Upgrade: New AngularJS & Bootstrap Visual Builder and More

Platform Improvements for 2015: Enterprise Collaboration, Security, Speed…

An image of a mobile 2015
Happy Holidays! Before we close out 2014, we wanted to update the Appery.io platform with a number of really cool features:

  • Team collaboration enhancements
  • URL-based security in Secure Proxy
  • Faster proxy
  • Sharing with Appery.io support
  • New XHR implementation

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Appery.io July Update: New Features in App Builder, Database, Server Code and Much More

The Appery.io team just released a number of really nice features. Learn about what’s new in this post.

App Builder improvements

New jQuery Mobile Popup component

The new jQuery Mobile Popup component gives you more power to build app UI.  The component can be used to notify the user to confirm an action, or just display any important information.

ui_component

More List options

We added a number of properties to the list to simplify UI building. For instance, it is now easy to make the list read-only.

list_component

We also added the ability to manage the list items order. You can do this by using the Index property in the Properties panel:

list_items_order

A better way to select icons

Everyone likes icons, and there is now a better way to select one. If the component supports an icon (List, Button etc.), the Icon property will be available:

icon

By clicking “Choose,” the icons list will appear:

icon_list

This is much more fun as you can see the actual icon.

Cloud database improvements

The Appery.io cloud database got a number of very useful upgrades.

Indexes management

By adding the ability to manage database indexes, we allow you speed up the frequently used queries. It’s a good thing to use when transferring a lot of data between the devices and Appery.io backend:

collection_indexes

To reduce data transfer and speed up the app, use the MongoDB Projection concept that the Appery.io database now supports. By using Projection, you can selectively retrieve columns from the database without the need to transfer excess data (columns). This will decrease the data being sent to the client (app), and also increase app responsiveness.

New ACL editor – for simplified database access rights

User access control is  now more flexible with the new ACL editor. You can specify access rights for each user separately, for all users at once, or just for the user that created a specific collection entry:

users_acl

The Appery.io database now supports the Media Manager that helps manage files. You can upload and delete any sort of files directly from the database console by using it:

database_config_uploaded

API updates

It’s now possible to get a file list based on the Files collection content and provided ACL for every file (you can of course control user access rights for files too).

Database versioning for more peace of mind

It’s always a good idea to make a backup of your database. With the new database versioning features, you can create versions (backups) of the database and restore to a particular version instantly:

db_versions

Server Code improvements

To make development and testing faster, we combined the Script tab and Test tab into a single page. You can now quickly test the script and see the execution result without the need to switch tabs:

server_code

API update

The Server Code API was upgraded with a new service – multiUpdateObject. By using it, you can update multiple objects via a single REST service. See the Server Code API to learn what functionality can be used on the Appery.io server side.

Customer Console improvements

Customer Console is a great way to create a development process where a customer can manage databases and push notifications without the developer attention. The Customer Console adds the following new features:

  • Export/import database data in JSON or CSV formats.
  • Schedule push notifications.

customer_console

Push improvements

To simplify working with Push, we have moved the Push tab together with the app. So now it’s a lot simpler; with every app, you can enable its own push capability: 

pn_app_console

If you new to Appery.io Push Notifications, we recommend starting with this tutorial.

App exporting improvements

Now, when the app is exported from the Appery.io with “Release” checkbox checked, JavaScript files will be minified. This option works for all binary exports and reduces the final binary size. Head to the Exporting the app section if you want to know more about Appery.io app exporting possibilities.

With every new Appery.io update, our goal is to make app development faster and simpler in the cloud.

Follow us Twitter, and Facebook.  And if there is anything we can do better, let us know on the forum.

July Update Release Notes

We pushed a number of really nice features over the weekend. Check out the release notes and what’s new. A full blog post is coming up shortly.

What Happened with the Upgrade This Weekend

As many of you know, we attempted to upgrade our platform this past weekend and had to roll the update back because of technical issues we encountered.  We made the tough decision to roll back the upgrade because, although painful, it would be least disruptive to our customers.   What happened is not acceptable to us.  We are growing fast and many of you rely on our platform for your business.  We are conducting a review of our process to ensure we deliver with quality each time.

Is my account impacted and if so what should I do?

Fortunately, for most of you, there was no impact.  However, if you opened and modified one of your projects between the times of Sunday at 4 AM Pacific and Monday 5 PM Pacific, some of your updates may have been lost as we rolled back to the earlier release.   If you believe you may have lost some of your changes, there is a good chance we can help you recover them.   Please contact our support channels so we can help you.

I will say this again, what happened over the weekend is unacceptable. We are already looking at ways to improve new features roll out.  In addition to improving our internal process, we are also considering deploying a beta system to both get early feedback on new features and also improve the quality of our new releases.  Another idea we’re considering is enabling users to manually upgrade their apps to new versions of our App Builder, rather than automatically updating them.  This would give you more control over your projects.  I’d love to hear from you about these and other ideas you may have.  Please feel free to write to me directly at max@appery.io

Max and the Appery.io team.

New Mapping

Update (May 27): links were unlinked as this content not currently available.

Appery.io developers: we just upgraded the mapping feature in Appery.io! It’s now a lot more powerful and flexible.  This post is a quick overview of what has changed. The two links (Mapping, Model and Storage) provide more details on the new features. Read this post and then visit the links to learn more.

