Kodiak JavaScript for iPad


If you've already used Kodiak PHP then the layout of Kodiak JavaScript (currently £2.99 in the UK) will be instantly recognisable. The difference is that instead of running PHP this app has a collection of JavaScript libraries for you to utilise and explore.

As with the previous release from Play Ragtime, everything works offline and the results of your code can be previewed from inside the app. It is also worth noting that while the default within the app is to save files with the HTML extension and template, this doesn't prevent you from creating or importing JSON, JS, CSS, text files and anything else that works on the client-side.

Overall, the app has a very usable and flexible interface. It enables you to have multiple tabs open at the same time to work on a range of files easily and I also like the interoperability that is enabled by the ability to open files and folders in other apps using the "Open in..." functionality in iOS.

"Open in..." works particularly well with Textastic if you wish to FTP your work, since folders that are exchanged between the two are zipped by Kodiak JS and unzipped by Textastic.

In terms of the finer points, Kodiak JS has code highlighting, it also has an extended ‘swipe’ keyboard, which is really useful and saves a great deal of time. The main draw to the app, however, will be the JavaScript libraries, the example files and the showcases.

In conclusion, it is a great app for code experimentation but as with any v.1.0 release (or v.1.2 as they are choosing to call it, in order to keep it in line with Kodiak PHP) there is room to extend its capabilities and my main suggestions to the developer would be: code completion, some kind of linked documentation viewer, and shortcuts to paste in links to the library files.

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