Posted on January 5th, 2009 by Kevin Dangoor

Build desktop apps with web UI and Python

The next release of Appcelerator Titanium (PR2, due January 23rd) is slated to include support for Python and Ruby!

Titanium is a completely open source competitor to Adobe AIR. It lets you build installable desktop applications that build their GUIs via a built-in WebKit renderer (in other words, you can use HTML/CSS/JavaScript to build a GUI, just like you do on the web). The next version of Titanium is going to include support for Python and Ruby, which means that you can use something other than just JavaScript for creating your desktop apps.

I haven’t built Titanium yet to see how it works (script type=”text/python”?), but the fact that they’re working on this is very interesting.

6 Responses to “Build desktop apps with web UI and Python”

Marshall Culpepper on January 6th, 2009 3:24 am:

Hi Kevin..

We do hope to support inline 3rd party languages soon, possibly as soon as PR2 which is coming out in a few weeks (target date 1/23/09). Our API also allows for custom bindings in any language, including C/C++. Our goal is to provide an easy to use way for developers to extend Titanium to get the functionality they want.

Kevin Dangoor on January 6th, 2009 9:23 am:

Hi Marshall,

That sounds awesome, and is a big selling point over AIR, I should think.

It’s great to see all of the blurring of lines between the web and the desktop.

Trevor Cape on January 29th, 2009 7:41 pm:

Hey Kevin, my name is Trevor Cape and I work at Appcelerator it is great that you are writing about Appcelerator and our next release. It is really busy here and the developers are working hard to prepare for it. All of the Appcelerator team members would like to thank you for writing about us. We would like the opportunity to send you some schwag as a thank you. If you want an Appcelerator Titanium t-shirt and and arm band than it would be great if you could send me your mail address via email and I will make sure to send you the schwag.

Thanyou and keep talking about Appcelerator and Titanium
Trevor

Maxwell on February 2nd, 2009 6:15 am:

Wow, this is some development!!
I’d looove to see this utilized down here in East Africa. I think this is going to be a radical shift in how desktop apps are developed from this point onwards.

Mark on May 13th, 2009 1:16 am:

So does Titanium work with Python now? It’s far beyond January. Titanium looks quite promising.

Is there a graphical way to make visual things with layers, frames and symbols as with Flash?

Kevin Dangoor on May 13th, 2009 6:19 am:

I believe the current version of Titanium does indeed support writing code in Python.

As for a graphical way to make visual things, using Titanium is just like building a webapp. If you use visual tools for making HTML+CSS, then those same tools should work with Titanium.