Version 4
Given below are the new-features lists of Version 4 releases.
Version 4.1
New features and updates in MobileTogether Designer Version 4.1:
Server services
•A server service is a set of MobileTogether Designer actions that is deployed to MobileTogether Server Advanced Edition as a solution (.mtd file). The service is executed on the server when a specified set of MobileTogether Server conditions is met. (These server conditions are defined in the administrator interface of MobileTogether Server Advanced Edition.)
•A server service is defined in a server service design, which is opened via the File | New Service of MobileTogether Designer.
•How to create a server service in MobileTogether Designer is described in the section Server Services.
•A $MT_SERVICE page source is automatically created when a service design is created. It holds run time data about service triggers.
•The $MT_SERVICE page source can be manually filled to simulate run time data about service triggers.
Rich Text
•A new Rich Text control enables text from a page source to be displayed with formatting (on all clients) and edited (on Windows and Web clients). The formatting can be based on styling markup in the XML page source or can be added by you. In both cases, the rules are specified in a Rich Text style sheet.
•For each project (design), you can define multiple Rich Text style sheets via the Rich Text Style Sheets dialog. Any one of these style sheets can be assigned to a Rich Text control so that the text displayed in the control is formatted according to the rules of the selected style sheet.
•For an overview and description of this feature, see the section Rich Text.
Actions
•The Go to Subpage action has been enhanced with an option to open the subpage as a modal dialog (that is, in a separate window above the current page). This is an alternative display to that of replacing the current page with the subpage.
•The Save/Restore Page Sources action enables you to save a page source provisionally, and then to accept or discard further modifications on the basis of whether one or more conditions are met.
•The Access Calendar action saves information about the device's calendars and calendar events to the $MT_CALENDAR page source. It also enables events to be written to a calendar on the device. For simulations, the calendar of Microsoft Outlook or an XML file can be used.
•A Replace Node(s) action provides a mechanism to delete nodes from the node of a page source, and to then add new nodes to it.
Controls
•The Combo Box control is enhanced to enable users to select multiple options (via the control's Multi Select property).
•Controls that have a Text Size property now additionally have a Text Size Auto-Fit property, which enables text to be automatically re-sized to fit the width of the control. Controls can also be assigned to a group, so that all controls have an automatically selected uniform and reasonable size. All the controls of a page for which the auto-fit property has been set can be listed in the Listings pane by using the Page menu command List Text Size Auto-Fit Groups.
•In a design, some controls can be assigned to a "tab order sequence". When an end user then clicks the Tab key repeatedly (on Web and Windows clients), the solution's focus will move through the controls in the specified tab order. The entire tab order can be set via the Page | Show/Define Tab Order menu command. The position in the sequence of individual controls can also be set in the Tab Order property of the control. The controls that can be assigned positions in the tab order sequence are: Buttons, Check Boxes, Combo Boxes, Dates, Edit Fields, Radio Buttons, Switch controls, Time controls.
•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 (on Web and Windows clients). The setting for this can be made via the On Enter/Escape property of the control or in the dialog for defining the control's OnClicked event actions. See the description of the respective control.
XPath extension functions
•Two new MobileTogether XPath extension functions: (i) mt-client-ip-address (to obtain the device's IP adddress); (ii) mt-image-width-and-height (to get the dimensions of the submitted Base64-encoded image).
•A new Altova XPath extension generate-guid generates a unique GUID string that can be used as an id.
Miscellaneous
•Enforce Light Theme: In the Project Properties pane, you can specify whether the pages of the project must have a light background (dark text on light background) or not. The default value of false specifies that the client-specific theme will be used.
•The contacts manager and calendar of Microsoft Outlook can be used for simulations of the Read Contacts and Access Calendar actions. This is done by selecting the corresponding items in the Options dialog.
Version 4.0
New features and updates in MobileTogether Designer Version 4.0 are listed below.
Push Notifications
•A push notification (PN) is a text message that is sent from one solution to a mobile device on which a receiving MobileTogether solution is installed. When a PN is received, it triggers a set of actions in the receiving solution. For an overview of the PN feature, see the section Push Notifications.
•The Send Push Notification action is specified in the sending solution. It defines the various parameters of the PN that is to be sent.
•In the receiving solution, actions for the OnPushNotificationReceived event specify what actions are to be carried out when a PN is received.
•Besides a text message, the PN also carries a payload. The payload is automatically transferred to the $MT_PUSHNOTIFICATION page source of the receiving solution.
•A PN can contain buttons. PN buttons are specified in the Send Push Notification action of the sending solution. While definitions of the buttons for non-iOS devices are made directly in the Send Push Notification action, for iOS devices, the buttons are defined in the receiving solution by using the Project | iOS Push Notification Button Sets command.
