Uniface 9.7 mobile vs. web

Hi RogerW, As you suspect the mobile and web initiatives are very closely linked. To make the existing DSP solution a good fit for mobile devices we have been putting work into several areas

• Rich WEB sites The Uniface DSP solution was already a good for creating responsive web applications and, with the work we have been putting into it, it has become a lot easier to develop. Some new features are JavaScript promises, merging of classes, html 5 widgets, custom attributes, properties and attributes on entities and occurrences, custom error handling, …
• Performance The solution is going through a performance review so that it can deliver the best experience to the user out of the box.
• Installable Apps We are developing, for 9.7.02, a cloud based build environment to compile apps for deployment onto mobile devices. With this build environment it will be possible to build apps that can be released into both public and enterprise App stores. To define the properties and assets needed for building a mobile app, we have enhanced the application startup shell editor. As the compiler will be based in the cloud there will be no requirement for specialized hardware to complete the build. These apps will also grant access directly from the app to the devices hardware features like contacts, camera, geo location, etc.
• The previewer app This app is available in the App stores and is designed to allow developers the freedom to try out the solution on mobile devices before building their own installable apps.

I hope this helps,   Mike

Thanks Mike, I wish you success in developing the mobile/web initiatives. I have only seen one promising development tool that succeeds to somehow abstract the low-level web-development. It's not Uniface, at least not yet ;-). Perhaps because of my ignorance.  It's a product that, like Uniface, affects both the client and the server part. Perhaps something you could look at. Ironically the owner of the product seem to be totally ignorant of the product's existence. The webb is for sure a challenging environment. Regards RogerW.

rogerw said Thanks Mike, (...) I have only seen one promising development tool (...) Regards RogerW.

OK, now you have my attention, I'm curious :-)

Hi, it was mainly a verification that it's probably very hard to build this kind of development-tools and I don't here want to advertise a competing product to Uniface. On the other hand it seems to be an abandoned product so probably no one would start to use it at this moment.... I'll send it to you by e-mail, so you can have a glance. Regards RogerW.

• Installable Apps We are developing, for 9.7.02, a cloud based build environment to compile apps for deployment onto mobile devices. With this build environment it will be possible to build apps that can be released into both public and enterprise App stores. To define the properties and assets needed for building a mobile app, we have enhanced the application startup shell editor. As the compiler will be based in the cloud there will be no requirement for specialized hardware to complete the build. These apps will also grant access directly from the app to the devices hardware features like contacts, camera, geo location, etc.

Hi, I started to think about the above. I suppose that these apps are based on Uniface-Mobile (Uniface web) applications. I think the trend is to build locally running apps, just to avoid html, JS etc., ie. acessing databases and other server-functions through web-services and Rest-services. Perhaps Uniface should think about building some kind of light Uniface runtime, being able to totally skip the html and JS development. Or is that what the above means? Regards RogerW.

rogerw said

• Installable Apps We are developing, for 9.7.02, a cloud based build environment to compile apps for deployment onto mobile devices. With this build environment it will be possible to build apps that can be released into both public and enterprise App stores. To define the properties and assets needed for building a mobile app, we have enhanced the application startup shell editor. As the compiler will be based in the cloud there will be no requirement for specialized hardware to complete the build. These apps will also grant access directly from the app to the devices hardware features like contacts, camera, geo location, etc.

Hi, I started to think about the above. I suppose that these apps are based on Uniface-Mobile (Uniface web) applications. I think the trend is to build locally running apps, just to avoid html, JS etc., ie. acessing databases and other server-functions through web-services and Rest-services. Perhaps Uniface should think about building some kind of light Uniface runtime, being able to totally skip the html and JS development. Or is that what the above means? Regards RogerW.

Our direction is firmly down the hybrid application path rather than the native apps path. The native vs hybrid debate is an industry one, but we had an 'analyst day' with Jeffery Hammond from the Forrester Group last year, and I like his quote 'you get 95% of the functionality for 50% of the cost' which was in the context of hybrid vs mobile. I'd expect this to be more with Uniface because the Unface model will give you more productivity in regards to what can be generated into the HTML/JavaScript layer. Mike showed me the Uniface 9.7.02 UDE enhancements in the application startup shell yesterday, and how it takes up the HTML/JS and passes it to build servers to generate apps which can be uploaded to Google Play and/or the Apple App Store. Its good, but I would say that. Some minor visual and usability tweaks are needed, but we'll share some screen shots. Uniface mobile will be the topic of the May Uniface Lecture.