Sencha Touch 2 s*cks on Android : am I the only one to think so ?

[yann Offredi]

Hi all,
first of all, I want to say that on iOs, sencha touch is indeed awesome and looks like native. Kudos for that.

However, I was greatly dissapointed when I opened my app on an android device. Don't get me wrong : everything I coded with sencha did work. But it was sooooo sluggish. And I was testing on a Samsung Galaxy S2, which I believe is still a pretty hardcore device when it comes to running android OS.
(I tried it on less powerfull devices and it almost didn't run at all...)

This is a real bummer because I am using sencha in a work environment and I need to deliver my apps on both Android and iOS platform. Currently iOS is fine but Android is barely usable and most definitely not releasable to the world.

Am I doing something wrong (I'm using sencha 2.x which was supposedly adressing android UI issues) or do you guys feel the same?

This problem is soooo frustrating I am considering switching language altogether. I ran the jquery mobile equivalent of jqtouch on different android devices and was like "wow, looks good and moves really fast". Sencha don't let me down! What is wrong here?

Please help.

Kind regards,
Y.O.

[mescalito2]

I know what you are talking about, it is kind of frustrating because you expect simple things like for instance the problem when you are using a Map wrapped on a Panel and then you pinch on the MAP to zoom-in or zoom-out and then the stupid app change the size of the whole canvas!!! are you kidding me??? no Sencha Touch!!! I don't want to make the icons and everything bigger, I want to zoom into the map, and if that is not allow then don't change the size of the fricking canvas!!!...

[joeri]

Same here. My app runs well enough (although not iOS-smooth) on the SGS2, but it's pretty much unusable on entry-level android. I don't know if it's fair to claim that ST supports android 2.1, because any device running that version is likely to be so slow that the app is basically unworkable.

The frustrating thing is that the kitchensink demo is mostly usable on low-end devices, so there are apparently ways to make it perform acceptably, but I've yet to figure out the exact circumstances and a Q&A topic on the subject didn't really go anywhere.

I've even run into cases where the app just hangs on low-end devices (and in the android emulator). I'm not talking about "takes a long time to respond", but about "never responds". I've yet to narrow down why this is happening, but it seems to be some sort of timing problem with the NestedList component.

What do Sencha's ST developers test on and test with? I really want to know.

[PhilMerrell]

I'm going to play devil's advocate here and say that I don't think Sencha is necessarily at fault here.

First of all, they are really pushing the envelop as far as javaScript on mobile devices go. This is pretty bleeding edge type stuff. We are still in the infancy of mobile, and the notion of HTML5/javaScript apps is a fairly recent, and now somewhat viable concept. Hell, the notion of an app that runs on a tiny friggin' computer (native or web) is a fairly recent notion altogether.

Second, I think Apple, and probably Google are really dragging their feet on making a browser that's a viable competitor to their native ecosystem. I think there is enough evidence to show that is the case, and it makes complete sense. They'll make improvements to the browser only when they have to, so it could be a slow evolution.

IMO, Sencha is hands down the best framework for making native-like web apps. The toolset is currently unparalleled (unless you know of a framework I don't).

And by the way, native Android apps are not that great performance-wise either. Android has a ways to go yet. It's serviceable, at best. Definitely not a polished ecosystem. Android Browser is a joke, and Chrome for Android is only slightly better right now.

[Möhre]

Google / Android is still a lame duck:

http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=25147

http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=24833

... but will be a rapid chrome if they get their browser update onto the phones.

[joeri]

As an aside, I don't like chrome for android for regular web browsing. It doesn't reflow text when zooming, which is something the android browser did well. Their "font boosting" solution doesn't do enough for me (I don't have perfect vision).

It does seem a whole lot better for ST.

[jamie.nicholson]

It looks like ST2 team are ahead of the ball game on this,

Sencha Touch Product Roadmap
->Additional device support, such as Windows Phone, etc
->Improved Android Tablet and Phone Performance

The first two items on the road map are to improve other devices support and performance.
No doubt they'll do a great job on it, I'd still say the effort you've put in will be beneficial as the next version will be better for other devices.

[joeri]

Some advice to make performance on android much better:
1. Disable animation of the title in any navigationviews you're using. I've found this slows down the navigationview a lot.
2. Hide the content of complex views prior to transitioning to them in a navigationview. The animation went from really jittery to smooth just by hiding the view content before animation and redisplaying it after animation.

[dawesi]

problem is android, all frameworks are having issues.

[SebasSP]

Some advice to make performance on android much better:
1. Disable animation of the title in any navigationviews you're using. I've found this slows down the navigationview a lot.
2. Hide the content of complex views prior to transitioning to them in a navigationview. The animation went from really jittery to smooth just by hiding the view content before animation and redisplaying it after animation.

Can you give me a hint on how to disable the title animation? Setting the show/hideAnimation config to null in the navigationBar config of a navigationview doesn't seem to do anything.