News
NativeScript 3.0 Updated
NativeScript has undergone a major revision, with version 3.0 sporting improvements in cross-platform module implementations, command-line interface, and runtimes.
- By Michael Domingo
- 05/03/2017
Telerik in recent months has been making major revisions to the tooling available in its NativeScript mobile development suite, with significant improvements in cross-platform module implementations, command-line interface, and runtimes.
NativeScript is Telerik's open source framework for building JavaScript-based mobile apps and services targeting iOS and Android platforms. It can be used to generate JavaScript, TypeScript and Angular code.
According to a blog post from Georgi Atanasov, Director of Software Engineering at Telerik, the Modules 3.0 implementation has undergone improvements in performance and its extensibility model, and more consistency in the APIs used throughout. The layout measurement system has also been completely revamped to favor device pixels rather than device-independent pixels. And 3.0 also now supports TypeScript 2.2. Modules 3.0 comes with a slew of breaking changes, most of which are covered in this document hosted on the Progress Software site (Telerik is a Progress company).
Atanasov also notes some worthwhile changes to the command-line tool: obliteration of the plugin find/search command; livesync command replaced with tns run command; use of the --emulate switch with the run command (as such, the emulate command has been deprecated); additionally, the --device switch with the run command automatically starts an emulator if one isn't running.
NativeScript 3.0 also has a number of improvements that target the Android platform. Among the changes: bugs and crashes have been minimized while debugging in Chrome DevTools for Android, and the Gradle build tool has been upgraded, which means increases in performance for Android builds.
To read about the changes in detail, go here. Telerik also has a roadmap of features that are planned for future releases here. NativeScript 3.0 is open source.
About the Author
Michael Domingo is a long-time software publishing veteran, having started up and managed several developer publications for the Clipper compiler, Microsoft Access, and Visual Basic. He's also managed IT pubs for 1105 Media, including Microsoft Certified Professional Magazine and Virtualization Review before landing his current gig as Visual Studio Magazine Editor in Chief. Besides his publishing life, he's a professional photographer, whose work can be found by Googling domingophoto.