Build Your Mobile Apps in the Cloud With Appery.io – JavaLobby Q&A

Appery.io Mobile Apps Builder now with JSONP support

If you worked with JSON, then you are aware of the cross-domain policy which prevents a script loaded from one domain, to invoke services from another domain. This means that the domain of the requested URL must be the same as the domain of the current page. A number of work around exists but one of the most popular once is using JSONP. JSONP allows a requesting URL from one domain to invoke a service from a different domain. Appery.io Mobile Apps Builder now supports JSONP. Why is this important? Well, it makes very simple to build and test mobile apps in Appery.io. Now a page can be loaded from abc.com domain and invoke a service from xyz.com. Most REST services today support JSONP.

To use JSONP is very simple. When defining REST service, select jsonp for Data Type:

JSONP support

Twitter Search App

Twitter Search App

To try this in action, try this Twitter Search app built in Appery.io.

Appery.io Mobile Apps Builder is now open to everyone

Tiggr Mobiel Apps Builder

Twitter Search built with Mobile Apps Builder

After a short private beta we are happy to announced that Appery.io Mobile Apps Builder is now open to everyone. Now, the app is still beta and we have tons of features we are planning to add. So, just go to https://appery.io and click on Sign Up Now for Mobile Apps Builder. Then try one of our getting started guides but first read this (we are adding more tutorials). It’s a 6-step guide on how to approach building mobile apps in Appery.io.

Need a particular feature, service or component? Tell us here: http://getsatisfaction.com/apperyio.

Signing Up for the Appery.io Mobile Apps Builder Beta Is Easy

Today, we’ll be having a briefing for our beta users of Appery.io Mobile Apps Builder. Becoming a beta user and par­tic­i­pating in our com­mu­nity brief­ings is a great way to in­flu­ence and guide the de­vel­op­ment of a useful product and make it even more useful.

It’s easy to be­come a beta user. Here are three ways:

  1. If you don’t al­ready have a Appery.io ac­count, you can sign up right from the home page using the button in this block:
  2. When you sign up for any Appery.io Prototypes Builder plan and click on the ac­ti­va­tion link, you’ll be pre­sented this first time with a pop-​​up giving you an op­por­tu­nity to join the beta:
  3. If you al­ready have an ex­isting Appery.io ac­count, you can be­come a beta user by going to My Account and clicking on the sign-​​up button:

You’ll have a “pending” status at first, but you should only have to wait a few hours be­fore you be­come activated.

Creating input fields with HTML5 placeholder feature

(Cross-posted on Maxa Blog)

HTML5 introduces a handy new feature for input elements. Using placeholder attribute, you can place a slightly greyed out label inside an input field. When you click on the field and enter text, the label clears. If you delete the input, the placeholder labels appears again. Here is an example (assuming you are using HTML5 complaint browser):

HTML5 code looks like this:

  

You can do the same thing in Appery.io Prototype Builder or Mobile Apps Builder. Now, it involves a little trick but we will make it much simpler in the near future. Let’s say we start with a screen like this (editor view):

  1. Click the screen outside the phone area, switch to Events view
  2. Click Add Event and select Load
  3. Click the + sign to add an action and select Set HTML Attribute
  4. Component name: find the first input component. Its name should be set to something like ‘mobileinputtextX’ (unless you renamted it)
  5. Property name: placeholder
  6. Value: enter any text you want to see in inside the input
  7. Click OK
  8. Repeat the same for the second input component.
  9. Click Web Preview to view the app in Web browser
  10. To view on your phone, select Web Preview > Configure and select Anybody can view this project on the Web. The open the URL shown on your phone.

Try out this app via QR code below:

Yes, it’s too many steps to add such functionality. It’s really just a workaround for now. We will make it possible to set any attributes from Properties view, without needing to add event and action.

Here is how it looks in a Web browser:

Appery.io New Subscription Model

On June 15, Appery.io left beta and be­came an of­fi­cial re­lease. As part of this re­lease there is now a scheme of dif­ferent plans for how you can use Appery.io. Although the terms are cov­ered in the Appery.io ap­pli­ca­tion and Web site, I thought I’d go over the plans as a blog entry.

