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Posts from 2017
Friday, February 3, 2017PrintSubscribe
Custom Logo and Theme

Universal Business Apps (UBA) created with Code On Time are designed to run on desktop and mobile devices.  UBAs may be packaged as native applications and also work in the web browser in online and offline modes. Each app store dictates certain user interface requirements. The new theme framework of Touch UI 2017 makes it easy to fulfill them.

Native applications are distributed through app stores of the operating system verndors. These app stores have a common requirement not to place your logo directly in the user interface, making it visible at all times. The focus must be on application functionality rather than on company branding.

At the same time, it is important to keep the user aware of your brand. Touch UI makes this easy.

Consider the following logo of a fictitious company:

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Let’s incorporate this logo into an application created with Code On Time or Cloud On Time.

Creating a Theme Accent

The default theme of the application is Light with Aquarium accent.

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We will choose Social accent as a basis for the customization.

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Create a copy of the file ~/touch/touch-accent.social.json and name it touch-accent.acme.json. Open the new file in your favorite text editor.

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Change the “name” to “Acme”. Find and replace the color #3b5999 with #006940 everywhere in the file. Change header.icon.default from #eee to #ee3a43.  Also change the value of properties button.promo.icon.default and buttons.menu.icon.default to #ee3a43.

Both #006940 and #ee3a43 represent the codes of the main colors used in the log. You can use the standard CSS color names, such as “green” and “red”.

Save the file, switch back to your application, proceed to Themes section under Settings, and select the new theme “Acme”.

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The application colors will change to match the branding of our fictitious company. It only took a few minutes to give your app a branded look-and-feel.

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Changing Application Name

The name of the app needs to be changed as well. By default, the name will be derived from the page header text specified in the project settings. If the project’s settings for the header is blank, then the name will read as “Code on Time” or “Cloud On Time”.

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There is configuration file in the root of your project, called ~/touch-settings.json. It controls the application behavior and appearance. Open the file and specify appName property to provide a name for the app.

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Do not use the brand name there. Instead specify the name that reflects the purpose of the app. Let’s use Inventory Manager for this example. Save the file and refresh the page. The new app name will be visible in the top left corner of the toolbar.

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Explicit Branding

The best place to display your branding is the Splash Screen and Account Manager.

The splash screen is displayed briefly when the user starts the app.

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The picture on the left side of the screen and the application name can be replaced with alternative images.

Add a new configuration element splash to the file ~/touch-settings.json, as shown in the screenshot below.

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Properties logo and background must reference the high-resolution images for the branding of your app. You will need to keep the balance between the quality of the images and their size.

The duration property controls the duration that the splash screen is displayed to users in milliseconds.

Restart the app and see the splash screen displayed.

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Your branding is also displayed when the user is automatically logged into the app, or when account manager is activated.

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Disabling Themes in Settings

If you do not wish the theme and accent to be changed by the application users, then add settings section to the ~/touch-settings.json with theme option disabled.

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Additional settings options can be disabled as needed. The property settings.disabled will prevent the user from modifying any settings.

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Further Customization

If your projects requirements call for a prominient display of branding, then you can add a logo to the application toolbar with the help of CSS. Create a file under ~/touch folder with the following rule:

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This result of customization is shown next.

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Wednesday, February 1, 2017PrintSubscribe
New Theme Engine in Touch UI 2017

A new theme engine in Touch UI is included with the release 8.5.12.0. The brand new themes provide a modern look-and-feel for your line-of-business universal apps. Designed to work with both Desktop and Mobile devices, Touch UI offers a universal solution to application developers. Your end users can point with a mouse or a stylus and click or touch the responsive user interface elements.

The user inteface is customized with themes and accents. A theme provides the main color scheme. An accent provides additional color adjustments. The themes are CSS-based. The new release will ship with a single Light theme.  Additonal core schemes are expected to become available in the future. Accents are JSON files describing particular colors and other properties that will customize the theme. Release 8.5.12.0. ships with 35 accents. Developers can make a copy of any existing *.json accent under ~/touch folder and replace the colors with those that are matching the application requirements. Developers can standardize on a particular theme and accent for their app by deleting the standard themes and accents that are not needed.  The upcoming CoT v9 will also include an interactive theme builder that will allow producing custom accents within the live app.

The screenshots of the new Light theme with Citrus accent are below.

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This is the new Azure accent for the Light theme:

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The new Grapello accent in Light theme in the screenshot showing a modal form:

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The new Plastic accent demonstrates interactive filtering in Light theme:

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The new Berry accent demonstrates the view selector in Light theme:

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This is the Light theme with Dark Knight accent on a small screen:

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The user interface theme is constructed at runtime by applying properties defined in the JSON configuration of the accent to the chosen color scheme of the theme.

This is the actual configuration file for the Citrus theme.  You can create a new accent by making a copy of an existing one and replacing it’s colors.

