Posts by DecSoft

Hello Walter,

Well. The problem is not, apparently, in the MediaPlayer control. Here in my system Firefox and Chrome can reproduce OGG (.ogv) files. On the other hand, MP4 files are taken from Internet Explorer, but not Firefox nor Chrome. Following the Mozilla documentation MP4 is not always supported and depends in the codecs:

The MP4 container format with the H.264 video codec and the AAC audio codec is natively supported by desktop/mobile Internet Explorer, Safari and Chrome, but Chromium and Opera do not support the format. IE and Chrome also support the MP3 audio codec in the MP4 container, but Safari does not. Firefox/Firefox for Android/Firefox OS supports the format in some cases, but only when a third-party decoder is available, and the device hardware can handle the profile used to encode the MP4.

The MPEG media formats are covered by patents, which are not freely licensed. All the necessary licenses can be bought from MPEG LA. Since H.264 is currently not a royalty free format, it is unfit for the open web platform, according to Mozilla [1, 2], Google [1, 2] and Opera. However, since royalty free formats are not supported by Internet Explorer and Safari, Mozilla has decided to support the format anyway, and Google never fulfilled their promise to remove support for it in Chrome.

Maybe is a pain, Walter, but probably we need to provide at least two different formats: OGG and MP4. Out there is a war about the format and we cannot rely just in one format, MP4 or other.

Hello edunt,

I think you no need to worry at all. Apache Cordova is an open source project used by lot of people and companies around the world: Adobe Phonegap, for example, is based in Apache Cordova. Not only this, but, App Builder is integrated with Apache Cordova in certain ways. For example, App Builder integrates various Apache Cordova plugins like Device, Camera, Barcode, etc., which allow us to play with the device's capabilities from our applications.

In other words, even when you try to use another similar environment, probably such environment uses Apache Cordova behind... and finally they are needed, because in other case the App Builder features which relies on Apache Cordova never can work. So please read the Apache Cordova CLI documentation and also how to setup the Android SDK: basically we need to play with the Android API level 22. Maybe other tools can be required, depending if some Apache Cordova plugin requires it, for example. In this case the plugin's documentation tell us what we need.

Hello edunt,

To generate APK files for Android or build for other platforms we recommend Apache Cordova CLI or Adobe Phonegap. App Builder prepare for you the appropiate application's config file for Apache Cordova CLI and Adobe Phonegap and Batch files for Apache Cordova CLI. I recoomend Apache Cordova CLI instead Phonegap for various reasons.

Installing Apache Cordova CLI can appear difficult at the first time (for example, we need to install the Android SDK too) but, once we get ready, build an App Builder for the Android platform is a question of seconds. You can found a mini-tutorial in the program help file, but, probably it's better to read information around internet.

For example, the Apache Cordova CLI documentation site can be a good start point.

Take a look at this video too:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5g_yAJzpJI

If you have any question about the installation or have some doubts or need some help, just post here or contact me and I will try to help you edunt.

Hello edunt,

Thanks for your interest and kindly words. Currently, out of the box, we can use the MediaPlayer control to reproduce MP4 (MP3), 3GP, OGG and Webm file formats, however, the files must be placed in the app server. If our target are the browsers and our application resides in internet this is not a problem, because the media files are already placed in the server.

If we plain to build for the Android platform (using Apache Cordova), however, we need to take in count that our media files must be placed in a server, because the MediaPlayer can't work with local files, at least at this time. You can include your own Mediaplayer (but the local files "problem" probably persists) by using an HTML control.

You can use the HTML control (maybe an Iframe control too) to provide the MediaPlayer HTML. And then you can use some app, view or control event in order to place the required Javascript, if the MediaPlayer control requires it. However, the MediaPlayer control offered by App Builder is fully customizable, for example, you can provide your own controls and not the included by default.

Take a look at the VideoPlayer app sample included by App Builder (Menu -> File -> Samples) if you like.

Hope this information can help you in some manner edunt.

Hello Walter,

Apparently MP4 are supported for all major browsers, then, probably we can ommit the OGV source. Finally this is optionally and the browsers capable to play MP4 files just take the MP4 source.

Hola pesadillo,

Respecto de la primera cuestión, creo saber lo que está pasando. En efecto, la parte HTML de los controles no se "superpone", pero, la parte Javascript sí puede hacerlo, si los controles se llaman igual. De modo que, asegúrate de que los controles Iframes no tengan el mismo nombre. Tal vez esto pueda "corregirse" en el futuro, pero, no tengo muy claro cómo y de qué manera, o siquiera si debo hacerlo.

