Build a Single app Standalone App

For Android and Windows devices, users only have access to one Digitise app within each Standalone App. On the Apple Platform, however, you can give them access to multiple Digitise apps in a single Standalone App if you want to. This topic covers building a Standalone App which only provides one Digitise app, if you want to create a multi-app Standalone App see: Build a Multi-app Standalone App for the Apple Platform.

 

Note, that an individual app may in fact consist of one or more different Models. For example, you could create a Project which simply displays a menu where each item on the menu, if chosen, will launch a separate Digitise app which will actually perform the required functionality. (Such a methodology might be used to deploy an app in small chunks, allowing you to roll out functionality on an ongoing basis, providing quicker and more manageable deployment.) In this type of situation, you need to include all the Models which make up the app within your Standalone App. The Model which you want to be loaded automatically when a user runs the Standalone App, in the case of our example this would be the Menu app, we will call the primary Model or primary app and all the other Models we will call secondary Models/apps. All the secondary apps must be accessible from the primary app, although not necessarily directly – a secondary app can run another secondary app, for example. Users do not have independent access to the secondary apps, they will only be able to load the primary app and you can only have one primary app within the Standalone App.

 

To build your Standalone App:

Before you can build a Standalone App on all Platforms except the Windows Desktop Platform, you must enter your Build System registration details in the App Studio Settings, if you haven't already done so.

If you need to include any secondary Models within your Standalone App, you first need to publish each one individually to a Package file using the Publish to Package option.

The Publish to Package option bundles all the files for an individual Model into a compressed Package file, with a '.mxp' extension. When you come to specify any secondary Models you want to include in your Standalone App, you will do so by choosing the appropriate '.mxp' file(s).

Unless you need the '.mxp' file(s) for any other purpose, you only need to include the runtime files when creating the Package(s) to be included in your Standalone App.

You also need to publish each secondary Model's Project to the App Server, e.g. using the Publish to Server option or publishing from the Package files in App Manager.

  • The version of each Model published to the App Server must be the same version you include in the Standalone App, otherwise your app will not run correctly when installed on user devices.

    If you use the same '.mxp' files to publish your apps to the App Server as you specify when building your Standalone App, this will ensure the version of the apps on the Server exactly matches those installed to your Client devices.

    If you make changes to a Project for any of the contained Models and publish the new version to the App Server after building your Standalone App but before distributing it to your users, you will need to rebuild the Standalone App incorporating your updated Model and distribute the new Standalone App to your users.

    When you build a Standalone App, options available on Android, Windows Desktop and Universal Windows Platforms allow you to specify that the app can download updates directly from the App Server and that the app should automatically check for updates each time it loads. If you allow updates, after deploying the first version of your Standalone App, you can make changes to any of the Models contained within the Standalone App and then publish them to the App Server. The App Manager utility allows you to designate updates as optional or forced. If you have specified automatic checking for updates, forced updates will update automatically and optional updates will notify the user of their existence. If you don't specify automatic checking on startup, users can manually check for updates from time to time. Forced updates will then automatically update and optional ones will notify the user that they are available.

    On the Apple Platform, however, these options are not available and changes will always require you to republish your Models, rebuild the Standalone App and distribute the update to all users.

 

Open your Digitise app's Project in App Studio, if not already open.

If you are including secondary Models in your Standalone App, open the primary Project.

 

On the Windows Desktop Platform, if you want to provide a bespoke icon to identify this Standalone App on your device's Home screen or equivalent, you can specify this in the app's Icon Property within the Project Properties. The Icon Property allows you to import a '.ico' file to be used as the start menu, Desktop or app tile icon.

To display the Project Properties in the Properties Pane, click on the root node in the Forms, Data Sources or Resources Panes. If your icon image has already been imported into the Project's Resources, you can choose it in the Icon Property from a drop-down list by clicking on Picture showing the drop-down button used to toggle the display of the list of possible values. at the right-hand side of the Property's value field. Alternatively, click on the Browse button, Picture showing the Browse button used to browse for a file., to browse for the required image. In the latter case, your selected image will automatically be added to the Project's Resources, you do not need to import it first.

