Play.js: The Node.js and React Native IDE for iPhone and iPad

[kowdermeister]

I clicked the logo 3 times. It's not a video :)

[sambeau]

Me too.

[martin-adams]

The app is really slick. I'm surprised they were allowed to have their own window manager as Apple were very against that in the past. But I really like it. It actually is a nice take on a desktop environment on a tablet.

I'm curious it being Node.js. It can run my js file on flight mode so isn't using a remote execution. But I didn't believe you could run node.js on an iPad due to the Apple restrictions (hopefully I'm wrong).

That said, the whole ecosystem of Node.js is about bringing in modules. I can't see any mention of how to do that.

[dmitriid]

> they were allowed to have their own window manager as Apple were very against that in the past.

How is it a window manager when it's just an app with whatever screens it appropriate to display?

It's no more a window manager than sketchbooks in drawing apps.

[kn0tblind]

RE: Node modules. For now, it requires some prep with a laptop. You can use browserify --bare to squash all the dependencies into a file as they do here playdotjs://28816c75

[nakiostudio]

Regarding modules support check the app Community.

[scarface74]

Node should be the easiest to conform to Apple’s policies. It is using the native JavaScript engine.

[peteforde]

Is there a hidden demographic of devs building React apps on iPads? This seems very, very niche.

[baddox]

Hidden? Probably more like latent. I build React apps all the times professionally and in my leisure time. I also use my iPad Pro a lot. I just don’t use my iPad Pro to make React apps, because I’ve never been aware of any feasible way to do so.

[sudhirj]

The iPad Pro is pretty great other than the development story, and this bridges that gap petty well, at least for React native.

[dagw]

Schools? Certainly my both my daughters school and my niece and nephews school has bet the farm on iPads, and are now looking for ways to teach programming without having to buy new hardware for all the kids. Something like this could be another way to do that.

[sorahn]

I would love to run VSCode and a preview browser window on my iPad Pro.

[cdmckay]

Not in developing countries where not everyone has a laptop.

[Fiahil]

Is there something similar that would allow me to use one of these on iPad Pro:

- A fully featured linux desktop with Visual Studio Code and a terminal

- A sandboxed terminal with persistent storage

- A text editor and a rust compiler

- A text editor

I could always ssh into my raspberry pi while at home, which is my second best solution. But, if anyone has some ideas/solutions in mind that require even a large bit of tinkering, please tell me :)

[leesalminen]

I just picked up a new 13” iPad Pro with the hopes as using it as a travel machine. Mostly for email/writing, but also for light development. Haven’t found a solution yet. I’m in web dev land currently, so node/npm/webpack and a local http server would be needed.

[quambo]

I've just found a solution that works pretty nicely for me: Coda. It has an integrated SSH terminal, it has FTPS and uploads changes to files on save and it has support for many languages (don't know about rust though). It also saves your terminals and open files within each project so you can easily switch around.

Coda on iPad + Raspberry Pi (or an old Mac mini) make a pretty nice dev environment.

If you are more of a VIM guy, something like Terminus works well too.

[Hippocrates]

Here's how I do this: https://stephendotz.com/posts/pocket-dev/ Originally I set it up on my iPhone, but now I use my iPad Pro "13 w/ the keyboard cover and it's really pleasant. I've written a ton of code on it. Front-end work is a little bit less fun because there aren't any browsers with dev tools for it.

[harryf]

Cool would be if this app had some basic git(hub) support - currently seems only to support storing files locally or sharing to anything with a registered Sharing Extension (not aware of app that registers github sharing extension)

[kall]

It already exposes it's document folder "On My iPad" so you can use the folder sync feature in Working Copy to work with github.

[jtth]

You wouldn't do this. You'd expose the filesystem (Files app) and use Working Copy, which can mount repositories as though they were folders.

[nexuist]

I am incredibly excited for this. As a developer, all of my mobile devices excel at doing almost everything except....development. One step closer to a realized dream.

[chendragon]

I bought this, it looks very nice and the UI has a very high level of polish to it.

I'm trying to use this with WebViews to hack together a multi-window, multi-tab browser thing, not sure if this is something that exists already.

The main issue with this is that it closes all of the windows when you switch away from this app, making it quite inconvenient at the moment.

[keyle]

Side note: I was expecting the background to be some really neat CSS trickery... Sadly just an image :'(

[etxm]

This is pretty cool. Just killed 30 minutes while in a waiting room.

Couldn’t figure out how to add modules.

Auto-prettier would be awesome.

[tempodox]

What Node modules does it download and how can I inspect them? What are the security implications?

[seddin]

You will be much more productive on any Chromebook with a Linux distro than on a iPad.

[nurettin]

Anything similar for android people who have some time to kill while commuting?

[DennisAleynikov]

Termux + Expo.io

Or Samsung's Linux on DeX works well for app dev on your phone.

[benjaminsuch]

I hate to brag but why can't you enlarge the screenshots on the App Store? Why is there no info or video what so ever to showcase the tool?

[kkarakk]

the video doesn't seem to play...

[isuckatcoding]

Cool but why though? I understand for those small percentage of iPad users this will be great.

[sudhirj]

That’s precisely why. Took my money. Is great.

[kn0tblind]

You don’t need to know how to code to use it

https://twitter.com/playdotjs/status/1098477904382578688?s=2...