(was) VisualWorks Applications for iPad and android?

>>Bernard says:

>>Hello usegroup,
>>is it possible to run VisualWorks-applications on iPad or Android?
>>
>>thanks for answer,
>>Bernhard Hoefner

Bernhard,
One efficient alternative to use Smalltalk to develop Android applications
is ot use the U8 service for social development with S8 smalltalk.

U8 is a social development effort to make us possible to use smalltalk
anywhere javascript can run, so it is possible to migrate the parts of
your system that must run client side and run in a web page or
in Android devices.
With S8 you can build (native) android applications, it means
you can use any service of Android and expose (at smalltalk level)
any java object, and call the functions sending normal messages as
it was any smalltalk receiver. You can also pack in your android
application javascript libraries and use them as it was S8 smalltalk
objects.
S8 image format is javascript code (aString), and your smalltalk
frameworks will be javascript libraries, so you can consume javascript
libraries and expose your objects to javascript libraries without
any cost.
We use to migrate portions of apps from diferent smalltalk dialects
to build modern appications (web based and using web standards,
e.g. frameworks specified at http://www.w3.org/TR/#tr_Javascript_APIs )
Using S8 you can access all the native features of the device from
smalltalk, e.g. you can use geolocation data, touch events, etc.

The U8 service hosted at http://u8.smalltalking.net is the main repository
of contributions and frameworks. All code and resources found there
are MIT, so you can use them under MIT license and you can share
your code (or not) under the terms specified in the license.

With U8 you can develop web applications (running in most web browsers)
android apps, server side apps (using NodeJS), and console mode apps
(32 & 64 bits).

Hope this long email helps to present this alternative, that will
make you happy using smalltalk in the device, and anywhere
our community can run the S8 platform.

A few links to start using S8 (once you access a page you already have
a copy of the system) :
Access the links using Chrome to ensure

A quick introduction to S8 running in a web page (for web apps
we have image based and dynamic loading of frameworks, as
mechanism to run the system)

http://u8.smalltalking.net/contribution.aspx?contributionId=239


A contribution demostrating camera access, imaeg processing
and realtime face detection in Chrome
http://u8.smalltalking.net/profile/aleReimondo/281/sample.html

A contribution demostrating how to write (client side)
Google Earth apps with S8
http://u8.smalltalking.net/contribution.aspx?contributionId=222

A simple android application. Full image w/compact smalltalk
tools running in the device adn demostration of how to access
an Intent to scan barcodes and/or QRcodes.
http://u8.smalltalking.net/contribution.aspx?contributionId=144

If you register you can use U8 service with your browser and
learn how you can use Smalltalk to release modern apps
minimizing the costs of migration from any Smalltalk dialect.
See also the contributions index at
http://u8.smalltalking.net/browsecontributions.aspx

cheers,
Elvio Fernandez