Cross-Platform, Cross-Language Application Development: An Introduction to Elements

 Table of Contents

1. Introduction to Elements

2. Elements Versions

3. What Can Elements Do

4. Elements IDEs

5. Elements Tools

1. Introduction to Elements

RemObjects Elements is a multi-platform mobile project development tool that helps developers create mobile projects on different platforms.

Developer: Remobjects Software

• Elements is available on two operating systems: Windows, Mac

• Four versions: Visual Studio 2017 Integrated, Professional, Enterprise, and Free Community Edition

• Supports four programming languages: Oxygene, Java, C#, Swift (Versions before 10.0 only supported Java, C#, and Swift)

  

• Elements uses C# from RemObjects C#, which is powerful enough to modify a language and improve its features~~ impressive~

• Elements has its own development environments Fire, Water (can also be understood as integrated development tools)

• Oxygene is an object-oriented programming language based on Object Pascal, with a rich feature set. It is a port of Pascal and belongs to the .NET CLR series of languages~~~

• The integrated version can be used with VS 2017, named Elements in Visual Studio

Summary:

Elements is a multi-platform mobile project development tool that allows development using various programming languages like Oxygene, C#, Swift, and Java, providing a rich, modern development environment. It expands developers' capabilities based on existing programming experience, greatly facilitating software project development.

 2. Elements Versions

Elements offers three versions aimed at developers and enterprises based on usage fees.

Of course, students and teachers have it easier~ There is an academic version.

 3. What Can Elements Do

Elements can create applications for Android, iOS, Mac under Win/Mac systems, and importantly, you can use C#, Swift, Java or any of these languages for development. Amazing, right? (Of course, this doesn't mean using different code for the same project...)

Similar products on .NET include Microsoft-acquired Xamarin, which helps you create mobile apps using C# and Xamarin, yet even .NET developers rarely use Xamarin. In reality, there are many solutions for cross-platform, cross-language mobile application development, and Xamarin does not have a significant advantage.

The following are the types of applications that Elements can develop:

 4. Elements IDEs

Here is the internal structure diagram of Elements; the left box represents the environment and compiler, equivalent to .NET. The right box represents the IDE editor, i.e., the development tools.

Elements offers strong development environment support and multiple IDE tools, and its IDE is also impressive, with 4 versions of IDE.

1. Fire

Used for development on Mac, supporting four languages and all platform developments, including .NET, Java, Android, Windows and Linux applications.

Features:

• Advanced editing functionality

• Unit testing integration

• Cross-platform debugging and deployment

2. Water

Used for application development in Windows, I won't go into further detail~~~

3. Elements in VS

Elements is comprehensively integrated with Visual Studio, extending to almost all aspects of the IDE, with the following features:

• Universal project templates for all elements languages and platforms

• Intelligent code editor with smart insights and advanced productivity features

• Rich debugging capabilities for all platforms, including cross-network debugging for Mac, Linux and iOS

• Seamless interaction with Elements.NET projects, Microsoft Visual C# and Visual Basic projects

• Full support for visual designers, including WinForms, WPF, ASP.NET, etc.

• EBuild is deeply integrated with the Visual Studio build infrastructure

We can see it in Elements in VS (Elements with Visual Studio):

 4. Command Line

Whether on Mac, Windows or Linux, you can build projects using the IDE editor and EBuild command line. Just use the standalone EBuild command from the terminal or automatically generated scripts. EBuild is the underlying framework, while Fire, Water, Vs are the IDE tools. You can write applications using the command line or notepad (if you are good enough~), and you can also integrate EBuild into third-party IDE.

According to official information, EBuild will be open-sourced on Github, but I just looked on Github and found no trace of it.

5. Elements Tools

Elements provides powerful tools that let you soar in development.

• CrossBox

• FXGen

• Profiler

• Obfuscation

• Oxidizer

• Marzipan

CrossBox 

CrossBox is a cross-platform system debugging project and build project solution. With CrossBox, you can debug applications on Mac, Linux from Windows, and vice versa. CrossBox does not include the operating system and requires a remote connection to the host you intend to debug. This means you provide a physical device, and CrossBox allows you to debug applications running on the remote host, feeding test and debugging data back to the development host.

Mac hosts using CrossBox support the following platforms and operating systems:

Win hosts using CrossBox support the following platforms and operating systems:

FXGen

GUI frontend command line tool, related to macOS, iOS, tvOS and watchOS, now supports Objective-C. The author’s English is poor, the official introduction seems to incorporate Xcode (the development tool for developing Apple products on Mac) project files into the Elements IDE, associating .fx and .h files.

Profiler

A cross-platform performance analyzer that monitors code execution and application performance on remote hosts, analyzing performance data.

Obfuscation

Tools to protect code and prevent decompilation. According to the official explanation, it utilizes code obfuscation techniques.

The author's English is truly poor...

Oxidizer

Supports code reuse from programming languages such as C#, Java, Objective-C, Delphi, Oxygene, Swift within a project, allowing the usage of code from other languages and converting it.

In other words, if your C# project needs to use an algorithm found in Java on Baidu, then Oxidizer can help you perfectly and seamlessly convert it to C#~

Languages supported for conversion:

The official announcement states that Swift to C# and Oxygene conversions are coming soon...

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