Mobile App

[RICHARD RUTA]

I have a mobile app that is really working well. Except that it is a hybrid of a WEB app and a mobile app. On the main input screen it includes the facilty to upload pictures via the upload widget. On a secondary screen, the mobilbe app allows taking pictures. The problem is the upload widget doesn't work in mobile app. I've mentioned this before and I think you are working on it. Here's my problem. As many times as I have told users not to attemp the upload in the mobile app, they still do. When they do, there is no way for them to get out. Neither the back buttom nor submit button works. The Iseries is locked. They reboot or end the mobile app. The record remains locked on the Iseries. Is there a way for the user to end the Iseries application?

[Scott Klement]

It's the app that's stopped (technically, the Javascript framework has ended with an error, but the app is still running.) This should not cause any sort of a lock up with IBM i... just the app.

You can just kill it, no need to reboot.

On iOS you do that by going to the home screen, then double-clicking the home button. This gives you a list of the loaded apps. Then hold your finger on the icon for the mobile app for 3 seconds, and a little red circle with a minus sign will appear in the corner. click the minus sign to kill the app.

I don't have an Android device, so I'm not sure how you kill apps on Android. But... just kill it the way you'd kill any stuck app, and you'll be all set. (If you don't know, a quick Google search should tell you how.)

Yes, we are working on a fix to the upload widget so that it will work in mobile apps. Should be done pretty soon.

[Scott Klement]

Another thought... maybe you should disable the upload widget on mobile devices? Just insert a bit of Javascript code to check if you're on a mobile device, and if so, disable the widget....

[RICHARD RUTA]

Yes, we can cancel the mobile app on the tablet. But the program continues to run on the Iseries. Just thought that there might be a magic way to cancel it on the Iseries, when the user 'force closes' the mobile app in the task manager on the android device.

[Scott Klement]

No, I didn't mean to cancel it after it has started -- I meant to disable the upload control on mobile devices, so they can't use it.

[RICHARD RUTA]

Scott,

I understand what you were saying. I'm asking something different.

If the user needs to force close the app on the mobile for any reason, I'd like the app on the Iseries to stop running, as it does in the WEB application when the user force closes a window.

[Scott Klement]

Richard,

I guess it depends on what you mean by "force close". It's important to understand that there is no permanent connection between the front end (the PUI Javascript framework) and the back end (the handler running on IBM i). So there is no way for the back end to detect that the front end has been ended.

What's supposed to happen is when you click a button to close the front-end (whether it's a quit button in your program, or the little "X" in the upper-right corner of the window, doesn't matter) the front-end program sees this and sends a message to the back end telling it to shut down. That is how they shut down at the same.

This is where it's important to understand what is meant by "force close". If you mean to "kill the program", or shut the power off, etc, then the OS doesn't give the front-end the opportunity to send a notification message. It just stops the front-end right where it is -- no chance to notify anyone of anything. This can happen anywhere if truly "forced closed".

If you just mean to click the "X in the corner", you are ending the front-end normally... so it does have the opportunity to send a message, etc.

What's happening right now is that the upload control is crashing due to a difference in the way the mobile app handles Javascript vs the way the web browser handles it. Since it's crashing, and you're subsequently killing the app, it can't send a message to the backend. There's no way to do that.

I've suggested a way to prevent it from crashing which SHOULD solve the problem, since it would no longer be necessary to kill the app... that's the best we can do here.

Having said that, I'm happy to report that the upload widget will be fixed in our next release of Profound UI, so that it won't crash on mobile devices anymore -- which will also fix the problem.

[David]

Sorry for the inconvenience here, Richard.

We have put in a fix for the file upload widget that will allow it to run properly when running in a mobile application that is installed on the device, or through Profound UI's mobile client.

This will be included in the next update to Profound UI. As well as updating Profound UI, the user would also have to update the Profound UI mobile client through the App Store.

We'll let you know when the release is published.