Configure Windows Desktop Standalone Apps

When you create a Standalone App, you can pre-configure the configuration settings and optionally lock them to prevent a user changing them. Options which aren’t pre-set or which you allow users to change can be configured from within the app. An app must be configured to connect to the App Server to which the app was published, so if this hasn't been pre-configured, you will need to enter the connection details into the app after it has been installed to a device. There may also be other settings you want or need to change, depending upon how the app has been configured when built.

  • Settings which have been pre-configured and locked can be viewed but not edited.

  • Not all the options available in a standard Client may be available in a Standalone App.

  1. If the app isn’t already running, load it in the standard manner for your operating system, e.g. by choosing:

    Picture showng Windows Start button. → NDL Software Digitise Clients → <appname>

    or using a Desktop shortcut or app tile.

  2. The app will load and display its Home screen.

  3. If, when the Standalone App was built, it was configured to require the user to log in, the following login fields will be displayed in the top right-hand corner of the Home screen:

    Picture showing Login fields in a Windows Desktop Standalone App.

    If the login fields display, you will need to log in as a valid user in order to use the app. Your Digitise Apps Administrator, i.e. the person who configured the App Server if that wasn’t you, will provide you with login credentials and you should enter them here.

    By default, values you enter in the Username field and, if shown, the Domain field are automatically saved and will be filled in the next time the Login screen is displayed. When building a Standalone App, you can turn off username saving within the build request options, if required.

    If the Save Password option is displayed, you can instruct the app to remember your password as well and automatically fill in the password field the next time you log in. Select the Save Password option to save your password. The password entered will be stored in an encrypted database on the device.

    The Domain and Save Password options can be pre-configured and can also be locked so that the user cannot change them on the device. If the domain field is locked, you cannot include the domain in the Username field and an attempt to do so will result in an error message being displayed. As part of the pre-configuration, the Domain field can be hidden if it isn’t required for you to login. If the Save Password option is set to not allow password saving and is locked, the option will not be displayed in the Login screen.

    If you have been given a domain name to use as part of your login, you can enter the domain name in the Domain field or include it with your username in the Username field in the format:

    <domainname>\<username>

    Including the domain name in the Username field will overwrite any domain name specified in the Domain field. If you do not have a domain name to enter, but there is a value in the Domain field, you will need to delete this. If you cannot clear the field, this means that the app has been configured to require a Windows domain login.

    When you have entered your credentials, tap OK.

    If you need to log in as an OAuth User rather than using Digitise Apps credentials or Windows Active Directory Authentication, the Client will load a browser and present you with the Google login page instead of the login fields shown above. For more details about logging in using OAuth, see Log In Using Google OAuth Authentication.

    If you have entered valid user credentials, the app will continue to load and display its first screen.

  4. If the Standalone App wasn’t configured to require a login, when the app loads, it will display its Home screen briefly and then display the app’s first screen.

  5. Return to the Home screen by clicking or tapping the Picture showing the Home button in a Windows Desktop Standalone App. icon on the title bar.

  6. Tap Picture showing Settings button in a Windows Desktop Standalone App. on the toolbar at the top of the Home screen to display the Settings screen:

    Picture showing Settings screen in Windows Desktop Standalone App.

    The ABOUT page provides system information and copyright notices. It includes the version numbers of the Standalone App and the Client, the screen size, the device’s IP Address and the currently logged-in user. It also displays the Device ID which is used to identify this device to the App Server and which can be used to restrict which Digitise apps can be run on this device.

    The other Settings options, available from the left-hand panel, allow you to configure the App Server connection details, display the App Server you are using or last connected to and provide other configuration options.

    The SERVER page allows you to configure the App Server address list, whilst the STARTUP and ADVANCED pages give access to the configuration options.

    • When creating a Standalone App, the developer can lock individual settings when the Client is created. Settings which have been locked can be viewed but not edited and, if the Server Address list has been locked you will not be able to add or modify Server Addresses.

      Not all the configuration options available in the standard Client may be available when using Standalone Apps.

  7. If this Standalone App hasn’t been supplied with the App Server address pre-configured, you will need to enter the required connection details to allow it to communicate with its App Server. This is the App Server to which the Standalone App's Model(s) have been published.

    To view or edit the App Server connection details, click or tap SERVER in the left-hand panel.

  8. Before you have configured any connection details, the SERVER screen will look like this:

    Picture showing Server settings in Windows Desktop Standalone App.

    The Last Server item displays the Address of the last App Server the app connected to. If you haven’t connected to your App Server yet, this will display None, as in the picture above.

    Note that you can enter a list of App Server addresses to provide backup in the event that your first App Server isn’t available. After a successful connection to an App Server, subsequent attempts to connect to the Server within the same session will try the address displayed here first. A session ends when you close down the app or modify the list of Server addresses.

    Below this the Servers option allows you to enter the Address of the App Server you want this app to connect to.

  9. The App Server Addresses may already be configured and may be locked meaning that you will not be able to change them.

    If you are configuring the app in a development environment, we suggest you run test versions of the App Server and the Standalone App on your development PC for the convenience of testing during development. In this case, the address of the App Server will be the address of your development PC or you may be able to use ‘localhost’ or the standard local host IP address, 127.0.0.1.

    If you are configuring the Standalone App on a user’s device, you will need to add the address of the machine running the App Server this device will connect to.

