Tiggzi Updates its New HTML5 App Builder with Windows 8 Support, plus jQuery Mobile 1.2, PhoneGap 2.2, and Push Notifications

Windows 8 Support

Tiggzi’s new HTML5 app builder has been the default builder for the past couple of weeks and we continue to update it with new features. One such feature is new Windows 8 support. In addition to jQuery Mobile/PhoneGap apps, you can now build Windows 8 apps with native support such as Snap View, Search Charm, Share Charm, and Live Tile.

To create a new Windows 8 app, click the “More create options” link from the Apps page and then select Windows 8 App as the app type. Try our Windows 8 app tutorial.

jQuery Mobile 1.2

We also upgraded to a much better jQuery Mobile version 1.2.

PhoneGap 2.2

We also upgraded PhoneGap to version 2.2. This means Tiggzi’s cloud build has also been upgraded to PhoneGap 1.2:

If you use Tiggzi Mobile App Tester for Android - go and grab an update so it also uses the latest PhoneGap version.

Push Notifications

A long requested feature - Push Notifications feature has been added to Tiggzi Backend Services.

Want to try it? Try our new Push tutorial.

New Tutorial: Building a ToDo App with Tiggzi Backend Services

Build this app and learn how the app builder is fully integrated with backend services.

The New Paradigm: Cloud Services, Cloud Tools [Article]

Cloud Services

In the past year or so, we have witnessed a major shift from client-server to client-cloud. This shift is primarily fueled by two factors: mobile devices exceeding desktop computers and the thousands of different APIs available on the Internet today. What started in early 2000 on eBay and Amazon has become a real revolution in 2012 with thousands of companies, from Twitter and Facebook to AT&T, offering cloud-based services.

REST API
One of the most common ways to access private or public service APIs is via REST requests.

In the client-server approach an organization builds applications that consume its own internal content and resources. However, even large IT organizations such as AT&T, Verizon and Amazon have come to realize that they are no match for the social consumer and social enterprise developers out there. By making APIs publicly available, these organizations hope that developers and “citizen developers” will come and build applications and mobile apps on top of their services.

Citizen developers at work
Analysts at Gartner see a trend toward app creation independent of IT. They predict that by 2014, citizen developers – employees outside of IT and software development – will build 25% of new business applications. In 2007, they built less than 5%.

One of the best-known API success stories comes from Amazon: Its cloud service APIs let outsiders access the company’s massive data centers. Twitter, with its deceptively simple 140-character message model, exploded thanks to its API. In fact, you probably read and write tweets via a Twitter application or mobile app rather than going directly to Twitter’s Web site. Facebook’s Graph API has spawned a whole industry of apps to support its hundreds of millions of users.

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May Release: jQuery Mobile 1.1, Windows Phone Export, UI Breadcrumbs, Plug-in Properties, Code Generation

Tiggzi mobile app builder got some new and cool stuff in May release.

jQuery Mobile 1.1

jQuery Mobile was updated to the latest stable version 1.1.

Windows Phone Export

We just added Windows Phone code export.

We are also planning to add binary build. For now, once you export the project you can jump to PhoneGap Build and get the binary there. Or, you can always build it yourself.

UI breadcrumbs, plus easier delete

A really nice feature in Tiggzi visual builder is the ability to have containers such as grid and place other components inside. To make it super easy to select a particular component we just added breadcrumbs. It makes it very easy to navigate the UI by clicking the component id in the breadcrumbs bar.

In addition to breadcrumbs, we made it very easy to delete an element. Simply click on the red x icon. Clicking on the e icon will open Events view for the component.

Plug-in Properties

With new Plug-in properties, any service information such as API keys can be entered in one place and reused by any number of services. A small but nice feature to save time.

Code generation update

OK, the was requested for a long time. If you name your page MyCoolPage, in the resulting app it will be MyCoolPage.html. If you upload an image called MyCoolImage.png, in the resulting app it will be MyCoolImage.png. Yes, as simple as that, but a very important feature.