Altova MobileTogether empowers developers with the tools they need to build sophisticated native apps faster than ever before.
The MobileTogether platform includes everything you need to build, deploy, and update your custom branded mobile apps
1
Developer or technical user builds and tests a mobile app in the free MobileTogether Designer.
2
Developer deploys the solution to your MobileTogether Server (either on premises or in the cloud).
3
App Store Deployment
Developer compiles code auto-generated by MobileTogether Designer and submits the app to the app stores.
MobileTogether uses a combination of drag-and-drop UI design, the powerful Action Tree visual programming language for event handling, and standardized functional programming for data selection and processing.
Then, MobileTogether does the heavy lifting for you, generating an app for all mobile and desktop platforms based on your single design.
This RMAD (rapid mobile app development) approach makes it easy for any programmer or web developer to build highly sophisticated, data-driven mobile apps for all platforms.
MobileTogether supports just about any back-end data source, including:
It also supports direct connectivity to the most popular relational databases:
Legacy data sources (Excel, EDI, text, etc.) can be easily connected via MapForce Server integration.
No other RMAD tool gives you such comprehensive access to critical data in a single version.
Apps you build in MobileTogether can include all the sophisticated features and functionality today’s end users expect, including:
Seamless integration of device functionality
Rich charts, graphs, and dashboards
Mobile forms
Localization in numerous languages
Signature capture
Push notifications
Barcode scanning & drawing
Options for per-platform customization
Support for NFC (near field communication) messages
QR scanning & drawing
MQTT support for smart device communications
The MobileTogether cross-platform mobile development framework takes an entirely unique approach to rapid app development that means your native app will be ready for prime time in days – not the months required by competing solutions.
With MobileTogether, you no longer have to wait months for your app to be in the iOS, Android, and Windows app stores.
See how you can go from zero to app in about a week by downloading the free MobileTogether Designer.
Read on below for details on the MobileTogether framework for mobile app development, including:
Thanks to its visual, RMAD approach, MobileTogether Designer makes it easy to build sophisticated apps – even if you’re not a specialized mobile developer.
MobileTogether Designer is free to use by as many developers as your organization requires and provides numerous advantages:
It’s easy to design your app UI by dragging and dropping components from the MobileTogether Designer Controls Palette. Don’t worry – MobileTogether takes care of rendering each control properly for each OS and form factor.
Event handling in the UI is defined by dragging and dropping actions into Action Trees, which provide a visual programming flow.
For processing and manipulating data, XQuery and XPath can be used, and MobileTogether includes a powerful expression builder and evaluator that makes it easy to build and debug these expressions.
Most developers are already familiar with XPath and XQuery. If you need a refresher, check out our free Intro to XPath as well as complete XPath training and XQuery tutorial for users with any level of experience.
Altova pioneered the ActionTree visual programming language to help developers build apps fast – without sacrificing the native functionality and features that end-users expect.
Shown below, ActionTrees are comprised of Actions and Action Groups that define event handling and error handling for your app. The Actions Dialog lets you easily define actions for controls or pages by selecting one or more actions from the left-hand pane and dragging them to the editing window on the right, where the control flow is defined in tree-form and any necessary details are configured.
Because ActionTrees are independent of any particular device-specific programming language, they let you create sophisticated event handlers, control flow, and operations that work the same on any device, without worrying about the unique details of the API or SDK for each mobile operating system.
Though working with ActionTrees is easy, it is a full programming language for building complex programming logic and is powerful enough to build any data-driven app imaginable - with no restrictions on complexity of the final product.
When you're ready to test your mobile app, use the built-in Simulator window to instantly execute the solution to test logic, view the UI as it will appear on a variety of iOS, Android, Windows, and other devices, and examine changes in workflow data during execution.
With full simulation for all supported OSes, form factors, and portrait/landscape orientation, you can change device views instantly for fast, easy testing. As you check your app, the Messages window logs all activities performed in the app Simulator.
This level of detail can be an invaluable for understanding behavior during development of a new app.
