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Introduction to WebSockets with Appery.io

Have you ever wondered how apps send updates in real-time? The magic happens with WebSockets. Today, we’ll show you how to add WebSockets to your apps using Appery.io. This low-code app-building platform makes it easy to create complex apps quickly. Note that this post supports our comprehensive video tutorial and if you are interested in details, you are welcome to watch it.

By following the steps below, you can easily enhance your app with real-time communication features using WebSockets and Appery.io. Exciting, right? Let’s get started!

Setting Up Your App

First, create an empty app in Appery.io. Then, go to the Catalog of Appery.io plugins and select the WebSocket Example plugin.

Before importing it, you can click the link to open its documentation page. You’ll see it contains the code for the WebSocket server. This server needs to be run somewhere. While real applications may use Amazon or Azure, we’ll use CodeSandbox for testing.

Using CodeSandbox

1. Create a new Devbox.

2. Select Node.js Server from the list of backend frameworks.

3. Name your Devbox and set its visibility to “Public”.

4. Install two npm modules: `express` and `socket.io`.

Now, let’s move to the next step.

Setting Up Your WebSocket Server

Copy the server code from the documentation page and paste it into your `index.js` file in CodeSandbox. If everything is correct, the server should start successfully.

Back to Appery.io

Return to the Appery.io project and click Import selected plugins with the WebSocket Example plugin checked. This plugin helps you integrate WebSockets into your app. But first, let’s test it.

Testing Your App

Go to the Project > Routing section and set “WebSocketScreen” as the default page.

Next, navigate to TypeScript > WebSocket and specify the URL of your WebSocket server obtained from CodeSandbox.

Now, run your app in different browsers like Google Chrome, Firefox, and Edge. Enter a test message and click the “Send” button.

Ready! The message should be delivered to all clients in real-time.

Conclusion

Now you’ve seen how to add Websockets to your apps using Appery.io. This post is a companion piece to our detailed video tutorial. The demo app isn’t a finished product but provides a solid template for building your own real-time communication features. Give it a try and unlock powerful networking capabilities in your applications!

We’re thrilled to announce that the Appery.io team has just released a ready-to-go template: App Starter Offline, that serves as a dynamic, adaptable, and interactive foundation for creating state-of-the-art mobile applications, fully equipped to support offline mode and accessible on any device.

Offline Mode: A Game-Changer

One of the standout features of the App Starter Offline template is its robust offline mode. Not only can you read app data when offline, but you can also modify it and synchronize changes. This ensures data consistency, even in situations where multiple users are accessing and modifying data under different online/offline scenarios. Whether your users are in a remote location with no network access or simply in an area with spotty coverage, they’ll be able to continue their tasks without interruption.

Rich Feature Set: Beyond Offline Mode

While offline mode is the star, App Starter Offline comes packed with a host of other valuable features:

– Authentication Options: Robust and secure authentication methods, including options such as username & password, and FaceID.

– Extensive User Settings: A comprehensive settings dashboard for users to personalize their app experience, including account preferences, notification controls, and privacy settings.

– Personalized Profiles: Enable users to create and edit their profiles with personal data and images for a unique, customized experience.

– Multilingual Support: Make your app accessible to a global audience with a wide range of language options.

– Dark Mode: Reduce eye strain in low-light conditions and conserve battery life, toggling between light and dark themes.

– Secure Messaging for Verification: Enhance security with double opt-in sign-up and operations via email or SMS confirmation codes, perfect for password changes or new device verifications.

Detailed Guide Included!

To ensure a smooth and tailored implementation process, we’ve also provided a comprehensive guide on how to use and customize the App Starter Offline template. Whether you’re a seasoned developer or just starting, our guide will assist you in maximizing the potential of this robust template.

Bonus Time!

New How-To Video: Simplify Your Work in Appery.io Editor

In addition to the new template, we’re excited to share a brand-new how-to video on our YouTube channel . This video demonstrates how to simplify your work in the Appery.io editor using the “Text in Editor” feature, all without disrupting your app’s UI. Check it out to streamline your development process and ensure a hassle-free experience. 

Conclusion: An Essential Tool for Modern Developers

Ideal for entrepreneurs, startups, and businesses aiming to launch applications in sectors like social networking, e-commerce, health & fitness, education, or any user-centric service, the App Starter Offline template is designed to provide an impeccable user journey from the very first interaction. Additionally, whether you’re developing a comprehensive product or testing a minimum viable product (MVP), this template will be instrumental in accelerating your development process and enhancing user engagement. So why wait? Dive into the world of seamless offline experiences with Appery.io‘s App Starter Offline template today and watch your app reach new heights.

