As offline/disconnected mobile support is becoming an increasingly important feature for mobile apps, I'm wondering if there are any plans to integrate one of the offline databases into Alpha Anywhere anytime soon.
I recently managed a (successful) mobile app development project, which was written in iOS for iPod, iPhone, and iPad. It took a year of 1.5 programmers to create this relatively simple app, partly because disconnected capability was critical for this app. It took a whole lot of work to make the following happen:
- Store data in an SQLite database
- Synchronize that data to a SQL server whenever connectivity was available
- Read and implement app configuration changes from the SQL server
I understand that offline capabilities are coming to AA using HTML5 local storage (http://server.alphasoftware.com/intr...ed-how-to-save), but I'm wondering if AA will go further and provide a full blown IndexDB implementation for disconnected data storage. That would be an awesome addition to the already great mobile features in the current version.
On the other hand, maybe a local DB is overkill as long as data is stored during connection outages and synched automatically when connection returns. This can work if the offline features can store data on the device from multiple screens, or a single screen that is used to add, edit and delete data across one or more tables.
In the meanwhile, I'll just have to keep telling my customers that they have to be connected in order for their app to work. Not ideal or perfect, but then again, what in life is?
I recently managed a (successful) mobile app development project, which was written in iOS for iPod, iPhone, and iPad. It took a year of 1.5 programmers to create this relatively simple app, partly because disconnected capability was critical for this app. It took a whole lot of work to make the following happen:
- Store data in an SQLite database
- Synchronize that data to a SQL server whenever connectivity was available
- Read and implement app configuration changes from the SQL server
I understand that offline capabilities are coming to AA using HTML5 local storage (http://server.alphasoftware.com/intr...ed-how-to-save), but I'm wondering if AA will go further and provide a full blown IndexDB implementation for disconnected data storage. That would be an awesome addition to the already great mobile features in the current version.
On the other hand, maybe a local DB is overkill as long as data is stored during connection outages and synched automatically when connection returns. This can work if the offline features can store data on the device from multiple screens, or a single screen that is used to add, edit and delete data across one or more tables.
In the meanwhile, I'll just have to keep telling my customers that they have to be connected in order for their app to work. Not ideal or perfect, but then again, what in life is?
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