HTML 5 / Javascript for kiosk based applications

Question

Does anyone have any experience using HTML 5 and Javascript to build long running kiosk applications?

We are currently using Silverlight but would like to move to something more lightweight/flexible. Things we are concerned about are potential for memory leaks, reliable offline ability (devices may lose internet connection quite often).

Ideally we would use the same framework for both online and on the kiosk so there's a shared codebase

Thanks for your time

Answer 1

Very good question. I've never developed for Kiosk as such but for other offline/online application that have to be on a website and desktop.

I used QT Project which turned my website in to an exe. Which worked for me because i developed it correctly and was able to share around 90% of the code base and im aiming for 100% soon.

If you develop in a sense where the application doesn't require server side code embedded in the HTML i.e no php but more rely on calling the server and communicating using JSON for example you should be able to do this.

Then if you ever have to it will be allot easier for you to move between platforms and you could even package using BB Webworks for Blackberry you might not want this but just trying to make the point if you develop your client side and server side separately the portability of the client becomes amazing!

Answer 2

you should have no issues with HTML5. I would recommend a Windows 8 touch device. First you get touch which makes your kiosk more interactive. Second you get IE 10 which is a pretty darn good html5 browser providing good client-side storage options.

in IE 10 you get 555 MB of combined client-side storage, http://labs.ft.com/2012/06/text-re-encoding-for-optimising-storage-capacity-in-the-browser/. It also supports offline mode. You get great GPU accelerated animations, transitions, etc.

As for your application architecture I recommend a Single Page App. I am not a fan of the MVVM junk floating around because they are code and memory bloats. I wrote and article a while back on using localStorage as a storage medium, http://professionalaspnet.com/archive/2011/10/08/Use-Local-Storage-to-Make-Your-Single-Page-Web-Application-Rock.aspx. I have advanced that mechanism since then. You can also read about doing this here, http://tech.pro/tutorial/1165/use-the-jquery-localstorage-and-prefetch-filter-to-optimize-performance.

As for memory leaks. I have been doing SPAs for about 2 years now. Because most mobile OSes limit your memory usage, for example mobile safari will just crash. Keep your variables to a minimal, one of the reasons why I utilize local storage.

This is a great question, thanks for asking it. Now my mind will be buzzing all day long!