Website to app

[phppup]

I am assembling a website that utilizes PHP/MySQLi for sign up and access.

The thought had occurred regarding what would be involved to augment this for usability as an app.

I've only begin to scratch the surface, but any helpful advice would be appreciated.

[gizmola]

The simple answer is that you de-couple the front end and the back end.  The typical way to do this is to create an API for your backend code.  Most frequently people choose a REST api.  This is where the major frameworks (symfony, laravel, api platform) are extremely helpful and productive.  There are some people who have a lot of negative things to say about Api platform, but it's purpose built for creating a backend api.  From there you build your clients (javascript/native app or mobile framework app) against the api.  This is really how large scale applications work.

[kicken]

I'm assuming you mean a mobile app.  I'd ask if you actually need an app vs just a mobile friendly website.  Making the website mobile friendly would probably be easier.  You could give it a manifest file and users could even add it to their home screen as if it were an app.

[Psycho]

15 hours ago, kicken said:

I'm assuming you mean a mobile app.  I'd ask if you actually need an app vs just a mobile friendly website.  Making the website mobile friendly would probably be easier.  You could give it a manifest file and users could even add it to their home screen as if it were an app.

I will second this. I've been involved in the creation of several cloud based applications (browser, mobile apps, and desktop clients) for a commercial company. In my experience, native mobile apps are a pain for many reasons. For Apple apps there was a significant process to get approved to get the app on the iStore. Trying to verify compatibility between different mobile OSes and version was a huge pain. It's "different" from the browser version (assuming Product decided to make the same functionality available in a browser). So the front-end has to be coded and tested separately. And many others.

It takes a little more though to design a responsive web application that will display appropriately on a mobile device vs a tablet vs a full size display. But, that extra work is benefitted by having a single application that can be repurposed across multiple devices. I just don't know why so many companies want to build mobile apps that could be served by a responsive web application. Of course, some functions require a mobile app (at least for usability), e.g. if the app needs to interact with data on the mobile device.

[Nolan81]

stupid idea

[phppup]

@Nolan81 Your two word response gives no indication as to what EXACTLY you feel is a poor approach with regard to my question.

Further, you failed to elaborate or provide an alternative solution to any of the previous posts that were informative and appreciated.

If you read my post, you will see that it concluded by saying

Quote

any helpful advice would be appreciated.

Therefore, you should realize how worthless and idiotic your words were to me and this thread.

[Andou]

On 12/10/2023 at 12:43 PM, phppup said:

Therefore, you should realize how worthless and idiotic your words were to me and this thread.

I agree as much as the next person and yeah, I would have taken it the same way, but Nolan isn't worth fighting over.

Let's focus on the people who actually do want to help you, me included.

How's the website going, by the way? Did you take the frontend-backend separation path?