Hi Thomas,

PhoneGap is dead (per Adobe). Progressive Web Apps (PWA) are the replacement, in general -- not just for Lianja.

Lianja, for the past 2 or 3 years, has support for PWA (Progressive Web Apps). Fill in 4 or 5 values in a JSON string already created for you and brought up by a sidebar button in the UI development interface, and you have an app that will deploy as a PWA. That's the modern way to create phone/tablet apps, and it works. It seems too easy, as I thought the first time I used it, and that's all that is required.

There are 2 ways to call a .py program in Lianja.

One way, from any supported language, is to use execpython(), using vars as needed from the current context, whatever language.

The other way is to put the .py name in the app's exports.conf file. Once done, from any of the supported programming languages, a function that uses that filestem can be fed var's from the current context, as though one were in a Python program.

If the call is made from JavaScript running in a web browser (a mobile app of whatever kind), the call is ferried to the backend and the result ferried back, with no extra programming by the developer. So, e.g., from the web/tablet/phone UI you can make a Python R library call to do some analysis based on parameters the user has just entered and get the results back. The back-and-forth is all handled for you, of course. So in my apps I often make VFP calls to the backend to do backend chores (e.g., insert/modify a record or records on the backend (Lianja DBF's, SQL Server, etc.) and return the result if any.

The Javascript that runs in a web browser that the user inputs are triggers for "events" in the UI. All the coding required for creating the display of the UI is done for you. Your code can make adjustments to the UI, can do things with data as needed, etc. Code that works locally has to be JavaScript. Code that requires the backend can be in any of the supported languages. The UI can also have CSS inserted where needed to get particular effects not already made part of the Lianja UI options.

For me that is the big benefit of Lianja: I can work on what the app does with data, leaving the minutia of the UI to the Lianja infrastructure. If the Lianja infrastructure were to change what it uses underneath, that's their concern, not mine. They regularly look at other frameworks as to whether this new thing or that would be an improvement in user experience. Because making the UI work is a sunk cost, their evaluation is based on whether changing what is used underneath would benefit the user experience. That contrasts with a developer working directly with a framework. In that case, starting from scratch on a new project, the developer looks to see what will streamline their development process best -- and then has to decide whether to bite the bullet and sink more development time into getting familiar with a new framework.

Thanks for asking. :)

Hank