What's New in MobileTogether

Version 3.2 of Altova MobileTogether was announced on May 10, 2017. Learn about all the new features below and update to the latest version.

Near Field Communication:

Support for NFC messages

New Actions:

Ability to access mobile device contacts

Text to speech

Wait cursor and optional message

Actions for date and time pickers

Get file info

View and image full screen

Enhancements to Existing Actions:

Pre-defined sounds for common scenarios

Support for reply-to in emails

Significantly extended scroll-to action

Goto page/subpage via XPath

New Features for Tables:

Dynamic table growth: left to right

On-demand loading of tables

Additional Features:

New pre-defined button looks

Support for JSON5

Numerous chart enhancements

Improvements in Browser execution

Single-thread execution option for MobileTogether Server

See What's New in This Quick Overview

Near Field Communication

NFC (near field communication) is a set of communication protocols that allow two devices to exchange messages when within a few centimeters of proximity. Applications for NFC are many, from the well-known mobile payment systems, to easily sharing links, contacts, and other information with friends, to providing interesting content to visitors as they browse a park, museum, or other attraction equipped with NFC tags. NFC-equipped devices can also act as an electronic identity document or keycard.

MobileTogether now supports pushing and receiving NFC messages including text, URI, MIME media, application records, and more, further broadening the scope of advanced functionality developers can add to their MobileTogether apps.

MobileTogether also now supports Android Beam in Android apps. Android Beam uses NFC to allow users to share their screen content - videos, directions, etc. - by placing their devices back-to-back.

NFC support in MobileTogether is implemented with several NFC design components including actions to start/stop NFC transmission or push a message, a page source tree to be populated when an NFC tag is discovered, and NFC-related events and XPath extension functions. MobileTogether also includes a template for NFC sample files so developers can test their app in the MobileTogether Simulator.

Note: NFC is supported for Android and Windows devices. iOS restricts NFC use to Apple Pay only, so it can’t be used with other kinds of data.

Ability to Access Device Contacts

Apps built in MobileTogether can now access information from the user’s contacts stored on the device, which is useful, for example, when a user wants to send something via email or SMS, or place a call from within the app.

When the Read Contacts action is added to a mobile app design, the $MT_CONTACTS data source tree is automatically added to the design file. When the action is triggered, contacts from the device's address book are read and stored in the $MT_CONTACTS tree and become available to the design. As shown above, you can specify which fields are stored and whether to read one contact or all contacts.

Text to Speech

Mobile developers can now build apps that include text-to-speech functionality so that the user’s device will read text aloud.

When you include the new Text to Speech action in your app, the specified text is converted to audio via the built-in speech synthesizer provided by the underlying OS and played back to the user. This is extremely useful in developing apps for use-cases where the operator might not be able to look at the screen, such as car-based or warehousing applications.

Other New Actions

Wait cursor - show the OS default cursor and an optional message such as "Loading" or "Working" during long actions
Date and time actions - If space on the screen makes it impractical to show the default date picker control, you can instead let the user click a button to bring up the date picker. Coincides with new date and time button-looks described below
Get file info - read the information associated with a file including size, file path, creation date, etc.
View image as full screen - and easily zoom in/out

Enhancements to Existing Actions

Support for reply-to in emails

MobileTogether supports two ways to send emails: from the email application on the device or automatically via MobileTogether Server. Now, for those emails sent from the server, the developer can specify a separate reply-to address.

Significantly extended scroll-to action

This action has been extended to allow scrolling to very precise locations, including the top or bottom of a page or table, to a specific table row, or even to a specific control. This provides additional flexibility for the developer and a better experience for the user, who can now navigate the app much easier.

Go to page/sub-page via XPath

It’s now possible to determine which page the user will see next via XPath. For instance, depending on the user’s entered data, tapping a button could either show a confirmation page or a page with more information.

Pre-defined sounds for common scenarios

MobileTogether now ships with a set of 16 pre-defined sounds you can quickly apply to various app occurrences such as button clicks, message sent, error triggered, and so on.

