Blog

Last week we had our March release. Here is what’s new and cool.

Really Awesome jQuery Mobile Themes

We just added a bunch of new and awesome jQuery Mobile themes and swatches. Here is how the new Appery.io dark-gray theme looks:

Check out the rest here

Plugins

Plugins make it possible to package services, screens, images as a “plugin” and then add the plugin to any other project. You can even create custom project templates from plugins. A plugin is created by selecting Export > Appery plugin:

To learn more, read plugins documentation.

Panel – add any custom HTML code

The Appery.io visual editor is pretty cool but we know very well that being able to insert any custom code is a must have feature. In this release we added a new Panel component which can be.

• div
• html (any custom HTML code)
• span

Create Custom CSS

Staying on the topic of customazing your app, in addition to being able to add any JavaScript you can now also create a custom CSS file:

Visual jQuery Mobile-JSON mapper improvements

A number of improvements were were do the visual data mapper. Once a connection is mapped, a grey dotted line appears to indicate to which variable the connection is made.

Documentation updated

We spent the last couple of days updating Appery.io documentation with all the new features. We’d love to hear your feedback. One thing we are definitely going to add is more tutorials!

In addition to standard jQuery Mobile themes, we just added a bunch of new and awesome themes and swatches to Appery.io Mobile App Builder.

Appery.io Dark-gray themes

Appery.io Pastel themes

Appery.io Olive themes

Appery.io Cappuccino themes

Appery.io Rainbow-plain themes

Appery.io Winter themes

You can set the swatch name from screen properties:

or click More themes link to change the theme:

We recently pushed a new release of Appery.io Mobile App Buider and here are some of the most important new features.

PhoneGap 1.4

PhoneGap version was upgraded to the latest and greatest version 1.4. Every mobile app project automatically comes with PhoneGap 1.4 included, nothing you need to do. You can easily invoke any PhoneGap API and we also provide special Device palette with components based on PhoneGap API.

jQuery Mobile Ajax Navigation

This feature has been requested for some time and now it’s available. When defining page navigation, you can now select transition effect

New jQuery Mobile Visual Data Mapper

We have switched to a new and more powerful jQuery Mobile data mapping. To create mappings, simply select a variable and drag and connect to the other side. When you drag service variables into the page, the page nodes will automatically expand so you don’t necessarily need to open the page nodes ahead of time. The new mapper will allow us to expose all component properties and add additional powerful features.

HTML5 Audio Control

In addition to video control, we also just added HTML5 audio control:

Sign up and try Appery.io Mobile App Builder today.

In mid January we have released an update to Appery.io mobile app builder and now every app (new or old) is based on jQuery Mobile version 1.0.

Now that there is a Free plan, nothing should stop you from building your mobile app.

Lastly, if you need to write any custom JavaScript in your app, here is how.

If the mobile tester app is not working, here is how to fix it: http://gsfn.us/t/2lpo2. Sorry about this problem, we will push the app update very soon.

Update: the app has been updated and fixed.

Appery.io Mobile Apps Builder upgrades with brand-new UI and very cool new features.

Brand-new attractive UI

Appery.io Mobile Apps Builder got a new and very attractive UI. You can see how it looks below but the best way to experience it, is to log in or sign up. You will like it.

Upgraded export-and-build capability with support for Android, iOS, and mobile Web

That’s big one. From the screen shot you can see that it’s now super easy to get the source code and build for Android and get the source code for iOS.

Android binary release (.apk) settings editor

What’s really cool is that you get get an Android binary and immediately publish it to the Android Market. How can you do that? Appery.io has a new Android .apk settings editor where you can enter all the information needed for the Android Market.

Upgraded test capability. Quickly test your app in a browser or on a mobile device

The Test screen has been upgraded. It’s now super easy to test the app in desktop Web browser, mobile Web browser, and on the actual device via Appery.io Mobile Tester.

Support added for REST XML services and for using the POST method

REST services are no longer limited to just JSON response format, Appery.io now supports XML. We have also improved ability to make POST requests.

New service “echo” mode makes it possible to test the app without connecting to the actual service

To make it even easier to work with remote services, we have introduced an “echo” or mock service. Basically, instead of making a call to the actual remote service each time during development, you can invoke a local “echo” or mock service which returns a sample of the real data.

Use custom external JavaScript libraries in your app

To make it simpler to customise and use custom JavaScript, we have added a feature where any custom JavaScript library can be loaded and included in the app.

New Appery.io JavaScript framework to make it simpler to extend your apps with custom JavaScript

Check it out here.

Create and use custom JavaScript functions when mapping service data to the UI

When mapping UI when data source, you can now specify custom JavaScript to run when the mapping occurs

Improved support for HTML5 attributes and support for the HTML5 video tag

We have added HTML5 input types, attributes such as placeholder and HTML5 video tag.

New iPad screen layout

We added project template with iPad layout – to make it simple and faster build apps for the most popular tablet.

Earlier this week we released Appery.io version 2.3.2. Most of the updates are for Mobile Apps Builder. There is a new services editor, new jQuery Mobile theme editor and we launched a new help site.

New services editor with test feature

New services editor is now easier to use, it clearly separates service setting (such as name, URL ) and service request parameters and response parameters into separate panels.

What’s really cool is that you can now test the service right from Appery.io. When entering the request parameters, there is a Test button. This allows you to check that the service works and what soft of output (JSON) is returned.

But, there is another very cool feature. Every service returns data and you need to define response parameters (which later can be mapped to components). Some services return many parameters and manually creating each parameter can be tedious. When you test the service there is Populate Response Button. When the button is clicked, all the output parameters from the service will be automatically created. Here is how it looks using Twitter’s search URL (http://search.twitter.com/search.json?q=html5):

Lastly, you can also paste the response from a service to auto create response parameters. This works sort of like an “echo” test. This is useful if you are not able to invoke the service but do know its response format. In Response Parameters panel, click Populate from Sample Response. Then, paste the response.

New jQuery Mobile theme editor

Mobile Apps Builder comes with 6 jQuery Mobile themes out-of-the-box. Now you can also create custom themes. To create one, in Project view, click Add > Theme. You will see the theme editor:

As you modify the theme (on the left), the phone on the right will instantly be updated with the changes.

New help site

We launched a new help and developers site: http://docs.appery.io. It’s still work in progress but do let us know if there is content you want us to add.

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.

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.)

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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