JSON:

{
  "name": "Citrus",
  "color": "#FFA500",
  "header": {
    "background": "orange",
    "backgroundTransparent": "transparent",
    "border": "#FFA500",
    "paddingTop": 0,
    "icon": {
      "default": "#000",
      "hover": null,
      "selected": null,
      "backgroundOpacity": null
    },
    "text": {
      "default": "#000",
      "hover": null,
      "logo": null,
      "hoverBackground": "rgba(0,0,0,0.05)",
      "selectedBackground": "rgba(0,0,0,0.08)"
    },
    "split": {
      "background": null,
      "icon": { "default": null }
    }
  },
  "panel": {
    "icon": {
      "default": "#0a6332",
      "hover": "#003D00",
      "selected": null
    }
  },
  "buttons": {
    "promo": {
      "background": "#FFA500",
      "icon": {
        "default": "#000"
      },
      "menu": {
        "icon": {
          "default": null,
          "hover": null
        }
      }
    }
  },
  "sidebar": {
    "full": {
      "background": "#0a6332",
      "border": "#0a6332",
      "selectedColor": "#fff",
      "text": {
        "default": "#eee",
        "hover": "#fff",
        "active": null,
        "static": "#80ba99"
      },
      "icon": {
        "default": "#fff",
        "hover": "#FFA500",
        "active": null
      },
      "toolbar": {
        "background": "#0a6332",
        "border": "#0a6332",
        "selectedColor": "#fff",
        "icon": {
          "default": "#fff",
          "hover": "#FFA500",
          "active": null
        }
      }
    },
    "mini": {
      "background": "#0a6332",
      "border": "#0a6332",
      "selectedColor": "#fff",
      "icon": {
        "default": "#fff",
        "hover": "#FFA500",
        "active": null
      },
      "toolbar": {
        "background": "#0a6332",
        "border": "#0a6332",
        "selectedColor": "#fff",
        "icon": {
          "default": "#fff",
          "hover": "#FFA500",
          "active": null
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

 

The user interface elements and behavior are customized via the new ~/touch-settings.json configuration file in apps created with Code on Time 8.5.12.0.

JSON:

{
  "defaultUI": "TouchUI",
  "appName": "Inventory Manager",
  "map": {
    "apiKey": null
  },
  "charts": {
    "maxPivotRowCount": 100
  },
  "ui": {
    "theme": {
      "name": "Light",
      "accent": "Aquarium",
      "preview": null
    },
    "displayDensity": {
      "mobile": "Auto",
      "desktop": "Condensed"
    },
    "list": {
      "labels": {
        "display": "DisplayedBelow"
      },
      "initialMode": "SeeAll"
    },
    "menu": {
      "location": "toolbar",
      "tiles": null
    },
    "actions": {
      "promote": true
    },
    "transitions": {
      "style": "slide"
    },
    "sidebar": {
      "when": "Landscape",
      "mini": true,
      "apps": true,
      "toolbar": true,
      "icons": true
    },
    "toolbar": {
      "apps": true
    },
    "apps": {
      "location": "toolbar"
    },
    "showSystemButtons": null,
    "smartDates": true
  },
  "settings": {
    "enabled": true,
    "options": {
      "displayDensity": true,
      "theme": true,
      "transitions": true,
      "sidebar": true,
      "labelsInList": true,
      "showSystemButtons": true,
      "promoteActions": true,
      "smartDates": true,
      "initialListMode": true
    }
  },
  "membership": {
    "enabled": null,
    "profile": "view switch login logout",
    "help": true,
    "accountManager": {
      "enabled": true
    }
  },
  "help": true
}

Monday, January 23, 2017PrintSubscribe
Identity Manager for Web and Mobile Apps

The user identity manager comes standard in applications created with Code On Time starting with the release 8.5.12.0.

User context menu in the app with Touch UI 2017 created with Code On Time.

The account management screen enables users to switch identity at will. Account Manager may optionally store encrypted login token to enable automatic login on mobile and desktop devices. Users can see all stored identities and have them removed as needed. Issued login tokens can be also invalidated remotely. Every signing into the app will create a fresh “login” token, which replaces the last used for the user name.

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New accounts (logins) can be added directly in the account manager.

Login in an app with Touch UI 2017.

Account Manager works on any form factor:

Account Manager in the app with Touch UI on a mobile device.

The devices with the small form factor will display the current user identity in the “hamburger” menu.

Current user identity is displayed in the "hamburger" menu.   

User identity management options available through the "hamburger" menu.

Offline applications created with Code On Time are passing the  login token in the header of requests to read/write data. Offline app pages are stored directly in the device and cannot pariticipate in the session management of the server-side application components. Thus every request needs to provide an authentication information to access protected resources.

This new mechanism replaces persistent identity cookies of ASP.NET, whcih have been previously used for persistent login in apps created with Code On Time.

The accounts start being persisted on the device when the user selects “Remember me next time” option on the login screen. New touch-settins.json configuration file provides an easy way to disable account manager when needed.