  • Mapping
  • Model and Storage

Old mapping

This is how the old mapping looked. This shows a data source (service) has been added to the page:

Screen Shot 2014-05-24 at 10.50.02 PM

Clicking on Edit Mapping, would open the service request mapping:

Screen Shot 2014-05-24 at 10.54.00 PM

and this is service response mapping:

Screen Shot 2014-05-24 at 10.54.17 PM

New service events and mapping

The new mapping is a lot more flexible and greatly simplifies building mobile apps in Appery.io. When you switch to Data view, a data source will now be shown like this. Make sure to click the expand arrow on the left to see the data source events:

Screen Shot 2014-05-24 at 10.57.04 PM

The mapping in Before send event and in Success event – that’s the exact the same old mapping Appery.io had before and the one you are used to. When a service was invoked, the request mapping would happen on Before send event and response mapping would happen on Success event.

As you can see what we have now is a lot more flexible. In addition to doing mapping, you can now also run any other action (click +Add button to see the actions), plus Run JavaScript which allows you to run any custom script. Plus, you can invoke any action on Error and Complete events. You can even run the new Mapping action on those events!

New Mapping action

The new Mapping action allows you to invoke mapping on any event, not just on service invocation (last in the list):

Screen Shot 2014-05-24 at 11.08.13 PM

The new Mapping action can also be invoked from the UI:

Screen Shot 2014-05-24 at 11.22.07 PM

For example, on button click, you can move data from page to storage, or from storage to page:

Screen Shot 2014-05-24 at 11.24.24 PM

Mapping: page, service, storage

The mapping is no longer limited to service-page mapping. You can now map data between page, service and storage. This is where the new Mapping actions comes into play. Before you could only map between page and service. Now you can map between page and storage (local storage, session storage). In other words, you can map data from page into storage, or move map data from storage to page. Here is how the new mapping looks:

Screen Shot 2014-05-24 at 11.18.17 PM

Notice that on the left side there are: Page and Storage. On the right side there are: Page, Storage, and Service Request. With the new mapping, we have simplified mapping between Page, Storage and Service.

Documentation

Please read the following pages that explain in more detail the new features:

  • Mapping
  • Model and Storage

 

 

Appery.io platform adds speed, server jobs, Google Analytics, Windows Phone build, Customer Console, more Webhooks, and many more features

The Appery.io team released a number of really cool features over the weekend. Here is what’s new.

It’s faster

We made a lot of things go faster. You will see a big app builder speed improvement (and we are still not done, more speed is coming).

Easily schedule server-side jobs

You are building an app that needs to check for inventory once every hour or once a day? Now you can easily do this with new Server Code scheduler feature. Because this is a server-side script, the actual device can even be offline, but the script will still run. You pick a script and just set the schedule to run:

server_code_jobs_tab

Manage app data and send push messages with Customer Console

Built a restaurant app for a client and would like the restaurant owner to manage the menu or send push message for special promotions? Now you can easily create a special Customer  Console for an app and let the client manage the app data and push messages. With the just launched Customer Console, the client can edit app data (data from database), and send push notifications, all from a user-friendly console (and you don’t need to be involved). You can even publish the Customer Console to a custom domain.

customer_console

Get app insight with Google Analytics

Now you can easily collect statistics from you app by using the Google Analytics. Watch how many users use the app, or analyze data for certain periods. All the power of the Google Analytics is in your Appery.io app:

google_analytics

Styling the app with CSS is easier and faster

Earlier, when working with CSS  you have to test your app every time you want to see the changes. Now, you can see all the changes based on your CSS files directly inside the Appery.io app builder without the need to launch the app in the browser. Just write or edit the CSS and switch back to page to see the result:

css

Manage binary certificates in one place

New and convenient certificate management tool helps keep all certificates in one place. Mark certificate as default to be used by all apps, or choose a specific certificate for an app in Project > App settings. As before, you can auto-generate Android certificates inside the Appery.io platform:

certificates

Quickly build and deploy for Windows Phone

Need to build a binary for Windows Phone? It’s now as simple and fast as building for iOS and Android:

exportin_the_app

Customize and integrate more with additional Webhooks

We launched Webhooks in January to allow easy integration with other systems. In addition to app specific events (right screen shot), we just added account-wide Webhooks (left screen shot) such as App created, App removed and App renamed. With new Webhooks, you get more options to integrate with other systems:

webhooks

Custom domain HTTPS hosting

Appery.io apps can be hosted on custom domain, and now the custom domain options also supports https.

As always, if you have any questions, feedback or comments, feel free to contact us at support@appery.io, post something on our forum or ping us on Twitter.

What’s New in the Latest Appery.io Update

Update: Webinar on Wednesday, Jan. 29, to cover new features.

This past weekend we released a number of new features. This is a list of what’s new. We will be posting a lot more information on each feature later this week. This is a short list of all the new and awesome stuff:

  • Weinre remote debugging
  • Secure REST
  • Server code integration from inside the app builder — generate REST services for server code scripts
  • More information why the binary build might fail
  • Database batch operations
  • New UI components
  • iOS 7 theme and icons for binary build
  • Launch (splash screen) images for iOS and Android apps
  • Change account email address
  • Many bug fixes..

Stay tuned for a more detailed post coming later this week.

Appery.io Adds Salesforce Integration and Much More – Check Out the Details

The latest Appery.io update packs some really awesome updates and features. Check them out here.

Fast

Everything now runs much faster. You will see major speed improvements when you open pages, services or any other editors in the app builder. It’s simply much faster. And, we are not done. We have plans to make the platform a lot more faster. Read the rest of this entry »

Appery.io Gets Even Better

We recently updated Appery.io in a number of ways, adding up to a big step forward for the platform. At the same time, RESTXpress, an important part of the overall mobile solution provided by Appery.io, has been enhanced. We’ve discussed most of the improvements in Appery.io in a previous blog post, so I’ll just provide a summary of these before moving on to a discussion of the changes in RESTXpress.
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