vast majority of layout tools that generate standard HTML5 code (HTML/CSS/JavaScript) should work with no issue. The Intel XDK creates standard Cordova CLI (aka PhoneGap) applications, so any UI frameworks and tools that work in the Cordova CLI environment will work with your Intel XDK applications.

I never indicated that I would create a list of alternative UI layout tools -- and to be clear, we will not be providing such a list; any such list would be incomplete. Many alternatives have a fee associated with their use, a few are free, none are compatible with App Designer (frankly, I doubt that any UI layout tools are compatible with any other such tools). Additionally, I am not in a position to recommend what is best for you, your app and your needs; that is best left for you to determine.

Multiple developers have asked that the App Designer component be made available as an open-source project. That request is still under internal review, and has not come to a final resolution. If we do publish App Designer as a stand-alone open-source tool, we will certainly let you know. However, if it is published as an open-source project it will be an unsupported project, so it may not be very useful even as an open-source project.

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Diego_Alejandro_R_
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Good day,

 

I am a developer from Colombia, and we did great applications in Bogota (at Sena), with this tool, I undesrtand that Intel focusing in IOT but I don´t understand why you can´t open source this tool for the community could support and follow developing with XDK.

 

I am migrating to Visual Studio but the limit to do apps for a engineer its the design part.

 

 

 

happy coding,

and good day.

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Bernd_S_1
Beginner
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I built several "stand-alone" apps with AppStudio. 

Bernd S.

 

John L. wrote:

Quote:

Bernd S. wrote:

 

"App Designer deprecated" means that I will stop immediately creating apps with Intel XDK. Existing apps built with XDK, using what I had done before with NSBasic AppStudio or Embarcadero RAD Studio/Delphi XE or Adobe Dreamweaver will be rebuilt with these other tools. Ex  XDK users who were happy with App Designer and do not want to buy rather expensive Embarcadero or Adobe should consider using NSBasic AppStudio: https://www.nsbasic.com/ . Owning the other tools I did not need XDK. Tried it just for fun and liked it so much that I "translated" a few apps to XDK. Without the App Designer I would not see why I should continue using XDK. 

 

 

NSBasic AppStudio apps are simple web pages, not real stand-alone apps. It's basically no better than Dreamweaver. XDK allowed for building and compiling REAL apps, not websites. 

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John_L_11
Beginner
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Bernd S. wrote:

I built several "stand-alone" apps with AppStudio. 

Bernd S.

 

Quote:

John L. wrote:

 

Quote:

Bernd S. wrote:

 

"App Designer deprecated" means that I will stop immediately creating apps with Intel XDK. Existing apps built with XDK, using what I had done before with NSBasic AppStudio or Embarcadero RAD Studio/Delphi XE or Adobe Dreamweaver will be rebuilt with these other tools. Ex  XDK users who were happy with App Designer and do not want to buy rather expensive Embarcadero or Adobe should consider using NSBasic AppStudio: https://www.nsbasic.com/ . Owning the other tools I did not need XDK. Tried it just for fun and liked it so much that I "translated" a few apps to XDK. Without the App Designer I would not see why I should continue using XDK. 

 

 

NSBasic AppStudio apps are simple web pages, not real stand-alone apps. It's basically no better than Dreamweaver. XDK allowed for building and compiling REAL apps, not websites. 

What did you use to create the apk and ipa files for distribution to Google Play and the App Store?

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David_S_15
New Contributor I
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A new thread specifically discussing the loss of the cloud build tools: https://software.intel.com/en-us/forums/intel-xdk/topic/734632 

Posting here to get more input from the community that commented here. Hoping to ask again about open sourcing the build server setup specifically as well as for recommendations for others tools that may offer this cloud build functionality or to figure out a way to perhaps crowdfund and BUY this code from Intel to offer continued support for this capability if they are not interested in open source.

Also of course looking into the Visual Studio Solutions that seem promising but also appear heavy and clunky compared to the simplicity of the XDK.

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Raymond_W_1
Beginner
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Ah damn... you guys fucked it up.. I loved the app designer. Uninstalled :(

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Thepjday_A_
Beginner
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@Paul

 

While I totally understand the "unsupported" nature of the App Designer, I do not pretend to understand the need to force users to no longer create new copies or "turn off" the app-designer "Design" tab for new applications.

