Visual LANSA Forum

Hello, I would like to know whether it is possible to implement and deploy a stand alone application in mobile devices with visual lansa.
Not talking about a web application rather whether lansa deploys both in android (.apk) and ios (.ipa) so that can be uploaded to the play and app store respectively.

It doesn't seem clear from the documentation.

best,
Sotiris

No. That would be cool though.

What we need here is a Progressive Web Application (PWA). See https://developers.google.com/web/progressive-web-apps/ for more details.

This would allow us to create applications that could be delivered via the web but install themselves on the desktop as an icon and be managed identically to a 'normal' application. I know that Google are very big on PWAs and web applications like gmail can installed to the desktop with a click. Microsoft has added PWA support to Windows 10 in the latest iterations and PWAs can be purchased through the Windows App store. PWAs are available on iPad/iphone from iOS 11.3 onwards.

The process of turning a VLWeb app into a PWA is well documented and I believe that it can be done (LANSA have got some smart guys working in this area) and I believe it would be a fantastic move.

Have a look at the literature guys and let LANSA know how you feel!

Thanks for clarifying,

because I got a different impression after reading this:
https://www.lansa.com/products/mobile-a ... atform.htm

best,
sotiris

Just to clarify further. VLWEB can already do 99% of what is required to be a PWA, its just a question of packaging. A VLWEB can run on any platform that supports a modern browser and can be designed to run offline. What distinguishes a PWA is that from a browser the app can be installed locally, appear on the user's desktop, be removed using add/remove program and execute when there is no web connection. The PWA manifest will tell the host which files and assets should be cached on install and the worker thread will intercept any network requests and a determine which can be served locally. It should be possible (and I know its easy for me just to say this!) for LANSA to give use a compile option that generates a PWA package that can be made available from a web site or from an app store. Your app can then be started by clicking an icon and will only go to the network when a server module call is made. Its up to the developer to determine what functionality can be made available offline and how to handle intermittent connectivity. This would also save the developer & LANSA the overhead of generating whitebox versions of the LANSA apps for those of wanting to deploy ios & android apps,

What about the camera, touch signature , etc?

PWAs can request permission to access device resources, exactly like apps.