Version 8
Given below are the new-features lists of Version 8 releases.
Version 8.1
Progress Indicator feature
A number of new components (listed below) have been added to implement this feature. For an overview of how they work together, see the Progress Indicator tutorial.
•A Progress Show Subpage action, which (i) specifies the subpage that will be displayed on the client to indicate the progress of server actions; and (ii) defines, as its child actions, the server actions to carry out for which the progress indicator is required.
•A Progress Update action, which specifies what value to pass to the dynamically responsive $MT_Progress variable.
•A $MT_Progress global variable holds dynamically changing data about the progress of a specific set of actions on the server. The values that go into the variable are defined in the Progress Update action.
•A page event named OnProgressUpdate, which is triggered by the Progress Update action and can be used to update a progress subpage with information about server-action progress (via the $MT_Progress variable).
•A Progress Send Cancellation action, which, when triggered, sets the mt-progress-cancellation() function to true().
•A mt-progress-cancellation() function, which can be used to test whether the client has sent a cancellation request or not.
Solution deployment and execution
•An internal MobileTogether Designer deployment check ensures that a solution containing features supported on MobileTogether Server Advanced Edition will not be deployed to a MobileTogether Server Standard Edition. See Deploying the Project.
•The Solution Execution action has a new option to restart the solution only when a newer solution exists on the server.
•Ability to start a MobileTogether Server service via URL and specify input parameters for the service. See the topic Start Service via URL.
Actions
•The Actions dialog has been reorganized into smaller sections to make the actions easier to find. Furthermore, each section can be expanded/collapsed so that only actions that you use frequently are visible; this also helps to make frequently used actions easier to find.
•The Save action for DBs enables you to choose whether to save data in modified tables or not, and, if data is to be saved, then whether all records in the related table should be replaced or only the data that has been modified.
•The DB Begin Transaction action gets an option to implement the EXCLUSIVE transaction of SQLite DBs.
•The Update Variable action has been extended so that variables can accept results from Action Groups and subpages, in addition to those evaluated by XPath expressions.
•The Copy/Paste Clipboard action enables you to copy text to the clipboard and subsequently paste the copied text to a page source node.
Databases
•When saving to a DB, you can choose whether to save data in modified tables or not, and, if data is to be saved, then whether all records in the related table should be replaced or only the data that has been modified.
•The DB Begin Transaction action gets an option to implement the EXCLUSIVE transaction of SQLite DBs.
•If you have manually added nodes to a DB page source and you click the Reload Structure context menu command of the page source, then a dialog appears in which you can choose whether to remove or keep the nodes you added.
•Support for the following additional databases: IBM Db2 for i 7.5, PostgreSQL 14.5, MariaDB 10.9.2, SQLite 3.39.2. See the topic Databases for the full list of supported databases.
Styles
•A Strikethrough text-decoration property has been introduced on controls where it is suitable: Label, Check Box, Radio Button, and Button.
•If you want the default style values of your project's design components to be as similar as possible, then set the UI Compatibility Mode of More Project Settings to true.
Localization
•In the Localization dialog, you can use the F2 key to start editing—alternatively to double-clicking in a field.
•In the Localization dialog, if the name of a custom string in the default language is modified, then a dialog appears asking whether you want to change the string's name in all XPath expressions where the original string is used.
Miscellaneous
•Ability to start a MobileTogether Server service via URL and specify input parameters for the service. See the topic Start Service via URL.
•A validation error about a missing page source of a page provides a quick-fix for adding the missing page source to not only that page but also other pages where that page source is required but is not present. This enables you to fix missing-page-source-errors faster.
•If you have manually added nodes to an external page source and you click the Reload Structure context menu command of the page source, then a dialog appears in which you can choose whether to remove or keep the nodes you added.
•In the Files Pane, you can copy a file's absolute path. This is in addition to copying the file path as it appears in the window (relative or absolute).
•When unassigning a page source node from a control, the name of the page source node is displayed in the command (in the control's context menu).
•Support for Android 13.
•Support for the following additional databases: IBM Db2 for i 7.5, PostgreSQL 14.5, MariaDB 10.9.2, SQLite 3.39.2. See the topic Databases for the full list of supported databases.
Version 8.0
Altova RecordsManager
•Altova RecordsManager is a MobileTogether-based solution that enables users to design and use databases easily and quickly. RecordsManager is installed as a package with your MobileTogether Designer installation. Read more about Altova RecordsManager at its web page.
•In MobileTogether Designer, you can try out RecordsManager by running a simulation of it.
•You can deploy RecordsManager to a MobileTogether Server, and you and your associates can access it from there.
•You can also create an AppStore App of RecordsManager, which can then be downloaded and used like any other AppStore App.
Themes
•The Set Theme action can be used to restart the solution with a new theme.