If you do not specify an icon here, the following default icon will be used instead: Picture showing the default icon for Standalone Apps on Windows devices. .

For other Platforms, you can specify the icons within the Standalone App build request configuration.

 

When you request a Standalone App build, App Studio will automatically generate a Package file for the Project which is currently open. The Package Settings button in the Builds group of the Ribbon's Publish tab allows you to configure the options for this Package file. There is also an option to automatically publish the open Project to the App Server when a build is requested.

Click on the Package Settings button to display the Configure Package dialog box:

Picture showing the Configure Package dialog box.

 

When you have finished configuring the Package Settings, click on OK to close the dialog box.

 

You can now configure the build options and then send a build request to the Build System.

The build options allow you to configure aspects of the Standalone App including App Server address, the app's Home screen, secondary apps to be included and provide an icon for the device's app list. For the Apple and Universal Windows Platforms you also need to specify the code-signing Certificate to use.

  • Different configuration settings may be available for different Platforms and not all the options available within a Digitise Apps Client are available for Standalone Apps - see below.

 

Click on the Request Build button on the Ribbon's Publish tab. Choose Standalone App from the menu displayed and then choose the Platform you want to build your Standalone App for.

 

The Build … Standalone App dialog box will be displayed for your chosen Platform, for example:

Picture showing an example of the Build ... Standalone App dialog box.

This dialog provides various options divided over a number of tabs. Not all the options are relevant to each Platform and only those tabs relevant to the current Platform will be displayed. For example, the Certificates tab is only displayed for the Apple and Universal Windows Platforms.

When a user loads a Standalone App, the first thing they will see is the app's Home screen. If the user is required to log in, edit boxes and a login button will be displayed on this screen to allow the user to enter their credentials. If no login is required, the user will automatically be logged in as an Anonymous User, the Home screen will be displayed for a short time and then it will disappear and the app's first form will be displayed. The Home screen is displayed by the Digitise Apps Client and isn't part of the Model. The General, Strings and Colours tabs all include options which affect the look of the Home Screen, e.g. choosing a colour scheme to fit with the app.

Before you specify your Standalone App's settings, you must first specify whether you want to build an enterprise or store version of your app. If you want to deploy this app via Microsoft's Store, Apple's App Store or Google's Play Store, you will need to select Enterprise for Store in the Flavour option in the top right-hand corner of the dialog box, otherwise select Enterprise - you can ignore the Public Store option as this is no longer needed. The options provided on the tabs within this dialog differ slightly between the two versions. If you think the wrong options are displayed check the value in the Flavour dropdown to make sure you have the correct flavour selected.

The following list describes all the options available in the Build dialog and any differences between store and enterprise apps. If no difference is mentioned for an option, both flavours behave the same:

 

When you have finished configuring the Build options, you are now ready to build your Standalone App.

If you don't want to build the app just yet, click or tap the Save button to save your current configuration settings and then choose OK to close the dialog.

If you are ready to build your app click on the Build button instead.

You will be asked to confirm that you want to build the app. Click OK to continue or Cancel to abandon this build.

 

If you selected the Publish To Server option in the Package Settings earlier, App Studio will publish the open Project to the App Server before requesting the build.

  • When publishing a Project to the App Server, you may get a message displayed informing you that you have unused images in your Project. Click OK to continue or, if you want to check the unused images and delete them before you build your app, click Cancel to abandon the build.

    If you cancel the build and want to check the unused images, display the Resources Pane and look for items which have the following icon to the left of the image name: Picture showing icon indicating unused image in the App Studio Resources Pane.. These are your unused images. Images which are used have a tick over this icon instead: Picture showing icon indicating used image in the App Studio Resources Pane..

    Check the unused images before you delete them from your Project, however, as some may actually be used even though they are not marked as such. For example, if you have configured an input Data Conversion table converting data to images to use with a ListView Control, the default conversion image will not be marked as used.

 

 

You can now install your app to your users' devices. Before you do this, remember that you can configure access rights to your app within App Manager if you want to restrict which Users or Devices should be allowed to run the app.

For details of how to install Standalone Apps to your devices refer to Install Digitise Apps Clients and Digitise apps to Mobile Devices.