Stay tuned for more updates and don’t forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel for the latest tutorials and tips!

We are here once again, this time with an easy-to-follow, stress-free tutorial on setting up SMS confirmation using Twilio. And exciting news – we also have a video tutorial for you to follow along with!

Remember how we learned to set up SMTP server settings for email confirmations? Today, we’re switching gears to play with Twilio, allowing us to securely verify sign-up attempts via SMS. Cool, right? Let’s jump in!

Step 1: Getting to Know Twilio

Our journey starts with Twilio. Never heard of them? They are experts in sending out SMS verification codes.

• Head over to the Twilio website and sign up for their free trial account. Once you’re registered and logged in, you can start personalizing your setup. You can either use an existing account or create a new one. I whipped up a new account I like to call SMS Confirmation.

• Don’t forget to verify your phone number within Twilio. Just drop your number in, await the verification code via SMS, and then pop the received code into the website.

• You’ll find a few more easy-peasy questions to answer and then hit Get started with Twilio. Congrats, you’re now ready for action!

• Your Twilio dashboard will display a special phone number. This number is outgoing only and will be used to send confirmation messages to your own app users.

• While you’re there, note down your Account SID, Auth Token, and your new Twilio phone number.

• Lastly, ensure that you’ve listed the phone number you are using for testing in the ‘Active Numbers’ list (Phone Numbers > Manage), and that your Verified Caller IDs tab has the verified number ready to receive the authentication codes.

Step 2: Bring On the App Builder

Now that Twilio is all set, let’s put the App Builder to work.

• Go to the Server Code tab then open the StarterLib library, which was created just for us. We’re planning to send out confirmation SMS, so we’ll need to replace EMAIL with SMS for the confirmation type in the StarterLib script.

• Next, hop back over to the Twilio console and one by one, copy your Account SID, Auth Token, and Twilio phone number into the corresponding variables on the script in the StarterLib section. Hit ‘Save’ and voila — you’re all set!

• The moment of truth has arrived. Click TEST on the App Builder page, fill in the sign-up page details, and then wait for the verification code on your mobile device. Once received, drop it into the app, and bingo! Your user is registered.

As you can see, setting up SMS confirmation using Twilio is easier than a walk in the park.

We hope that this short guide will make your app development experience even better.

Remember, we provide a handy two-week trial giving you plenty of time to experiment with our Starter App Template. Plus, you can subscribe to our YouTube channel for even more handy tips.

Thanks for coming aboard this guide, and see you again very soon!

Your Appery.io Team!

Today we are pleased to announce the September release of appery.io with new alias $a of Appery helper, global variable $v and global functions!

Let’s look at what’s new

$a

‘$a’ is an alias for the Appery helper ‘Apperyio’. Now, instead of writing:

this.Apperyio.navigateTo("Screen1");

you can use a much shorter form:

this.$a.navigateTo("Screen1");

$v

‘$v’ is an alias for global variables that were previously accessed through Apperyio.vars.

$v is a place for storing any data as ‘global’. For example, to transfer data between screens.

this.$v.myData = 12345;
this.$v.userInfo = {id: 123, name: 'Joe'};

For more detailed information about ‘$v’, you can refer to our documentation https://docs.appery.io/docs/6-model-and-storage#apperyio-global-variable

Appery Helper

The list of functions and properties for the Appery helper ‘$a’ has been significantly expanded. This expansion greatly simplifies the invocation of the most commonly used operations. For example, if you need to display a modal window and pass parameters to it, this can now be achieved in a single line of code:

let data = await this.$a.modal("EditUser", {name: 'john'});

If you need to display a loading indicator, a simple call will do:

await this.$a.showLoading();

And if you need to perform a GET request:

let res = await this.$a.get("https://mydomain.com/user/12345");

You can explore the full list of available functions on this page: https://docs.appery.io/reference/common-methods-and-properties

Global Functions

Global functions have been added. Now, in the Functions section under Modal and Storage, you can define a function, for example ‘sum’, which will be accessible on all screens, custom components, services, etc., using this.$v.sum()

For more detailed information about global functions, you can refer to our documentation https://docs.appery.io/docs/6-model-and-storage#global-functions

We believe this new feature will be of great value to our users. We appreciate your continued use of Appery.io, and we wish you a happy developing!

Thank you for using Appery.io and Happy Developing!

Your Appery.io Team

We’re excited to announce the introduction of the latest Appery.io release, which includes support for Android 13 (API level 33).

