Every day as I open the telerik.com home page, I am reminded of the goal we are pursuing—to make Modern UI easy for you. On the web, on desktop and on mobile, with your framework and programming language of choice. Enabling you to be the best developer you can possibly be.
Our first release of the year packs exactly that, allowing you to expand into modern frameworks and use modern themes—with new Kendo UI React components, Fluent design theme, massive Xamarin suite advancement and over 30 new backend database providers for our reporting solution, just to name a few. With so many platforms and frameworks we cover, there is simply too much to lay out in a single blog. So, just head over to our what's new page and browse around!
The whole release is designed to allow you to quickly and easily build apps with sleek and intuitive designs. Seeing is believing, so if you are an existing Telerik customer, dig right into the release by logging to your account and download the latest bits. Or, if you haven't recently checked out our products, I'd appreciate if you gave it another look and let me know how you like them or what we need to improve.
Check out our blogs for a product-by-product summary of all the improvements we brought to you. Be prepared for some surprises—for a few product lines we delivered more than we initially laid out in our roadmap.
Please watch me, my partner-in-crime Carl Bergenhem (Product Manager, Kendo UI) and our complete Developer Advocate team in our recorded release webinars to learn everything you need to know:
Watch Telerik R1 2018 Release Webinar
Watch Kendo UI R1 2018 Release Webinar
As Microsoft began to strech beyond the .NET/Windows world into the Mac, Linux, etc., the Windows Workflow approach proved not to be the best way for creating builds. With the introduction of TFS 2015 a new simpler, cross-platform pipeline/task model was presented as a new way to define builds – namely Web-Based builds.
It is important to note, that with TFS 2018 the XAML builds are no longer supported. More information is available on this MSDN blog post.
I am happy to inform you that with the R1 2018 release, you’ll be able to use the newly introduced JustMock VSTest build task to execute tests that are mocked with JustMock on your build machine.
Stay tuned for more details on this soon after the official release on Januarty 17th.
For an in-depth review of all the new stuff coming with the release across desktop, web and mobile, join us on the 30th of January for the Telerik R1 2018 Release Webinar.
If you don’t have the latest version of Telerik JustMock, you can download it here.
Let us know how your experience went and feel free to reach out with comments or suggestions through the JustMock feedback portal.
And don't forget to take a look at our release webinars, where our technical experts provide a deep dive into all of our new features and functionalities.
]]>Looking back at the most read articles on our blogs in 2017 is telling, and you can about the topics developers were most interested in this year. The following articles, covering a range of development topics, have all been read over 10,000 times. Some spawned intense discussion, others reverberated around the Internet, shared by fellow developers on social media, or reposted in community websites and newsletters.
If you're interested in this industry, you'll want to check out some of our top content. Let’s see if there’s any you’ve missed:
by Ed Charbeneau
Ed guides the reader into getting started with Angular using ASP.NET Core by following a simple recipe with clearly defined ingredients. “We'll start by walking through all of the ingredients necessary to make a successful project. Next we'll follow the recipe, learning where each ingredient fits. Finally, the application will be fully baked and ready to serve with all of its cutting edge goodness.” Et voilà!
by Annarita Tranfici
Annarita covers 5 not-so-popular CSS properties she finds very interesting. She gives an overview of what they are, which values you can use and their use cases. The CSS properties she covers are related to writing display (font-display and writing-mode), rendering performance improvements (contain and will-change properties) and creation of new, fancy designs (clip-path).
by Scott Addie
Scott raises awareness of some landmark features and improvements in Visual Studio 2017. The intent is to graze the surface of what's possible in this release, focusing on the following topics: live unit testing, code style configuration, .NET Core migration tooling for project.json/XPROJ, Bower & npm package, restore settings and the refreshed JavaScript editor.
by Tsviatko Yovtchev
The announcements for the Fiddler for OS X and Linux Beta releases were both big news for the Fiddler community, but this year there’s something even bigger: the need for separate platform versions is becoming obsolete. Now there is Fiddler Orchestra, a new flavor of the famous web debugger that delivers the benefits of remote debugging and platform-agnostic web UI. If you thought the OS X and Linux releases were cool, better head to FiddlerCore for .NET Standard and Fiddler Orchestra—the Future of Fiddler for the latest major Fiddler release!
by John Bristowe
John did a fantastic job of answering some of the most frequently asked questions about hybrid apps, such as: "How are hybrid mobile apps built?", "What are the motivations to go hybrid?", "When should you build a hybrid mobile app?" and "Who is building hybrid apps?".
Thank you for reading so far! Have you seen what the top 5 JavaScript and top 5 .NET articles were yet? Check them out and let us know what you think.
]]>Yes, in fact, there is life after Telerik Platform! While the recent news that Telerik Platform is set to retire in May 2018 elicits mixed emotions, the good news is that Progress is in no way abandoning our mobility customers! Over the past year the NativeScript team has been working hard to release new tools and improve the core framework that allows you to create truly native, cross-platform, apps using the same web skills you've been using to create hybrid apps.
The future of mobile app development is NativeScript, and we will help you get there!
Make no mistake: NativeScript is at the core of the Progress mobility strategy going forward. Progress is dedicating significant resources to make sure your transition from hybrid (i.e. Cordova/PhoneGap) to native (NativeScript) is as seamless as possible.
