The JourneyApps Platform team have worked hard in August and September to bring you innovative new features and enhancements to make your applications even better. Here are our latest additions!
PhotonSync: share data between any devices with zero connectivity
Many of our customers have employees doing work at remote sites, where a lot of the time network connectivity is at best degraded — or at worst, non-existent. We have always prided ourselves on how well our platform works offline, and I am excited to share with you the newest addition to this toolbox: PhotonSync, which is now generally available. PhotonSync uses animated QR codes to pass data from one device to another — no network connectivity required! This allows users to share data across all form factors (including desktop to mobile and vice versa) and across all operating systems. It’s quite fast: it can reliably transfer 1,000 database records in under five seconds.
PhotonSync has numerous benefits for app users and developers:
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Users working in a team at remote locations with unreliable or nonexistent network connectivity that were previously unable to share data across devices can now do so. Data collected on-site, including photos, can quickly and easily be shared between team members.
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Customers whose workers do shift handovers in remote locations will find this functionality very valuable. Data collected on one user’s device during their shift can be directly transferred to another user’s device during a shift handover - this saves time, ensures continuity and decreases data capture errors.
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Developers using the JourneyApps Platform can add this functionality to their apps with the ‘plug and play’ ease that they have come to expect from JourneyApps.
An intuitive global navigation menu for your app
We are constantly adding new UI components to our platform to improve the experience of the user on the ground. We have added a powerful new global navigation component that is packed with features like collapsible sections, custom icons and nested sub-sections, making it easy for end users to know where they are in the app at all times.
This new navigation component allows for greater ease of use, and offers benefits for both users and developers:
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Apps built on the JourneyApps Platform often contain complex business logic and extensive workflows. With the navigation menu, users will be able to complete tasks more quickly, as they will immediately know where they are in a workflow — and navigating to different sections of the app is easy.
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Apps will have better UX by default: we expect the navigation component to be a cornerstone of all apps built on the JourneyApps Platform going forward — the UX for most apps will revolve around the navigation component.
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The component is dynamic, extensible and easy for developers to configure.
More data table upgrades for power users!
In our previous update, we spoke about our big strides in making the data tables in your apps smarter and more intuitive. Data tables are at the heart of flagship apps built on the JourneyApps Platform, and that is why we are striving for the perfection of this powerful UI component.
Here are some of the latest new features we’ve added, specifically aimed at power users:
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Keyboard shortcuts (such as tab and enter, page up and page down) are enabled by default, allowing desktop users to quickly complete their work without needing to use a mouse.
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Many users still need to use data from external spreadsheets in their apps. With our latest update, users are able to select and copy data from spreadsheets (e.g. Microsoft Excel) and paste it into the app, and vice versa. Developers have control over what happens with the pasted data, which means users can use copy-and-paste from Excel as an effortless way to import large amounts of data!
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Large data tables render faster, especially when users are making changes to cells, allowing users to be more productive with larger datasets.
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Users are now able to undo and redo actions when editing data in a table.
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All of these features are now available to developers building on the JourneyApps Platform via a Runtime Version Management channel and soon via the stable channel.
Coming soon: our all-new IDE!
We will soon be lifting the curtain on our brand new web-based IDE, which will bring some huge innovations to JourneyApps developers. We have been working super hard to create the most powerful app editor in the world, and developers will be able to do so much more with it. Some of my favorite features are: live co-editing of app code (think Google Docs for code), drag-and-drop data model & view layout editing, TypeScript support, and advanced features for power users: multiple monitor support, customizable workspaces (command pallet, actions, panels), and developer personas. Stay tuned!
That’s it! We’re incredibly thankful for your continued support, and cannot wait to send you more updates about the exciting new features we’re working on.