Respecto de la segunda cuestión, asegúrate de que el HTML que quieres mostrar en el IFrame está guardado usando la codificación UTF-8. Haciéndolo así no tendrás problemas para mostrar acentos y caracteres de otros idiomas. Acabo ahora mismo de actualizar App Builder para añadir el ejemplo "IFrames", que, muestra, precisamente, el uso de IFrames en dos vistas diferentes y con "acentos" y demás.

Actualiza tu copia de App Builder, pues, pesadillo.

Hola pesadillo,

Tal vez sea posible lo que necesitas usando algún plugin para Apache Cordova, por ejemplo, aquí unos cuantos que tocan el asunto:

http://cordova.apache.org/plugins/?q=bluetooth

Hola,

No Existe algo parecido a eso en el mundo Android, hasta donde yo llego, mucho menos en el entorno de Apache Cordova. Una aplicación no se "cierra", sino que el usuario "pasa" a otra aplicación. Quien cierra la aplicación, en un momento dado, es el propio sistema. Y lo que nosotros podemos hacer es estar atentos a eventos de la aplicación como "Pause".

P.D. Parece existir algo así como un "app exit" en Apache Cordova, pero, no sé si se soporta en las últimas versiones. En todo caso, podrías probar con un código similar a este en el evento "Click" de botón, por ejemplo:

You're welcome!

Hello Samuel,

Honestly, I am not an expert in TCP/IP nor WebSockets, however, the npTalk plugin uses the most simple components in Delphi to perform TCP/IP connections, and, on the other hand, App Builder uses the Javascript WebSocket object behind the WebSocket control to do the job.

About the npTalk behaviour, something which may can affect client and servers (not created with the npTalk plugin) is the "buffer" variable. You can take a look at the plugin help and read about the "buffer" variable used in the plugin.

About the WebSocket in App Builder, maybe a server is not capable to intereact with Javascript Websockets out of the box, so maybe you found interesting to read this Mozilla Developer Network article about how to implement a Javascript Websocket into the server.

Hope this information can help you in some manner Samuel.

Hola pesadillo,

No; no hay ninguna limitación en ese sentido. ¿Probaste con el selector de variables? Ahí deberían aparecerte todos los controles y sus variables correspondientes.

Hola,

Se me ocurre que actualice a la última versión de Internet Explorer disponible.

Hola,

Gracias por su interés en App Builder. En este enlace tiene un ejemplo de aplicación que hace uso de un control IFrame para mostrar mi propia página web. Como verá, en el archivo Zip se incluye un APK que acabo de crear con Adobe Phonegap. El ejemplo funciona como se espera, así que, ignoro qué puede estar pasando en su caso. Tal vez puedar proporcionarme una aplicación de ejemplo para tratar de reproducir el problema.

Dicho eso, le aconsejo que utilice Apache Cordova en lugar de Adobe Phonegap. Por ejemplo, los permisos que necesitan nuestras aplicaciones se controlan mejor con Apache Cordova: compilando nuestra aplicación con Apache Cordova esta requerirá sólo los permisos necesarios, mientras que, compilando las aplicaciones con Phonegap estas requerirán todos los permisos posibles. Por este motivo, entre otros, de veras le recomiendo que pruebe Apache Cordova. Seguro que no le defraudará.

Hello Irfan,

Previously we have the "appOpenFileWith" Javascript external function, which allow us to open a program, for example, indicating an argument, like an URL to be opened.

Right now I updated HTML Compiler and a new "appShellExec" Javascript external function has well a new "OpenLinks" project sample has been added. The "appShellExec" function allow us to open an URL into the default Windows browser, for example, Firefox.

This new function can open a file or launch a program too and I hope they are interested to you and other HTML Compiler's customers.

Hello John,

It's difficult if we try to imitate certain style. For example, if I am not wrong, the above image use the jQuery Mobile framework, but App Builder are based on Bootstrap CSS. Since App Builder support themes for applications, maybe we can found a similar app theme like he above one. Or maybe we can create our own theme based in the jQuery Mobile.

However, probably the best way is to use the Bootstrap CSS stuff already available in App Builder. We can use the default theme or others (even in runtime, see the DecSoft and Calculator samples) and then can prepare some interfaces like the below ones:

The above sample application interface do not use any particular CSS, that is, we can always add more stylesheets or use the Inline CSS option or the controls CSS properties in order to customize our application.

You can download the sample application following this link.