While many of the Appery projects were upgraded automatically, we aimed to keep manual application changes to a minimum to ensure a smooth transition for all users.
– Please ensure that you have not manually modified the config.xml file in the source tab. If any modifications were made to this file, kindly follow these steps: Remove the file and execute the “Undo all source changes” operation for the CORDOVA folder.

– Additionally, for some users, it may be necessary to access the App Settings. From there, navigate to Cordova Config, then proceed to the Android tab. Ensure that the property “GradlePluginKotlinVersion” is present with the value “1.6.20” (refer to the provided image for visual guidance). If this property is missing, kindly add it manually.

We believe this new feature will be of great value to our users. We appreciate your continued use of Appery.io, and we wish you a happy developing!

Thank you for using Appery.io and Happy Developing!

Your Appery.io Team

Dear Appery.io Community,

We are excited to announce that our first Release of 2023 is already live and you are free to check out what new features and upgrades are already available to all Appery.io users!

First things first: we have successfully upgraded our App Builder to Ionic 6 and Angular 15, which resulted in many useful functional improvements and new features for your app-building experience. Most of them are not immediately noticeable, except in a few cases, but innovative and qualitative.

• The first improvement we would like to introduce is related to the system capability: thanks to upgrading to Angular 15, there will exist no limitations in importing npm packages and modules to your apps anymore.

Check here for some examples of how you can add the npm-modules to the projects created with Appery.io.

Updated Preview Page:

•  The serious upgrade that will hopefully be noticed and welcomed by you: our App Builder now has a very modern-looking editor mobile frame design. Besides, it now comes with an upgraded app preview page that is now user-friendlier and offers more functionality. From the preview page, now not only can you adjust your app’s UI on the device screen with further easy testing it on your device but also publish and share your app right from the preview:

• Moreover, those who decide to publish their project as a mobile web app will be able to share it right from the preview.

New and updated UI Components PALETTE

• Next, we are proud to announce that two new UI components have been added to our App Builder for Ionic: Audio and Video. These new components offer you rich customization options for your multimedia resources:

• The existing Datetime component has also been upgraded and now comes with two views to select from, Inline which opens an inline calendar, and Open in modal which opens the modal with a calendar and an editable label:

• One more enhancement: all the components that offer the option of entering strings now allow users to edit them inline right in the mobile frame, and that is a very handy time saver:

• The next three features refer to the components’ properties upgrades: 1) the Position property was added to many UI components like Checkbox, DataTable, etc.; 2) many UI components that contain labels, for example, Input and Link received the Font Size and Font Weight properties; 3) the Text in Editor property was added to several UI components. With this feature enabled, you will be able to finetune your app UI right in the editor even if this component also has some functional code added as its Text property:

Filtering feature added to OUTLINE and Mapping editor

• The OUTLINE view now comes with a useful feature of filtering components added to the screen. Just start typing the name of the component to retrieve its parent(s) on the tree and quickly locate the component you are looking for:

• Users struggling with cumbersome mappings may find the new Mapping editor option of filtering components (similar to how it is realized in the OUTLINE) particularly useful:

Other enhancements

• The next improvement is minor but comfortable: the Method selection can be changed after the function has been created in the CODE panel:

• Our last enhancement might also seem rather minor, but will definitely be found useful by our users: the ability to double-click on many of the UI components added to the mobile frame of our App Builder in order to speed up the process of customizing them. By double-clicking the Image component, for example, you can immediately access the Media Manager window and thus work with your custom image files more easily:

Oh man, that list was impressive, wasn’t it?

Well, we tried to do our best to make the features above functional and easy to use as much as possible, and hope you’ll enjoy using them.

Thank you for using Appery.io and Happy Developing!

Your Appery.io Team

Most apps require a user to register and log in with credentials. Most often, the app requires that the user create a user/password that is specific to the app. This is a cumbersome process that requires the user to remember yet one more password. It’s also not very secure.

A much better approach is to enable the user to simply log in with existing credentials from another service that is trusted, like an LDAP directory in an enterprise or a social identity provider such as Facebook.

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We told you about upcoming versioning changes in our July 2015 newsletter. We want to make sure everyone is aware of the upcoming changes so we are posting them on our blog as well. We want every plan to enjoy this feature, but, at the same time, we want to make sure platform resources are used optimally. To balance these two goals, we are introducing a limit to the number of versions for an app, a limit that will vary depending on your plan. This change will happen on September 7, 2015.

The following version limits will be used:

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