New Rich HTML5 Tools

Telerik has announced the latest release of Kendo UI, a framework for building JavaScript and HTML5 websites and mobile apps. This release adds server wrappers for PHP and Java, plus Windows Phone 8 support and support for modern web Single Page Applications (SPAs) architecture.

NOTE: With this addition, Kendo UI developers can now deliver mobile web and hybrid mobile applications across the four major mobile platforms: iOS, Android, Windows Phone 8, and BlackBerry.

Kendo UI is described as the only front-end framework to offer server-side wrappers for ASP.NET, PHP, and JSP. The theory here is that a range of developers new to HTML5 can get a nice entry point (or "on-ramp" to use the industry's preferred term) using familiar server-side programming languages.

Kendo UI's recent Global Developer Survey suggests that broad HTML5 support exists — 90 percent of more than 5,000 surveyed app developers say they will develop apps using HTML5 in 2013.

"HTML5 is the holy grail of app development, with the biggest tech and business players jumping in to take advantage of the flexibility and productivity inherent in platform-independent development," said Todd Anglin, EVP of cross-platform tools & services at Telerik. "Kendo UI channels developers' HTML wish list into one framework, enabling them to leverage either JavaScript or familiar server-side programming to deliver rich web and hybrid mobile apps that run across all of the major platforms."

Telerik suggests that traditionally, developers comfortable with server-side programming have been forced to migrate large chunks of application logic to HTML, CSS, and JavaScript in order to take advantage of HTML5. With the wrappers from Kendo UI, PHP, and JSP developers can build modern HTML5 apps without hand-coding JavaScript. They code in their preferred server-side language and Kendo UI renders the JavaScript needed to power its widgets and framework features.

Windows Phone 8: Easy To Develop For?

As already noted, Kendo UI also added Windows Phone 8 support into its Mobile offering. The most recent Global Developer Survey conducted by the Kendo UI team indicated that 47 percent of global developers are interested in developing for Windows Phone 8, citing it as one of the "easiest platforms" for development.