New Features for Tables

Dynamic table growth: left to right

In addition to dynamic rows, tables can now also have dynamic columns, meaning that columns can be added dynamically on the right-hand side to grow the table based on the number of instances an element occurs. For instance, if a table had rows for FIRST, LAST and phone EXT, a new column could be added each time a PERSON element occurred in the source data.

This table definition is shown at the top of the image below, and the resulting scrollable table, which grows from left to right, is shown below it.

The ability to dynamically grow a table from left to right, top to bottom, or both, makes it possible to define tables for virtually any scenario.

On-demand loading of tables

This is a great performance-optimizing feature for apps that include large scrollable tables. The app developer can now specify the number of table rows – known as a chunk – that can be loaded at a time. As the user scrolls to the bottom of the first chunk, the next chunk is loaded.

This allows large tables to be displayed to the user seamlessly, but in a fraction of the time.

New features for chart creation

Comprehensive chart creation functionality has been enhanced even further, as detailed below.

New for Bar Charts:

Add value labels onto the bars
Customize distances between bars within the same series and between series
Y-Axis may be inverted with 0 at the top/right

New for Gauge Charts:

Add value label on chart
Add text label on chart (e.g., for showing units)

New for Area Charts, Line Charts:

Line chart may be used to draw just dots without the connecting lines
Y-Axis may be inverted with 0 at the top

Candlestick Charts:

Y-Axis may be inverted with 0 at the top

Additional Features

Support for JSON5

JSON5 is a proposed extension to JSON that makes JSON code easier for humans to read and write. Now, in addition to JSON, MobileTogether supports JSON5 as a data source.

New pre-defined button looks

MobileTogether includes numerous pre-defined, familiar looks for buttons, such as email, share, print, and so on. In the latest release, we’ve added additional options: Import, Export, Calendar, and Time. The Calendar and Time looks can be used with the new actions for date and time pickers described above.

Improvements in browser execution

Apps built in MobileTogether may be run in a web browser in addition to on iOS, Android, and Windows devices. In this release, we’ve added several enhancements to make the web client even better:

New setting makes it optional to show a user a confirmation dialog before closing the web client
If a session expires, it can be restarted automatically when a user returns to the solution
Scrollable tables are now also supported in the browser client
The back button now allows the user to return to the previous sub page

Update

Existing customers may update to the latest version here

Download

Download the free MobileTogether Designer to try MobileTogether now!

New in MissionKit

New in Server Software

New in MobileTogether

Over 18 new features for mobile app development in MobileTogether 3.2

New Features in Previous Versions

Learn about all the additional capabilities that have been added in each MobileTogether release.

Version 3.0 (October 10, 2016)

Support for barcodes

Multi-level style sheets

Automated testing facility - to record and re-run tests in Designer and on clients

New action: print to PDF, Word, or RTF from client

Ability to open files (e.g., PDF) on client

Significant speed increase for Windows and Windows Phone client

Completely re-written browser client

Version 2.2 (May 31, 2016)

New action for recording audio

New action to play audio

New action to play video

A new control to embed video within an app

Audio and video XQuery extension functions

A new Simulator feature for LAN connections

End-user file dialog

Enhanced context menu for tables

Version 2.1 (April 4, 2016)

Completely new pricing

New control: Slider

New control: Vertical line

New button looks: Share and Email

New action: Share. Familiar option for sharing via Facebook, Email, Messaging, etc. apps

New action: DB Bulk Insert Into. For quickly inserting multiple rows into a database at once – speeds up to 100x faster *

New action: Let. Allows definition of temporary variables in action trees

New action: Return. Allows an action group to return a result of any complexity; action group can act as a programming subroutine

Subpages: possibility to return result on close (in conjunction with Let action)

Action groups: possibility to pass parameters (and even other action groups) to an action group

New action: Try/Catch. For sophisticated error handling and recovery

New action: Throw. As part of the Try/Catch action, Throw allows definition of exception conditions

New action: Cancel Action Execution. For example, at a validation error in user-entered data

New action: Scroll to Table Bottom. For example, when adding new rows to a scrollable table

New action: Load Image. Load an image for further processing, for instance to transfer to a database

New action: Show Route. Adds to geolocation functionality; show a route between two points

New Action: Loading/saving files on client devices. Users can save files / share between apps on device

