7 Tools To Build Highly Responsive Web Apps For Better Business

Anyone building an app, a company, a developer or just an entrepreneur looking to barge into the start-up scene has one definite question these days?

What is a responsive app?

Well! For starters a responsive app is just like any other app, but, the difference lies in its functionality and smooth interactive powers. But, then there are web-apps and extension of websites that do not need memory on your device to be stored and are just an interface between you and the parent site.

But why would someone go for a web-app?

There is no doubt that there are some drawbacks of web-apps but they are highly responsive and gives users what they want in no time! 

First of all for users to use a highly responsive web-app needs network reach all the time, though this could be a concern, but, modern network capabilities and broadband reach have somewhat brought a relief.

Now let us explore the ultimate question in your mind:

How to build such highly responsive apps?

Here, we are exploring seven such tools that can help you build highly responsive apps.

1. Bootstrap:

Bootstrap is a collection of free to use tools for creating responsive websites and web applications. It uses different frameworks like HTML, CSS and Javascript frameworks for developing highly responsive apps. The capability of cross-browser compatibility and support over different screen sizes makes it a comprehensive tool for responsive app development.

Features to look out for:

1. Rapid web development
2. Ease of creating independent web-pages irrespective of the platform.
3. Highly responsive web-pages.
4. Functionality across devices.
5. Free and open-source tool.

2. jQuery Libraries:

Developers find it hard to create an effective connection between the data model and the user interface of an app. This is where using Jquery libraries such as Knockout.js and Total.js can help them achieve highly responsive apps. 

Knockout.js is an MVVM(Model-View-ViewModel) based javascript library that helps achieve rapid and responsive apps. Whereas, Total.js is a javascript framework that is based on MVC(Model-View-Controller) architecture that helps build highly responsive apps.

Features to look for:

1. It has a wide range of plugins and tools for highly responsive apps.
2. It is an open-sourced library with access to many tools.
3. Developers can choose from several frameworks according to preference.
4. Helps in building apps with feature-rich design.

3. Xamarin:

Xamarin is a framework that allows the developers to build highly responsive apps through a single coding language across platforms. This makes it most suitable for short development cycles. It provides a class library and runtime that can make apps more feature-rich with native capabilities and cross-platform functionality.

Features to look for: 

1. Cross-platform compatibility.
2. Native capabilities with cross-platform functionality.
3. Higher code sharing feasible.
4. A dedicated component store for several components to support app UI creation.
5. Single coding language for the cross-platform app.

4. React.js:

React.js is an open-sourced responsive front-end framework, that can be called the View part of MVC(Model-View-Controller) architecture. In simple terms, imagine you like a post on a social media platform and how magically other likes appear at the same time on the post, this is due to React.js, which is more of a declarative, View-based framework that helps many mobile app development companies to build highly responsive and reactive applications.

Features to look for:

1. It defines the logical manipulation of documents.
2. Each React element in an app is responsible for rendering a small piece of HTML.
3. It helps design simple views for each page on your app.
4. It adjusts the component according to the changes in your data.

5. Angular.js:

Angular.js is a front-end Javascript framework, used primarily for SPAs or Single Page Applications. SPAs can be considered as the gateways to a website. As instead of loading pages after pages from a server, SPAs take users to the parent website. This though needs network reach all the time, leads to a high real-time response.

Angular.js has been quite popular with its simple framework that needs just the knowledge around HTML, CSS, and Javascript to build feature-rich and responsive apps. 

Features to look for:

1. Easy to work with as it just needs basic knowledge of HTML, CSS, and Javascript.
2. It allows the usage of dynamic HTML for building SPAs.
3. It provides reusable components.
4. Templates that can help build exquisite UIs.

6. CSS: 

Cascading Style Sheets or CSS is one of the most basic scripting language/stylesheet language used for the representation of HTML docs. It is used as a styler for your content with styling options for text, color, size, and shapes. These elements combine to create the content style of your app that is visible and should be actionable for users.

Basic knowledge of CSS is a must for using other frameworks on different platforms for building responsive and highly reactive apps.

Features to look for:

1. It provides consistency over the entire page.
2. Structures faster loading of pages.
3. Encourages better SEO.
4. Cross-browser and cross-platform compatibility.

7. Xpath:

Xpath is like a direction or route that takes the users directly to dynamic contents, very hard to find on a webpage. This helps developers to extend the XML syntax for dynamic content and hard to find elements on a page. It has two types of paths called absolute and relative paths. An absolute path can be considered a direct path leading to the dynamic content, but, it can’t accommodate all the changes in data. While the relative path starts with “//” sign and can automatically adjust to the changes.

Features to look for: 

1. Easy to write and read queries.
2. Simplified paths that can be set fro any dynamic element on the web-page.
3. Identification of nodes in XML docs.
4. With the use of paths, discovering the content becomes rapid. 

Let’s Conclude:

When the mobile-first strategies are flying around, keeping your business ignorant on the same seems awful. Smartphone users have been increasing and are now more demanding than ever. Faster loading, responsive and real-time reactive apps attract more traffic and more revenues. Though the above list might not be the penultimate, it certainly does the job for many developers and enterprises.

| About the Guest Author:

Manoj Rupareliya is a Marketing Consultant and blogger. who has been writing for various blogs. He has previously covered an extensive range of topics in his posts, including Business, Technology, Finance, Make Money, Cryptocurrency, and Start-ups.

Linkedin | Twitter