TechMeetup features Enyo, framework optimized for Mobile

Roy Sutton, developer relations engineer at Enyo (Hewlett Packard’s HTML5 platform), discussed Enyo, originally developed for the HP TouchPad, the ill-fated webOS Palm tablet. The modern HTML5-focused JavaScript framework was born and lives on. Enyo has been updated to work on all modern browsers, mobile and desktop. It is not just another JavaScript framework; all the others work nicely with Enyo because it was designed and built that way. The Enyo development team noticed that other frameworks were lacking focus on object-oriented design for consistent, native application-creation. Benefits of Enyo are a package loading system which makes it easy to re-use pieces of applications, to load libraries (jQuery and Backbone, for example). Enyo is focused more on the user interface (UI) and app development layer. Other layers can be dealt with using other libraries. Enyo is part of a powerful open source community project.

John Rogelstad, xTuple’s product development director, explained why xTuple uses Enyo to develop Mobile components of our business management software (Accounting, CRM, ERP)…using Backbone for the data layer. It’s easier, smaller (fewer lines of code) and more nimble. Roy also demonstrated the Onyx toolbox, including the lazy loading lists and panels, for instance. Changing just one property creates a multitude of different user experiences in the design. Enyo uses CSS as much as possible, because cross platform use of JavaScript presents a problem – every device handles it differently. Enyo attempts to solve the problem by detecting which browser and using different animation, for example, so input controls work. For people without a lot of programming experience, Enyo is very user-friendly and an easy way to develop an application.

What’s in it for HP? HP uses the Enyo as a tool internally to develop apps for its enterprise customers and for developing tools internal to the company itself for more robust apps and to develop apps more quickly.

xTuple’s open source repository for the new Mobile Web app is available on https://github/xtuple/.