    To edit an existing address, select the row you want to edit - either click or tap within one of its values or hover your mouse over the row until the row is highlighted and then click within the highlighting to select the row. The colour of the highlighting will depend upon the colours selected within the Standalone App when it was built, e.g.:

    Picture showing Server connection details list with highlighted row in Windows Desktop Standalone App.

    To add a new address to the list, click or tap on Picture showing the button used to add App Server connection details under the Settings in a Windows Desktop Standalone App. and then select the newly added row.

  10. Enter the DNS name or IP Address of the App Server machine in the Address field. Then click or tap outside the field to accept your changes.

    Leave the Port at its default setting of 3431, unless you are sure that port is in use by another application. Note that if you do change it here, you also need to change it on the App Server, which you do using App Manager - the Port setting can be found within the Server category Properties.

  11. You can enter more than one server in this list if required, for example to provide access to a backup server, and when the app attempts to connect to the App Server, if the first address in the list fails it will automatically try the next one down and so on. On subsequent connections within the same session, the last used successful address will automatically be used first. A session ends when you close down the app or modify the server list.

    To add another address, click or tap the Add button, Picture showing button used to add App Server connection details under the Settings in a Windows Desktop Standalone App., again.

  12. If you enter multiple Servers, they will be displayed on the Servers screen like this:

    Picture showing Servers list with multiple App Server connection details in Windows Desktop Standalone App.

    To edit an entry in the list just click or tap in the field you want to edit, make your changes and then click or tap outside the field to accept the change.

    To change the order in which the Servers are listed, and hence tried, simply select a row and then click or tap and drag it to its new position in the list. You can click or tap anywhere within the highlighting colour to drag the row to its new position in the table.

    Alternatively, you can highlight the row you want to move and then use the Up, Picture showing Up button used to change position of App Server connection details in the Servers list within a Windows Desktop Standalone App., and Down, Picture showing Down button used to change position of App Server connection details in the Servers list within a Windows Desktop Standalone App., buttons to change its position in the list.

    To delete an entry from the list, select the row and then click or tap the Delete button, Picture showing Delete button used to remove App Server connection details from the Servers list within a Windows Desktop Standalone App..

  13. To view and modify the configuration settings, tap or click STARTUP or ADVANCED in the menu in the left-hand panel. The following options are available when running a Standalone App:

    Check for updates

    If this option is selected, when you load this Standalone App, it will check with the App Server whether there are any updates available to any of the primary or secondary Models contained within the Standalone App. If there are updates available to you and any of them have been designated as forced within App Manager, the Standalone App will automatically download and install them. If there are updates which are designated as optional, the app will inform you that updates are available and ask if you want to download them.

    If this option is deselected, the app will not automatically check for updates and the user will have to manually check instead.

     

    Always login anonymously

    If selected, this option automatically logs into the App Server as an anonymous user when you load the Standalone App. If deselected, you will be prompted to enter your login credentials when the app is loaded.

    This option is pre-configured when the app is created and cannot be changed.

     

    View

    Allows you to specify how you want the app's window to display when the app loads. You can choose between loading the window into the position occupied when the window was last closed, displaying the window full screen or displaying the window maximised.

     

    Enable Touch Panning

    On some devices with touch screens you may experience a problem selecting Controls, such as Check Boxes, Radio Buttons, Buttons etc., where when attempting to select the Control the screen will scroll instead of the Control being selected. If you do experience this problem, this option allows you to disable screen panning so that you can select the Controls.

    By default, the option is selected which allows you to swipe the screen with your finger.

    If you find that you are having problems selecting Controls on a particular device, you can disable screen panning by deselecting this option. When deselected, you will no longer be able to swipe the screen or list controls but you should then be able to select the Controls you were having problems with. For a ListView Control you can use the scroll bar to move up and down the list if required.

     

    Hide Application Toolbar

    Toggles display of the toolbar within an app.

    If this option is selected, the toolbar below the form's title is not displayed when using the app and a Home button will be displayed on the app’s title bar instead to allow you to return to the Home screen:

    Picture showing the Home button on the Title Bar when the application toolbar is hidden in a Windows Desktop Standalone App.

    If this option is not selected, the toolbar will be displayed.

    The Home screen toolbar is not affected by this option and is always displayed.

     

    Allow Untrusted Certificates

    This option is only relevant if you are using the enhanced certificate-based private key exchange encryption mechanism for data transferred between the App Server and your Standalone App and you are using an SSL Certificate which doesn’t have a trusted third-party Root Certificate, e.g. if you are using a self-signed Certificate.

    By default, the option is not selected, which means the device must have an appropriate trusted Root Certificate installed in order for the Client to communicate with the App Server. If you are using a self-signed Certificate or the Client or Standalone App displays a message saying that the Certificate is untrusted, selecting this option will allow you to use your chosen Certificate.

     

    Save Password

    Determines whether the app will save the user’s password, so they don’t have to enter it in the login screen each time they login. The app won’t login automatically but will pre-populate the password field within the login dialog.

    If selected, the password will be saved.

    If not selected, only the Username and Domain fields will be remembered.

    Remembered values are stored in an encrypted database on the device.

    Note that this Setting is equivalent to the Save Password option which appears on the login screen. Changing the option here will automatically change the setting on the login screen and vice versa.

     

    If you are using Google OAuth to login, this option works slightly differently; see Log In Using Google OAuth Authentication for details.

     

     

    If any of the available options were locked when the app was created, those options will be visible but disabled and you will not be able to change the displayed setting.

  14. Tap or click Picture showing the Back button in a Windows Desktop Standalone App. when you have finished to return to the app’s Home screen.