Instantly Share Your Hybrid App for Running and Testing with Anyone

Being able to share an app with a customer, a colleague, or a friend so they can test and run an app is a core benefit in a mobile platform. Since the beginning, the Appery.io platform has made it very simple to test and run you mobile app in the browser or as a hybrid app via the Appery.io Mobile Tester app for iOS and for Android. With the tester app, you can run and test your hybrid app, including any native APIs, without having to install the app on a device each time.

We are happy to announce today that anyone can test and run your mobile app via the Appery.io Tester app—even without an Appery.io account. This means after installing the tester app, anyone can try your app!

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Viewing and exporting HTML from a UI prototype

UI prototyping is great and quick way to start your UI requirements. Getting a picture of how the UI looks is much better then trying to describe UI requirements in a text document.

But, it would be even better if you could describe the UI behavior in a prototype. This would make the prototype interactive where you could select menus, change tabs and navigate between pages. This prototypes (shoes) the actual UI logic in the real application. Pretty cool, right?

Lastly, what if you could export prototype HTML, share it or even use it as a starting point for the UI.

You can do all with Appery.io. Appery.io is a Web-based tool for creating, sharing and viewing interactive Web and mobile HTML prototypes. Appery.io allows you to do rapid prototyping, it allows you to create interactive prototypes where you can switch tabs, create navigation between pages (more actions/events are coming soon). And lastly, you can also export prototype HTML. Let me show you how do to that.

There are two ways to do it. First, you can view and share the prototype in a browser. Second, you can export (save) the prototype HTML, JavaScript and CSS.

To view the prototype in a Web browser, select Web Preview/Open. A browser window will open and you will see the prototype (make sure to allow pop-ups for *.appery.io) Note that by default only you can view the prototype URL.

If you want to share the prototype, inside the editor, select Web Preview/Share and select Anybody can view this prototype on the Web. That’s it. You can now share or send the URL and anyone will be able to view it in any browser. You can also perform this in Projects page.

View this prototype

To export (save) the prototype HTML, JavaScript and CSS, in Projects page, select Options/Export to HTML bundle. You will be prompted to save a zip file containing all the HTML, JavaScript and CSS files. You can run it locally, share the zip file, or use it as a starting point for application UI.

Export prototype as HTML bundle

Although you can preview a Appery.io prototype in a browser and share the link, sometimes you might want to get the entire project – all the pages, JavaScript and CSS and run it locally on your machine or send it to someone. All you need to do is export the prototype as HTML bundle and you will get all the pages, JavaScript and CSS.

When in Projects page, select Options/Export as HTML bundle. You will be prompted to save a zip file containing your complete prototype.

Preview prototypes anywere, even on iPad, iPhone

Appery.io whiteboard was created using Flash. Why did we use Flash and not HTML? Well, today Flash is still the more powerful and flexible solution for this particular job. We knew that today we would have to do a lot more work to create the same functionality in HTML5. But, it’s something we are considering for the future. So, if you try to access Appery.io from iPad, well, you know what’s going to happen (Thanks, Steve). But, not everything is lost! One of the unique and rather powerful features in Appery.io is Web Preview. Web Preview generates standard HTML/JS/CSS and allows you to preview the prototype in any browser, any mobile device and yes, even on iPad and iPhone. This makes it possible to send prototype Web Preview to anyone and ask for their feedback. Isn’t’ this cool? Your boss or customer sitting in a coffee shop, airport, or anywhere else with their laptop, mobile phone or iPad can now review the prototype with just one click! Appery.io Web Preview is interactive, you can click on various controls to open them up such as calendars and navigate between pages.

And one more thing, we are coming with a specialised mobile palette based on jQuery Mobile components. You will soon be able to build prototypes for mobile devices!

  1. First, select Web Preview/Share and choose who can view the prototype:
  2. Then, select Web Preview/Open
  3. A new page will open (click the link below to see it in action). Go ahead and open this link on Android, iPad or iPhone. Try it!

Sharing Appery.io prototypes

There are multiple ways to share a Appery.io prototype project. One of the first features in Appery.io was collaboration. During prototype design you can invite anyone to collaborate with you on the prototype in real time. You can invite a colleague working from home or a remote team in another country. There is a even a chat feature. Another way to share is to send a link to the Web Preview of the prototype. This is great if you want to show how the prototype looks in a web browser to a customer. We recently launched another way to share the prototype (the old school way). You can export the entire project into a zipped HTML bundle file and then share the file. Web Preview version (HTML/JS/CSS) will be generated for each screen in prototype and zipped together.

From Projects page, select Options/Export to HTML bundle: