New in MobileTogether 8.1

Altova RecordsManager is a no-code solution for creating custom database apps in MobileTogether Designer.

When you first open MobileTogether Designer, have the option to create a classic MobileTogether solution — or create an app with an intuitive, purely visual design interface using Altova RecordsManager.

MobileTogether 8.1 introduces new features in RecordsManager 2.0 including:

Learn more about RecordsManager and the new features in RecordsManager 2.0.

Developers now have the option to display a progress bar to app users while longer server actions execute, such as a lengthy database update. The progress indicator and behavior are defined as a subpage that appears when the server actions start to be executed. The progress subpage closes automatically when execution of the server actions is completed—or when the user cancels execution. An example of a progress indicator is shown below, though developers can implement it as desired.

The new progress indicator functionality is accompanied by a tutorial in the MobileTogether Designer Help Manual explaining the new actions, variables, and functions for implementation.

SQLite databases offer the option to restrict database connections to a single user during critical changes, such as modification of the table structure to add new fields or additional tables, rename items, etc. Allowing a single connection for a short period of time for critical changes helps preserve database integrity and consistency.

MobileTogether developers now have the ability to use this option on the DB Begin Transaction Action. When connecting to a SQLite database, a timeout (in seconds) property becomes available, allowing the developer to specify a waiting period for the write-lock. When the EXCLUSIVE transaction is active, other connections are not able to read or write to the DB and get a message that the DB is currently locked.

New Actions are available to add copy / paste functionality to nodes, allowing app users to copy and paste content between nodes and between the MobileTogether app and other apps using their device’s clipboard.

Developers can now specify strikethrough font for checkboxes, radio buttons, and buttons in addition to labels.

MobileTogether supports connectivity to a wide range of relational database types and versions. Support has been extended to include the latest versions of databases including:

Starting with Version 7.3, you can enable in-app purchases in the native iOS, Android, and Windows apps you create in MobileTogether. Support is available for both one-time purchases and subscriptions.

This is a powerful new feature that allows you to monetize any apps you create with MobileTogether using the native App Store purchasing process on each platform.

The ability to include in-app purchasing in the apps you create in MobileTogether gives you even more options for building sophisticated, feature-rich apps that meet your business objectives while providing users with premium content and features.

When developing an app in MobileTogether you can now assign tooltips to controls such as buttons, labels, check boxes, etc., to provide end users with information before using the control. Tooltips are displayed to the end user on long-click on mobile devices and mouse-over on desktop devices.

Tooltips are defined in the Styles & Properties window of the control.

In addition to previous versions of the databases listed below, support has been added for the most recent versions:

This new feature provides more flexibility for users in selecting between light and dark modes on the MobileTogether client app: they can now apply the system settings for their device or manually switch between light/dark themes.

MobileTogether Designer includes more than 30 pre-defined button-looks that make it quick and easy for developers to add attractive icons for common tasks to their apps. This latest release adds a View button-look to the list.

This function returns a list of open pages. When a page calls a subpage, which then calls another subpage, the function will return the full list of pages. This is useful, for example, to allow a dialog to show different options depending on which page it was called from.

It is now possible to set padding for table cells in addition to rows and columns. This makes it easier to precisely control the display of tables with different types of content (e.g., a mixture of text and images).

For apps that connect to SQLite databases, a new Backup/Restore SQLite DB Action allows you to back up the SQLite database multiple times to a folder you designate. You can subsequently restore the SQLite database from one of these backups if required.

This functionality requires MobileTogether Server Advanced Edition.

Because MobileTogether is capable of building highly complex, elegant solutions, developers need the ability to troubleshoot during development to understand and debug app behavior.

Now, MobileTogether Designer offers full-featured debugging of both the execution flow inside action trees AND the results of XPath/XQuery functions called inside those trees. This is accomplished with two debugging views:

The new debugger in MobileTogether Designer gives developers the power to test and debug their apps with precision to immediately understand any app behavior - all directly in the low-code design environment.

The new Update Variable action makes it possible for user-defined variables to be given new values during solution execution.

This offers more flexibility for data provided during app execution (calculations, user input, etc.) to be used as the values of variables. Previously these were stored in XML trees, but using variables is advantageous for many tasks because they can keep and modify maps, arrays, and other XQuery structures.

Device-independent pixels (dp) and scale-independent pixels (sp) are now supported as the default units of measurement in MobileTogether designs. Apps built in MobileTogether will be used on a variety of OSes and devices of various sizes and resolutions, and these units allow for this, as well as users’ device settings, ensuring a consistent look and feel on any device.

Specifying size in dp makes it possible to define a display of the same size across devices that have different resolutions. Scale-independent pixels are the same as dp with an additional scaling factor that is based on the font size that the user selects in the device's system settings - as such, sp are used only as a unit for text-size.

In addition to support for dp/sp units, a new function called mt-convert-units lets you to convert between pixels and dp/sp.

Certain actions can be triggered based on data input by users. Now, to allow the app to more efficiently respond to what the user is typing, the developer can specify an interval of time, the default value being 500 ms, to wait after the last character is entered before executing the action. This allows the user to type easily without interruptions.

A more advanced alternative to the existing chart Control, this XPath expression offers a programmatic way to define charts via XPath when more flexibility is required, such as letting the user configure certain aspects of the chart, etc.

A major breakthrough in dynamic design for MobileTogether apps, Control Templates and Placeholder Controls facilitate design reuse and make it easy to implement efficient, flexible options for various scenarios.

A Control Template is a new design component that allows you to design and group several other controls in a way that makes this group of controls easily reusable on multiple other pages. Control Templates support parameters, and each template can be reused in different locations across the various pages and subpages of an app development project.

Control Templates provide flexibility by allowing you to:

A Placeholder Control is used to place a Control Template at a desired location on a page. You can use multiple Placeholder Controls to place a Control Template at multiple locations.

There are countless ways this new functionality can be applied. For example, you can show an edit field for editable content and a read-only label for the same content, based on the app user permissions. This removes the necessity to design different input forms for different users - the form itself can change. Or, you can show different Controls at the same location, depending on the situation.

The simple example below shows a Control Template that defines a set of dynamic horizontal radio buttons. This portion of the app asks users to first select their continent, followed by their country and city, values for which are shown dynamically based on the previous selection.

Control Templates and Placeholder Controls represent a major step forward in elegant app design by enabling easy reuse and enhancing flexibility.

To help developers get started quickly with these powerful features, MobileTogether Designer 6.0 ships with four example projects that highlight defining, implementing, and reusing Control Templates and Placeholder Controls.

MobileTogether Action Groups define a series of actions to execute with an app. Once defined, an Action Group can be reused throughout a project. With the ability to pass Action Group names and parameters via XPath, the Action Group to be executed in a particular scenario can be determined dynamically at run time (for example, by getting the name of the Action Group to execute from a page-source node, based on the device OS, desktop vs. mobile devices, and so on), providing additional flexibility for closely customizing app behavior.

This new Action makes it easier to break a loop during execution of an action script. Previously, the Break-loop-if Action required the developer to specify conditions for breaking a loop. Now, it’s possible to break a loop immediately and proceed to the next statement following the loop.

On devices running Android 7 or higher, apps can be shown in split screen mode, e.g., with one app running in the top half of the device screen and another in the bottom half. MobileTogether apps now support running in this manner.

When saving data to a database, it is often important to control the order in which delete, update, and insert statements will be executed. This is now supported in MobileTogether 6.0.

Adding to existing geolocation functionality in MobileTogether, a new Geolocation Map control lets developers display a map directly in their app. The map can display the street, satellite, or hybrid view of the specified geographic area. Points of interest in the area can be shown by different colored markers in the map.

Viewport, Control Width, and Control Height properties provide flexibility for controlling how the map is displayed.

The control has a OnGeoMapMarkerClicked event, which lets the app developer define actions to perform when a particular marker is clicked by the user.

New variables and extension functions have been created to support map functionality:

Support has been added for building apps that include the native look, feel, and functionality of these latest Android versions.

Now, in addition to configuring a Label control to display multiple lines of text, the developer can set a maximum number of lines to be displayed, providing even more flexibility when designing an app UI.

Now, in addition to retrieving a list of files and sub folders from a folder on the MobileTogether Server or client at runtime, options have been added to allow:

Opting for a web app has numerous benefits. Because the app is available in any web browser, users don’t need to have a client app pre-installed on their device or computer, making deployment easy in large organizations as well as for customer-facing apps. There’s nothing to download: users simply access your app via URL. Of course, security options are available as required. All of these factors make life easier for enterprise IT departments and end-users alike.

Because a single design in MobileTogether Designer generates native apps for all platforms as well as a web app, the same functionality and sophistication available for building custom, feature-rich mobile apps is extended to developing web apps for any industry or purpose.

In addition to the text auto-fit option described above, developers can configure controls that have text to display an ellipsis if the text doesn’t fit the width of the control. This again ensures that the UI will look good on all form factors and also helps account for differences in localized versions of your app, where some words may be longer or shorter depending on the current language.

Now, in addition to support for data in XML, HTML, and JSON formats, MobileTogether supports reading and writing to plain text files. A new action called Load/Save Text File makes it easy to specify the required node and text file as well as error handling options.

MobileTogether apps can now connect to the latest versions of these databases:

New in MobileTogether Server

It is important to back up the internal database for MobileTogether Server periodically. Now, the process can be fully automated, and the server administrator can configure automatic backups to occur as required.

This new control allows developers to implement solutions that support rich text: text that includes formatting such as font sizes, bold, and italics. This support is especially important for MobileTogether solutions used in the Windows 8/10 client and the web browser, where users can enter and format rich text. For Android, iOS, and Windows Phone devices, the rich text control is read-only.

Rich text support was the final requirement for customers successfully transitioning their Altova Authentic Browser Edition solutions to MobileTogether for desktop and web browser access.

Authentic has long been available as a browser plug-in in addition to a desktop application. However, the more recent versions of popular browsers are discontinuing support for NPAPI and ActiveX and are in the process of ending support for browser plug-ins altogether.

Luckily, customers have a path to continue using existing Authentic forms built in StyleVision by exporting a StyleVision design file to a MobileTogether design as the starting point for a new app. Completed MobileTogether solutions can be accessed easily in a web browser – but without the need for a plug-in.

With added support for rich text, Authentic developers and end users will have access to all the same functionality - and more - using MobileTogether.

Controls that have a Text Size property now also have a Text Size Auto-Fit option, which enables longer text to be re-sized to fit the width of the control.

Newer Android and Windows devices now have their default theme set to the light background with dark text long used by iPhones and iPads. The new Enforce Light Theme style in MobileTogether helps developers easily extend this theme to older Android and Windows Phone clients. This saves significant development time and results in better performance because the styles don’t have to be applied individually at runtime.

Simply set Enforce Light Theme to true in the Styles & Properties entry helper to apply the theme project-wide. When Ensure Light Theme is set to false, the default theme of the user’s device is used.

Controls that have an OnClicked event (buttons, charts, images, and labels) can have their click events triggered via the client's Enter or Escape key in a Windows app or web browser.

Like defining Tab behavior described above, app developers can specify which control should be activated when a user presses Enter or Escape.

MobileTogether supports numerous popular back end database types, with additonal new support for:

New in MobileTogether Server 4.1

Version 4.1 includes a new edition of MobileTogether Server that provides additional features for the most sophisticated app development scenarios.

The debut release of MobileTogether Server Advanced Edition provides support for managing and running services, which, as described at the top of this page, are solutions with no UI that run in the background according to predefined triggers.

Once a service is defined in MobileTogether Designer, it is deployed to the customer’s MobileTogether Server, where the administrator can configure the service to start automatically according to a customizable system of triggers. These include including time triggers, file system triggers, HTTP triggers, or a combination of multiple criteria.

It’s now possible to rename solutions or move them into different folders via the MobileTogether Server web interface.

This functionality is only relevant for enterprise apps – compiled app store apps should not be moved or renamed.

MobileTogether apps are embedded via an iFrame element in the HTML code of the web page, and multiple options for user or device authentication are available, if required.

This functionality has been requested by several customers and now makes MobileTogether even more useful for browser deployment and web development.

This new action makes it possible to retrieve a list of files and sub folders from a folder on the MobileTogether Server or client at runtime. This is important when the folder structure is not known to the app.