The thing to keep in mind is that Appery.io is struc­tured as ac­counts tied to single pri­mary users. The ac­count has one work­space owned by the pri­mary user that con­tains projects that each con­tain screens (or pages). The work­space owner and ad­di­tional users up to a set limit have ac­cess to the workspace.

With the user man­age­ment fea­ture, the work­space owner can specify ac­cess rights on a user-​​by-​​user and project-​​by-​​project basis. With this fea­ture, the ac­count owner can add other users up to the limit for their plan or delete other users – freeing up a slot. (Remember, deleting a user only re­moves their ac­cess to your work­space. It doesn’t af­fect an ac­count owned by the user or the user’s ac­cess to other workspaces.)

Plan Cost Number of Projects Screens per Project Users Data Storage
Free $0 1 5 2 1 Gb total
Professional $15/​user/​month No limit No limit Number pur­chased 2 Gb/​user
Education $0 No limit No limit No limit 2 Gb/​user
Enterprise Custom No limit No limit Custom No limit
Temporary Professional for Previous Beta Users $0 No limit No limit Number of in­vi­tees from beta ac­count plus 1 2 Gb/​user
Plan Notes
Professional
  1. Starts as a 15-​​day trial with credit card info pro­vided up front.
  2. Billing (and billing cycle) starts 15 days later on the credit card un­less ac­count owner takes action.
  3. The cost of $15/​user/​month is a pro­mo­tional price for the launch of the new ver­sion. At some point, it will rise to $20/​user/​month, but people who sign up be­fore Sept. 30, 2011 lock this rate in permanently.
Education Requires all users to be af­fil­i­ated with an ed­u­ca­tional in­sti­tu­tion and use valid e-​​mails ending in .edu.
Enterprise May in­clude extra fea­tures like custom Web storage, white-​​labeling, and SSO.
Temporary Professional for Previous Beta Users No cost for 3 months until September 15th. Downgrades to free plan un­less ac­count owner con­verts to professional.

Appery.io Webinar: Collaborative Software Development in the Cloud Made Easy

UPDATE: Due to schedule conflict, this event has been cancelled.

If you’ve ever designed a user interface as part of a large team or for a customer, you know how valuable it is to get a prototype out there for feedback as soon as possible. Mockup tools, although helpful, only provide a static, not an interactive, view of the UI.

Join us to learn about Appery.io for Prototypes – a Web-based tool for easily building and sharing interactive HTML prototypes for Web and mobile applications. These application prototypes not only look like the real applications, but also behave like the applications.

This webinar will walk through several examples, so you can see how easy it really is. In this webinar, we will learn about Appery.io for Prototypes’ Web components, mobile components (based on jQuery Mobile), Web Preview, sharing, events/actions, templates, and much more using prototypes we build online. At the end, we’ll also give you a brief sneak peek of Appery.io Mobile Application Builder and Appery.io Mobile Tester.

Title: Appery.io: Collaborative Software Development in the Cloud Made Easy
Date: Tuesday, July 12, 2011
Time: 11:00 AM – 12:00 PM PDT
Register now: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/243366976

New tutorials, how-to’s, and new getting started guides

(Cross-posted on Maxa Blog)

We now have a large number of tutorials how-to’s, and getting started guides. Everything from the basic to advanced such as using creating interactive prototype with events/actions and creating and using templates. Just visit our Help page to see them all.

Mobile Apps Builder video tutorials are now available

Last week we launched Appery.io Mobile Apps Builder beta program (you can sign up from at https://appery.io). There are two Getting Started Guides available: Twitter Search and Weather Search and now you can also watch these cool videos!

Building Twitter Search App:

Building Weather Search App, Part 1/2:

Building Wether App Search, Part 2/2:

Appery.io updates with new features, subscription plans and a peek at mobile apps builder tool

Mobile components now support different themes

Would like to add some color? Mobile components now support different themes:

  • Gray
  • White
  • Yellow
  • Black
  • Blue

Quick and easy layout change for Mobile prototypes

Quickly change mobile layout via icons in the tool bar:


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