apps running offline and local filelistt

Hello David,
thanks again for your work - AppBuilder will be a very sucessfull software, I´m shure. Beside database concerns ( I saw your answer in the other post) I think about two things at the moment:

1. I´m really a newbie in this kind of app devolopement, but my interest are apps for mobile devices which also run offline - means after installing all media etc. are on my phone,tablet. Where and how do/can I manage this?

2. At the moment I have to add every file I use in my app at least in the app file list before compiling. Could this be done in future dynamically? Imagine for example a slideshow of pictures - to handle this with a var based code I have to update the apps file list every time I have a new picture ... My main issue in that question is to keep my app maximum open and define controls properties with vars whereever possible. By the way doing this with Top and Left doesn´t work ?

Thanks in advance
Walter

Hello Walter,

Thanks for posting. Before all, update your App Builder copy: you can discover great news (read the History file from the Help menu for more information). After this note I will try to answer your question as best as possible.

1. I´m really a newbie in this kind of app devolopement, but my interest are apps for mobile devices which also run offline - means after installing all media etc. are on my phone,tablet. Where and how do/can I manage this?

In the future I want to integrate Phonegap into App Builder to made easy to use. Today, what you obtain when Build an app with App Builder is the right HTML5, Javascript, CSS and Config files (along other of your app files) ready to be deployed in a web server to be running from a mobile or desktop web browser and also ready to be compiled using Phonegap. However you need to install Phonegap by yourself and then compile the produced app.

May you can also use the service of Adobe Phonegap Build to do the same, but I get better results using the CLI version of Phonegap. If you have Phonegap installed and ready to use, you can put a BAT file into your app compiled directory (in the same place than the "config.xml" file) containing the below code in order to add the Android platform, the appropiate Phonegap plugins, and finally build your app to obtain your APK file ready to be deployed in an Android device:

call cordova platform add android cordova plugin add org.apache.cordova.device cordova plugin add org.apache.cordova.dialogs cordova plugin add org.apache.cordova.vibration cordova plugin add org.apache.cordova.inappbrowser call cordova build android

Files like images, JSON, HTML templates, etc., are put with your app and compiled in order to be availables. Video and audio files to be reproduced with the MediaPlayer control, unfortunatelly, cannot be locally to your app in Android, due to an issue in Phonegap/Android that disallow the access to these files. You can always put these media files in some web server since in this way the refered issue dissapear. If you refer on how to refer to your app files, if you take a look at the app file's manager, you can view the relative URLs which you need to use, and copy these URLs into the clipboard if your right click some app file item.

2. At the moment I have to add every file I use in my app at least in the app file list before compiling. Could this be done in future dynamically? Imagine for example a slideshow of pictures - to handle this with a var based code I have to update the apps file list every time I have a new picture ...

The problem now with the app file's manager is you only can put files one by one. This is something you can view fixed in the latest App Builder release, that has enhance the app file's manager in order to allow us to choose more than one file at the same time. Of course, once you Build your app, you can add whatever files you wanted into whatever directory and refer to that files from your app. But this probably is not a recommended way.

The app file's manager exists in order to maintain the files uses by the app, not only in a simple list, but also "refered" to the app, in order that you can translate your app and their files from one computer to another without loss the files references. In some situation like when you choose an image from the object inspector to be show in an Image control, such image is then compiled dinamically when you Build your app.

In any other case and to be honest, I think the app file's manager is the best way in order to manage our app files.

My main issue in that question is to keep my app maximum open and define controls properties with vars whereever possible. By the way doing this with Top and Left doesn´t work ?

Are you read the Responsive app tutorial recently included into the help file? Read it Walter. Of course you can set the top and left position for the controls using the "SetStyle" action by the way. However we need to take in consideration several possible approach if we want our apps run in almost available platforms and screens. In general, if you choose the "Scaled" app option and plain to deploy your app in mobile devices, probably you no need to do too much things.

The same can be say for larger screens, and, in any other case, we need to take in consideration what I try to explain in the refered tutorial which I carefully recommend you.

Thanks again for posting and don't hesitate to do again if you need Walter.