 

While I do understand that we can build our own apps using the CLI environment, the App Designer represents a level of tooling that just simply does not exist elsewhere. Or if it does, I would be very interested in knowing where it is.

 

This implies a tool that provides the same Javascript plumbing that the App Designer in XDK did. I have not seen such.

 

Waiting on any information you can provide. I really didn't see how the App Designer REMOVAL was CRITICAL to IoT DEVELOPMENT.

 

The two really had nothing to do with each other. Not supporting something could have been as simple as no longer providing updates.

 

What I have seen is that Intel has gone OUT OF ITS WAY to REMOVE the App Designer TEMPLATES themselves AND to CHANGE the editor to not recognize new projects created - the DESIGN button turns off, even if I manually update the .xdk file to match the old project setup for App Designer.

 

Sad. If it wasn't going to work, that's fine. Why break it intentionally?

 

So this begs the question. I cannot use 3977 - it removes App Designer - I think. I need App Designer. How do I continue to use the older XDK w/o the build tab if I am forced to login? 3977 does not require the login. Does 3977 have App Designer but no login requirement?

 

Thanks.

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Thepjday_A_
Beginner
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@Paul

P.S. FYI, 3522 started this behavior - the DESIGN button greys out on all new projects even if the .xdk file is updated to match the old App Designer format and the www/xdk/ad and www/xdk/appdesigner and www/jqm files are all added. Ugh. The only way to get the DESIGN is to copy an older project in its entirety and rename it.

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PaulF_IntelCorp
Employee
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Thepjday A. wrote:

While I do understand that we can build our own apps using the CLI environment, the App Designer represents a level of tooling that just simply does not exist elsewhere. Or if it does, I would be very interested in knowing where it is.

This implies a tool that provides the same Javascript plumbing that the App Designer in XDK did. I have not seen such.

Unfortunately, there is no other tool that manages the UI using comparable plumbing. There are other equivalent tools, but none that can read the App Designer output and provide you with a drag and drop editor to manage the App Designer widgets.

Thepjday A. wrote:

I really didn't see how the App Designer REMOVAL was CRITICAL to IoT DEVELOPMENT. The two really had nothing to do with each other. Not supporting something could have been as simple as no longer providing updates.Sad. If it wasn't going to work, that's fine. Why break it intentionally

It is a question of resources. The App Designer tool (like the XDK) requires continuous maintenance and engineering effort. Engineering resources are valuable. I think this post provides a good summary of why > https://software.intel.com/en-us/forums/intel-xdk/topic/700951#comment-1902022 <

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Thepjday_A_
Beginner
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@Paul,

 

Can you please address my 3977 vs 3522 question regarding which version I have to use in order to keep using the App Designer for the older projects?

 

Thanks.
 

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PaulF_IntelCorp
Employee
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Thepjday A. wrote:

...the DESIGN button greys out on all new projects even if the .xdk file is updated to match the old App Designer format and the www/xdk/ad and www/xdk/appdesigner and www/jqm files are all added. Ugh. The only way to get the DESIGN is to copy an older project in its entirety and rename it.

Your solution is the only available option (copy an old project in its entirety, rename it and use it as a starting point). The latest version of the XDK, 3977, still includes the ability to edit existing App Designer projects, that feature has never been removed. What has been removed is the ability to create new App Designer projects.

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Thepjday_A_
Beginner
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@Paul,

 

The open-source unsupported App Designer product would be VERY VERY VERY useful regardless of whether Intel supported it or not. If you go that route, if you let the community send in updates, it will continue to be useful.

 

To that end, I volunteer to the be the maintainer, and expect to have others be committers.

 

I think I have suggested this route before - Intel would not need to spend any time on the App Designer product. And as long as the App Designer could read the Intel config file sufficiently to know which plugins were in use and so on, it would be fine.

 

We could then just use the default XDK to handle the plugins and so on. And the App Designer would be doing the UI work. Sounds like a win to me. Whatever project options you want to bundle into said offering would be acceptable even if the answer were none.

 

Better something than nothing.

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