Developing APP with cloud server in mind

[avianmanagement]

When developing an app that will run on PC and also on cloud is there anything that the normal app cannot do via the cloud ?

Can one develop hitting the standard Lianja database for development and then point this use this same app for cloud ?

[barrymavin]

David, during the lengthy beta we have written many blog articles emphasizing the architecture of Lianja. I also wrote the "Lianja Vision" article explaining the rationale behind Lianja.

I have on many occasions raised awareness in the developer forums about "Lianja Best Practices".

Now that aside.

The whole concept of Lianja is that an App is built up out of high level visual elements -- Pages and Sections, that are related together.

If you build your App "the Lianja Way" it will run in the Lianja Web Client as well as the Lianja Desktop Client and Lianja Mobile Client.

The Lianja architecture is built around the concept of "Apps are made up out of pages, Pages are made up out of sections...". If you adhere to this development methodology then all of the standard sections and gadgets work exactly the same on all client UI devices; Desktop, Web and Mobile. (WebViewWidgets are very relevant here).

Databases and Apps that you access in development mode, once deployed (using the Deploy workspace in the Lianja App Builder), are accessible by the Lianja Web Client.

When you point your web browser at a URI e.g. www.yoursite.com/lianjacloud the Lianja Web Client is loaded into the browser. It is a pure HTML5/JavaScript client.

The first thing the Lianja Web Client does is display the Lianja Login page and wait for the user to authenticate.

After the user authenticates (users that you have setup in the Lianja App Builder users workspace with permissions and roles) then the Lianja App Center is displayed (same as you see in the desktop client -- which is in fact written in HTML5/JavaScript also) and the apps that the authenticated user has permission to run are displayed in tiles that are laid out in categories (same as desktop).

The user clicks a tile and the App is read from the Lianja Cloud Server in the "tenancy" that the user belongs to (this is called sandboxing). The App is rendered in the Lianja Web Client and all of the pages and sections have their "data binding" applied to them automagically.

As an App is rendered, the permissions and roles assigned to the authenticated user are evaluated for each page, section and field of the App which may cause various visual elements to be hidden or made readonly depending upon the users permissions. This allows you to have one App that renders differently for different roles of users (e.g. manager, finance, sales) without having to "program" this functionality into your App in any way.

Depending on whether the user is connecting from a desktop browser or a mobile device the UI adjusts itself to the resolution and lays out the "standard" sections to best suite the device. This is the reason "Lianja Best Practices" should be adhered to when building an App.

[avianmanagement]

Thanks Barry.

This is why I want to use Lianja, to be able to build apps that are 'Create once - run anywhere' apps.

It all sounds very good and hopefully I'll get time to start a real project, small one, in the coming weeks to get the hang of it all. So far I have just played with imports and a few dummy pages to test a few bits.

[jmonte407]

Are there any videos or screen shots of an app running on a desktop.... and that same app running in a browser.. and that same app running on a tablet / smart phone?

[lianjasupport]

Not currently, but there will be.

[barrymavin]

Jim, as we state in the roadmap we will be releasing the Lianja products in this order:

Lianja App Builder
Lianja SQL Server
Lianja Team Edition
Lianja Cloud Server
Lianja Mobile Edition

Things are moving in the right direction.

[hmischel@diligentsystems.com]

Hi Barry, Support,

Sorry if this has already been addressed.
If I have read the Roadmap correctly, the web client is expected to be released April 30, 2013.
Since that is a post live release, is there an earlier date for testing the web client?

Thanks

Herb

[barrymavin]

Yes its not on the roadmap as such but we will be releasing it through a beta cycle.