Creating folders automatically when saving files on client or server. When saving to a folder that doesn't exist, it can be created

New action: Delete Files/Folders. As permitted by the client operating system or server administrator

New action: Restart/Stop Page Timer. Interrupt the page timer and even reset the timer interval

New action: User Cancel Behavior. More flexibility for letting user cancel at predefined safe locations

Flexibility to set some existing properties via XPath

New property: text size in pixels

New XPath function: mt-connected-via-wifi

New XPath function: mt-font-height

New XPath function: mt-control-width

New XPath function: mt-user-tried-to-cancel-actions

Quick search in XPath function dialog

New option to hide page title bar

Customizable login/index page for browser client

Speed up of app starts when connection is slow

New keyboard style: Visible Password

New demo app: MyCollections

Version 2.0 (November 10, 2015)

Build your own AppStore Apps

New server licensing option: per server core

Support for REST and SOAP Web services

Support for JSON data

Support for Firebird databases

Other supported databases updated to include newest versions

Parallel processing of multiple solutions

Signature / simple drawing control

Load/save files with filename calculated via XPath

Simulate missing Server access

Support for Windows 10

Support for Windows 10 Edge Browser

New XPath functions for color handling

Support for multiple languages: English, German, French, Japanese, Spanish

New flag for source trees: Keep data on client

New page action: OnServerConnectionError

Version 1.5 (April 28, 2015)

Send emails to one or more recipients and optionally include attachments

Action loops for repeated execution of a sequence of actions

Start app solution via a link that includes parameters (can also send link via email functionality above)

OnClick vs. OnLongClick

Hide keyboard

Update display during execution of a series of actions

Automatic save for database tables without primary keys

Execute actions on typing in the Browser

Support for Radio Buttons as an alternative to On/Off Switch controls

New horizontal line properties for dashed and dotted lines

Button Look properties to add symbols to buttons

Support for user CSS and font files for solutions running in Web browser windows

A property to set any control width as a percent of screen width

Unified data types for relational database tables

Optionally remove source nodes that are inserted by Append/Insert node action

Multiple versions of the same solution may coexist on server to accommodate outdated client apps

MobileTogether Client configuration may be sent via email link to simplify set-up for end users

Several convenient and time-saving editing shortcuts have been added to the MobileTogether Designer

Version 1.4 (February 2, 2015)

Robust support for geolocation services

Support for Android version 5.0

Support for XPath and XQuery 3.1 (adds to support for previous versions)

String localization (enhances existing support for localization)

Support for additional specific headers in HTTP requests

Feature allowing one MobileTogether solution to start another solution when it terminates

iOS 7/8 rendering in the Simulator portion of the MobileTogether Designer

Ability to edit the XML tree directly in the Simulator

Additional refactoring support

Display versions of connected clients on the MobileTogether Server

MobileTogether Commercial Release (November 10, 2014)

MobileTogether Server available for Linux and MacOS, in addition to Windows

New action: Let User Choose Image from gallery or camera

Image embedding

New action: Save Image to File

New action: Execute on Server/Client

New XPath functions for image processing

New XPath functions for geolocation processing

Additional new XPath functions

MobileTogether Beta 2 (September 17, 2014)

Support for SQLite databases

Support for dynamic SELECT statements fully generated with XPath/XQuery)

Automatic retrieval of auto-number primary key after Save action to database

Support for data retrieval in DB Execute action

Support for user authentication via Windows Active Directory

Support for user to choose his/her own password in client

Support for user to change his/her password on first login

Auto-correcting HTML parser

Mobile Apps translated to German, Spanish, Japanese

New variables: $MT_ButtonBackgroundColor, $MT_ButtonTextColor, $MT_EditFieldBackgroundColor, $MT_EditFieldTextColor, $MT_LabelBackgroundColor, $MT_DBExecute_Result, $MT_SimulationMode

New functions: mt-has-serveraccess, mt-refresh-userroles, mt-external-error-code, mt-external-error-text

MobileTogether Beta (July 22, 2014)

MobileTogether is made available as a public beta.

Update

Existing customers may update to the latest version here

Download

Download the free MobileTogether Designer to try MobileTogether now!