•The Altova extension function mt-client-theme() can be used to find out the currently applied theme and the theme set for the solution.
Subprojects and Modules
•The new Subprojects feature enables projects to be included as subprojects in other projects. This enables a wide range of components that are defined in a project to be re-used across multiple projects. A subproject can itself include another subproject.
•Included subprojects are displayed in the Files Pane.
•Commands related to subprojects are available in the Refactor menu.
•Modules enable you to group design components in order to apply a common property to these components. Properties that can be applied: (i) Background color (which helps to visually locate components of a module in application windows and dialog boxes); (ii) the Export property which can be used to determine which components are extracted to subprojects generated from the project.
•A new Modules Pane provides a single location where modules are managed.
Server action libraries and Action Groups
•A server action library is a new type of solution that defines one or more Action Groups. A solution can now call a server action library's Action Group to execute common tasks (such as sending emails from the server) or obtain a return value computed in the server action library (and not in the calling solution).
•You can manage the server action libraries of a solution in the solution's Files Pane.
•Commands related to server action libraries are available in the Refactor menu.
Databases
•If a DB data source references relational tables, then the referenced tables can be made available automatically as nodes of the page source. These nodes can then be used in the design.
•The options to save data to a DB have been enhanced to intelligently write data to relationally linked databases.
•The set of mt-db functions have been enhanced to support relationally linked databases.
•A new mt-db-row-from-original function has been introduced.
•A new Switch DB action enables you to switch the database associated with a page source at any point in the workflow.
•Support for the following additional database versions: DB2 11.5.7; MariaDB 10.6.5; PostGreSQL 14; MySQL 8.0.28; SQLite 3.37.2.
Deployment to server of solution and packages, and server side solution files
•Server side solution files can be added to the project in the Files Pane. These files will be deployed and can be updated during the deployment step. As a result, they do not have to be copied manually to the server.
•If multiple languages are available in the solution, then, during the deployment step, you can specify whether the solution should be opened on a client using the default language of the client, or the default language of the solution, or any of the other languages of the solution.
•During deployment, you can specify that certain actions be carried out on the server. For example, you might want to rename a server file or send an email notification. These actions are defined for the OnServerDeployment event, which is accessed via the More Project Settings dialog. The OnServerDeployment actions can also use parameters, the values of which are passed to the solution as input parameters during the deployment procedure. The input parameters are stored in the $MT_InputParameters variable, from where they can be accessed for use in the OnServerDeployment actions.
•Not only can MobileTogether packages be deployed to the server as a solution, but you can also specify, during the creation of the MobileTogether package, that server side solution files also be deployed together with the package.
Actions
•The Set Theme action can be used to restart the solution with a new theme.
•The Scroll To action has been enhanced with a new property that lets you define whether to execute the action immediately on being processed or after all actions of the current event have been processed.
•In the Actions dialog, Action Groups are now managed in a separate pane on the right-hand side of the dialog.
•A new Rename File/Folder action enables you to change the names of files and folders.
•A new Lock/Unlock Clients action enables clients running a solution to be locked form the server while actions are being carried out on the sever. A simulator option, Prevent Client Lock, enables the lock to be overridden during simulations.
•A new project property named Phone Settings Changed enables you to define a set of actions to execute when a phone setting is changed.
•The Delete File/Folder action provides the ability to move files to the recycle bin.
•The Copy File/Folder action enables you to copy a fie or the contents of a folder to another location.
Interface
•In the Page Sources Pane, you can add comments via the context menu to the root node and tree nodes of a page source.
•The Files pane now additionally displays subprojects and server side solution files.
•In the Files pane, you can open a listed filed in the default application for its file type.
•In the Messages Pane, the toolbar contains a new button for pasting error messages reported in the MobileTogether Server log. The pasted message will contain links that help to locate the source of the error in the design.
Images
•Base64 images in an SQL database can now also be used as an image source for the Image control.
•For loading an image via the Load Image action, you can specify whether EXIF images should be auto-rotated according to the corresponding information in the EXIF data.
Simulations
•Additional options can be set during simulations: whether a light or dark theme is used; to lock the client from server access; to display the sequence of tab-ordered controls; to restrict logging to errors only.
•The Run menu contains a new command that enables the selection of various simulator options.
•In addition to being able to deploy a MobileTogether package to the server from MobileTogether Designer, you can also run a simulation of the package's solution in MobileTogether Designer. See MobileTogether Packages.
Miscellaneous
•The mt-get-page-source-structure() XPath extension function has been extended with a third argument to specify a restricted substructure from that returned by the first argument.
•In a control template, placeholders and actions of controls have a Prevent Action Override property. If this property is set to true, then any action overrides that are defined for ancestor placeholders of the control template will be disabled.
•Support for Android 12.
•Support for iOS 15.
•Support for Windows 11.