The Simulator also includes integrated debugging functionality for both Actions and XPath expressions.
The Simulator in MobileTogether also includes sophisticated automated testing features that let you:
You can even modify the app to fix a bug and run the test case again to validate the results of changes, which makes this an indispensable QA tool for your mobile app development process.
The Manage Test Cases and Runs dialog shown above lets you control playback speed, collect snapshots of client views and page sources after each step, and compare test run results. You can deploy app test cases to your MobileTogether Server with your app and select them to run from a special Automated Tests dialog on the server.
Then, any client device connected to the server can then execute the automated app test at the speed specified in the Automated Tests dialog. Additional columns in the dialog let you set logging details for each test run to capture snapshots of infosets, client views, and styles, which are recorded in test run files.
The log files of MobileTogether Server test runs can then be downloaded back to the MobileTogether Designer for analysis and comparison.
MobileTogether Designer includes an Actions and XPath Debugger that gives developers the power to test and debug their apps with precision to immediately understand any app behavior - all directly in the design environment. This makes it possible to debug both the execution flow inside Action Trees AND the results of XPath/XQuery functions called inside those trees.
When a stop point is reached - either based on a defined breakpoint or at the next Action - the appropriate debugging view opens and you can step through the execution of the Action or XPath expression, viewing the callstack, how values of variables are updated, and results of watch expressions.
MobileTogether is the most affordable rapid app development (RAD) framework that provides this level of debugging during development.
When your app is ready, the Generate Program Code Wizard in will walk you through the set-up process, and then MobileTogether Designer will generate complete projects ready to be compiled into native iOS, Android, and Windows apps.
After compiling your apps, you can submit them to the app stores for publication.
You can get complete details on compiling code for Android, iOS, Windows Phone, and Windows 10/11 apps in the MobileTogether Designer Manual.
The MobileTogether framework includes the backend server for the mobile apps, so when you design and build your mobile app in MobileTogether Designer, you’re developing the app front-end and the back-end server logic at the same time, and in one environment.
MobileTogether Server is the back-end hub for your mobile app and acts as a gateway between end-users and your back-end data sources and infrastructure.
You can install your MobileTogether Server software on premises, deploy in into a private cloud infrastructure, or host it in a public cloud environment such as AWS or Azure.
For additional customization and deployment flexibility you can also add a reverse proxy between the firewall and MobileTogether Server.
Affordable pricing for the backend server is based only on server performance (i.e., number of CPU cores), not on the number of apps you wish to host.
MobileTogether Server increases the speed and performance of mobile devices running your app by doing all of the heavy lifting for complex queries and calculations on the server itself - meaning that the results are displayed on the mobile app much faster.
This allows the end user's device to devote resources to other processes, decreasing load time and saving memory space.
Apps powered by MobileTogether Server are super-fast thanks to:
MobileTogether Server comes with built-in caching for results of complex data retrievals. Your users don’t need to wait until the database or web service query, which can take minutes or even hours to execute, completes. Simply configure the frequency of updates for cached data, and users will always get the result of last update instantaneously.
When your mobile apps require more involved data integration functionality, MobileTogether Server integrates seamlessly with Altova MapForce Server.
You can use the MapForce Transfer action to call MapForce Server directly from MobileTogether Server to perform any data transformations required by your app. Since MapForce Server supports EDI, XBRL, flat files, Excel, Web services, and other data formats in addition to XML, JSON, and relational databases, this action lets apps utilize a wide range of legacy and other back end data sources.
Unlimited Developers
MobileTogether Designer is free-of-charge, so you can roll it out to as many developers as required by your organization or project.
Unlimited Apps, Unlimited Users
MobileTogether Server pricing is based the performance (i.e., number of CPU cores) you require, not on the number of apps you wish to host. There is no limit to the number of apps you can host on your MobileTogether Server, or to the number of users that can connect.
MobileTogether Server is priced affordably, with per-core pricing starting at about $1000/year. And, it’s available free for 30-days.
This radically low pricing structure makes it possible for firms of all sizes to build and deploy five-star apps.