•An external PN key is a text string that is used to identify a mobile device. The Register Ext PN-Key action associates a mobile device with a string that you specify. An external PN key is used to identify a set of mobile devices that will receive a PN. A reverse action, Unregister Ext PN-Key, is also available.
•A PN topic is a text string that names a topic. The Register PN-Topics action associates a mobile device with one or more PN topics. If a PN is sent to a PN topic, then all devices that have been associated with that topic will receive that PN. A reverse action, Unregister PN-Topics, is also available.
•If a PN is sent to a different receiving solution, then, for simulations of the receiving solution to be successful, the incoming PN must be simulated. A mechanism to simulate incoming PNs is available in teh simulator. It is described in the section Simulating Push Notifications.
•A MobileTogether solution that uses PNs can be compiled into an AppStore App. A few additional steps are required to compile AppStore Apps. These steps are described in Push Notifications in AppStore Apps.
Embedded Webpage Solutions
•A new Embedded Webpage Solutions feature that enables solutions to be embedded inside webpages by way of IFrames. Data can be exchanged between the webpage and its embedded solution. The solution itself interacts with MobileTogether Server as usual and receives data that can then be communicated back to the webpage. Authentication via JSON Web Tokens (JWT) enables embedded webpage solutions to be integrated into existing systems.
•The OnEmbeddedMessage event is triggered when a solution's workflow on the server receives a message from the embedded solution.
•The $MT_EMBEDDEDMESSAGE JSON page source (structure and data) is created when the OnEmbeddedMessage event is triggered.
•The Load from String action parses a string and generates a (JSON/XML) page source from it.
•The Save to String action serializes a selected (JSON/XML) page source, and saves the serialized string to a specified location.
•The Embedded Message Back action sends a serialized JSON string as a message event to the IFrame that loaded the current solution.
New actions
•The MapForce Transfer action supplies a MapForce Server Execution file (MFX file) to MapForce Server for processing. A set of input data structures can, in this way, be transformed into a new set of data structures (the output of MapForce Server). This enables legacy data structures—or other data structures that cannot be modified—to be used in a MobileTogether design.
•The Read Folder action reads the contents of a specified folder and passes metadata about each folder item to a separate node of the $MT_FILEINFO page source.
•The Set Language action enables the language of the solution to be changed by the user. This enables a solution to be restarted in an alternative language when a specific event is triggered.
•The Load from String action parses a string and generates a (JSON/XML) page source from it.
•The Save to String action serializes a selected (JSON/XML) page source, and saves the serialized string to a specified location.
•The Embedded Message Back action sends a serialized JSON string as a message event to the IFrame that loaded the current solution.
•The Send Push Notification action defines the various parameters of the push notification that is to be sent.
•The (Un)Register Ext PN-Key action registers a text string as the external Push Notification key of a solution on that mobile device. See the section Push Notifications for more information.
•The (Un)Register PN-Topics action registers a device to receive Push Notifications about one or more selected topics. See the section Push Notifications for more information.
Miscellaneous
•The MobileTogether Server installation is pre-deployed with a powerful solution that displays access statistics about individual solutions on that server; for example, the frequency of access, and the number of devices and type of device accessing a particular solution. For more information about the Statistics solution, see the MobileTogether Server documentation.
•User-defined tools can be created in the Tools tab of the Customize dialog. The tools created in this way are accessed via commands in the Tools | User-Defined Tools menu.
•A new Table menu that provides table-related command in one menu to help you quickly design and edit table structures.
•The new command List Usages of All Style Sheets displays all the style sheets defined in the project (including unused style sheets), and the page, table, and control instances that use these style sheets. Unused style sheets are also shown in the list generated when the List Unused Functions, User Variables, Style Sheets, and Action Groups command is clicked.
•Users can swipe right/left to horizontally scroll tables that are broader than the viewport.
•The simulator's menu provides options to simulate the availability of the following mobile device functionality: (i) the camera app, (ii) the gallery, (iii) the microphone, (iv) NFC, (v) GPS location, (vi) the address book, (vii) telephony services, (viii) SMS services. With these options, design scenarios can be tested that require these services to be available on the device.
•Log messages (shown in the Messages Pane) that relate to specific actions of specific events can be suppressed or enabled as needed.
•Page source data can be automatically reset when the solution exits a page. This is done with the Reset Data command, which is available in the context menu of page sources.
•When saving (any type of) files, optionally, a default file extension can be specified; this extension will be used if none is specified with the file name.
•During simulations, you can copy the XPath locator expression of any page source node to the clipboard.