New features in the mobile platform

We are currently developing our mobile platform by introducing functions available on the PC platform and delivering mobile device-specific capabilities. Below you will find some of the features we find most important.

Geofences

We have implemented a new event that occurs when a mobile device crosses the border of a pre-defined area. We call such an area a geofence. A geofence is a circle on the surface of the earth, described by its central coordinates and its radius.

You can create several geofences in your application and assign a geofence-crossing event handler to each one. The handler will let you know if a user has entered or left a monitored geofence. Based on this information, you can provide the user with a variety of features. For example, you can remind the user that he/she is approaching an important contractor, or help him/her pick out the best shipping warehouse.

Roaming check

In one of our previous entries, we wrote about a new mobile platform feature that can put user activity on hold, pending appropriate Internet connection. From now on, the platform can also check whether the device is currently roaming.

With these two features combined, you can warn users who are about to exchange large bulks of data that such an exchange might be costly and that they should consider putting it off until a more suitable connection occurs.

New Android capabilities

From now on, the platform also supports some of the latest capabilities of 6.0 Marshmallow and 7.0 Nougat.

First of all, we have switched to a faster, bug-free camera API.

Second of all, the mobile platform is now equipped with dynamic permission management. This means that a mobile device user can turn permissions on and off and therefore control which mobile apps have access to personal data, camera, memory, etc.

And finally, the platform now has multi-window support. Android 7.0 device users can run two apps on one screen at the same time, e.g. they can be simultaneously watching a movie and placing an online order.

Calendar field

Another feature we’ve added to the mobile platform is the calendar field – a familiar form element already used in the PC platform. The functionality is almost the same, except for drag event support.

Binary data

Last but not least, we have made it possible to handle binary data in the mobile platform. This previously unavailable function allows you to analyze and modify the contents of data, and, since you can handle binary data in memory, this is an important tool for optimizing large data processing algorithms.

This is a preview of new functionality. We recommend that you do not use the content of this article as a practical guide to the new functionality. The new functionality will be fully described in the documentation to the relevant version of the software. You can find the complete list of changes in the v8Update.htm file.