1. Building Mobile Apps with
Titanium Appcelerator
Part Two
Aaron K. Saunders
Appcelerator Platform Evangelist
Founder/CTO Clearly Innovative Inc.

2. Who Am I?
• Founder/CTO Clearly Innovative Inc.
• Appcelerator Platform Evangelist
• 25+ years experience in software
development field
– Recently Enterprise Web Development w/Java &
Open Source Technologies
• Mobile App Development with Appcelerator
for last two years
• Top Contributor on Appcelerator Q&A Forum

3. Here Comes The Marketing Pitch

4. Titanium Is…
• A cross-platform JavaScript-based
framework
• With access to native OS and hardware
features
• Modular and extensible
• Free

5. Titanium exploits the native
ecosystem
Native User Experience
Multimedia
Native performance + Native UI
Camera, video camera,
(tables, animations, gestures…e
streaming/device audio/video
tc.)
Location-based services Analytics
Augmented
Track usage patterns and
reality, geolocation, compass, n
adoption
ative maps
Social sharing Titanium modules
Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo YQL. Appcelerator Marketplace for
Native email/address book add-on functionality
Data
Development tools
Local
Titanium Studio, integration
SQLite, filesystem, properties
with native SDK tools
data store, web services

6. Titanium is easier
// Objective-C
UIAlertView *alert = [[UIAlertView alloc]
initWithTitle:@"Alert"
message:@"Hello World"
delegate:nil
cancelButtonTitle:@"OK"
otherButtonTitles:nil];
[alert show];
[alert release];

7. Titanium is easier
// Java/Android
AlertDialog.Builder builder = new AlertDialog.Builder(this);
builder.setMessage("Hello World")
.setCancelable(false)
.setPositiveButton("OK", new DialogInterface.OnClickListener(){
• public void onClick(DialogInterface dialog, int id) {
MyActivity.this.finish();
}
});
AlertDialog alert = builder.create();

8. Titanium is easier
// Titanium
alert("Hello World");
… and it’s cross platform!

9. Powered by Titanium
Applications:
• NBC apps
• NYS Senate
• Wunderlist
• GetGlue
Companies:
• Kellogg’s
• NBC/Universal
• eBay and PayPal
• Anheuser Busch
• Jaguar
• … and many more

10. Back To The Code

11. Use The Tools
• Titanium Studio is your friend
– Eclipse Based IDE
– Integrated debugger
– Code completion
– Project Management
– SVN/Git/Terminal Integration
– Xcode Build and Deployment Integration
• Command Line still available

12. Demonstration

13. Use The Documentation
• QA Forum
– Lots of content
– Improved overall site search capabilities
– Monitored by Developer Relations
• Appcelerator Wiki
– Recent restructuring, lots of good stuff and
sample code
• FREE, FREE, FREE Online Videos for
Appcelerator Certification Exam w/Code

15. Use The Modules
• Appcelerator Marketplace
• Search Github
• Ask in the forums
• Build Your Own

17. A Change is Upon Us
• Not Recommended
– Write your app like Kitchen Sink
– multiple context application structure
– use of Ti.Include
• Recommended
– CommonJS modules for application structure
– Single Application namespace
– Pass variables into modules
– Event Based Programming

18. CommonJS Application
Structure
// app.js
// commonjs module for database functionality
var db = require('db');
// commonjs module for user interface functionality
var ui = require('ui');
// call methods on objects
db.createDb();
var tabGroup = ui.createAppTabGroup();
tabGroup.open();

19. CommonJS Module Structure
// db.js
// variable scope is local to this module
var DATABASE_NAME = 'todo';
// exports indicates that the method is public
exports.createDb = function() {
Ti.Database.install('todo.sqlite', DATABASE_NAME);
};
exports.selectItems = function(_done) {
var retData = [];
var db = Ti.Database.open(DATABASE_NAME);
var rows = db.execute('select ROWID, * from todo where done = ?', _done);
while (rows.isValidRow()) {
retData.push({item:rows.fieldByName('item'), id:rows.fieldByName('ROWID')});
rows.next();
}
db.close();
return retData;
};

20. Examples?
• Sample Projects will soon be added to
Titanium Studio
• See Wiki Page
– http://wiki.appcelerator.org/display/guides
/CommonJS+in+Titanium
• Android & iOS Compatible
– RSS Feed Application
– Map/Location Based Application
– TODO database Application

21. Demonstration

22. Questions
Aaron K. Saunders
aaron@clearlyinnovative.com
blog.clearlyinnovative.com
@aaronksaunders