TIP: If you’re a video learner, check out this free NativeScripting course on upgrading Cordova applications to NativeScript.
With that being said, let's make sure we are aware of all the resources available today, for free, to help us migrate from hybrid to native:
With the online resource hybridtonative.com, we've partnered with the community to provide a guide on upgrading your existing Angular-based hybrid apps to NativeScript.
This extensive guide contains everything you need to know when upgrading your hybrid app. From a comparison of hybrid and native technologies, to a look at using the Ionic CLI vs the NativeScript CLI, to comparing UI implementations, and more, hybridtonative.com should be your first stop on your upgrade path.
In the article, Migrating from Cordova to NativeScript, we take a high level look at an existing hybrid app and what it takes to upgrade it to NativeScript.
By breaking down an existing hybrid app and looking at the views/layouts, JavaScript business logic, and CSS styling, we see how a transition from hybrid to native isn't nearly as difficult as one might think.
For example, we can take this HTML from a hybrid app:
<header class="header">
<h1>todos</h1>
<input class="new-todo" placeholder="What needs to be done?">
</header>
<section class="main">
<ul class="todo-list">
<!-- item template goes here -->
</ul>
</section>
...and convert it to a truly native view with NativeScript-flavored markup:
<StackLayout>
<Label text="todos" class="title" />
<TextField class="new-item" text="{{ newTodo }}" hint="What needs to be done?" />
<Repeater items="{{ todos }}">
<!-- item template goes here -->
</Repeater>
</StackLayout>
Take a closer look by reading Migrating from Cordova to NativeScript.
The NativeScript Developer Relations team put together an online webinar on Modernizing One Hybrid App at a Time. This hour-long video contains a wealth of information on the latest in NativeScript tooling, strategies on sharing code between web and mobile, and how to create an engaging user interface with NativeScript.
Watch Modernizing One Hybrid App at a Time on YouTube now:
Progress is also providing an extensive set of migration guides to ease your transition from Telerik Platform to third party tooling and service offerings:
There are plenty of places you can go next to learn more about NativeScript and the new NativeScript tooling options:
On the off chance you missed the Telerik Platform webinar yesterday, you missed some great insight into how we are helping to modernize one hybrid app at a time, with NativeScript:
In case you missed it, the full webinar is now available on YouTube for you to view:
Thanks to all who attended and thanks to everyone else who has been a longtime supporter of Telerik Platform. If you're confused as to where to go next, don't be:
The mobile development landscape has evolved immensely over the last ten years. What used to be limited to native iOS and Android developers is now accessible for hybrid (Cordova) developers and native JavaScript (NativeScript) developers.
And mobility continues to mature! Telerik Platform once had a laser focus on hybrid app development, but now offers a look at native app development with NativeScript. We know app performance and stability are critical to you, which is why we are helping to modernize mobility, one hybrid app at a time.
Join us on Thursday, October 26th at 10AM EDT as we demonstrate how you can modernize your hybrid mobile apps with NativeScript.
Telerik Platform has been an indispensable tool for all of us over the past three years. In this free online webinar, we will:
Join us to learn all about how mobility is evolving and how you can modernize your hybrid mobile apps.
Seats are limited, so register for the free Telerik Platform webinar now!
]]>We are closing off our last release of the year with a big bang. To make you more productive, we are shipping 10 new controls across all UI frameworks. We've enhanced Document Processing Library with advanced PDF manipulation options, introducing new themes and various analytics integration capabilities. In addition, we've expanded our existing components with more features and customization options. Most of all, we are further enhancing product support to allow for your specific needs.
You are probably interested in seeing all the features we are shipping for each individual platform. Dig into the specific team blogs and product pages to learn more:
If all you want is the hardcore product facts, you can stop reading right here. But there is more!
We are investing heavily across the board and we believe it shows—just glance at our what’s new page or download the latest bits. We are also “shipping” a new look for the .NET Ninja mascot! A substantial product release like R3 2017 and the ongoing investment had to be paired with a new look. The new .NET Ninja exemplifies the ongoing commitment we have for all our fellow .NET developers. The .NET Ninja is also in better shape than ever and ready for action. This is what you can expect from us: the modern UI, fast releases, awesome support, productivity and ease of use you’re already used to—just better. Hold me accountable to it!
En route to making you a better .NET Ninja, we are also making all the UI tooling available to you via a single UI bundle, called DevCraft UI for just $1299. It now includes our UI for Xamarin controls, which was previously available only in DevCraft Ultimate. Now you have all the tools at your disposal when developing striking apps for Web, Desktop or Mobile. Moreover, you now have multiple technical support options (Lite, Priority, and Ultimate) to suit your specific needs.
And what would a product release be without a flashy webinar—right? Here are two webinars to check out:
Some months ago, we set out on a journey to review our bundles and the way in which our products are offered. Through this process, we have spoken with and read feedback from so many of our customers. The applications you are building with our products spread the gamut from custom and niche to mission-critical enterprise; from line-of-business to consumer facing. Our developer community is helping to make the world better through technology and innovation – and we are inspired.
Through these conversations, we developed a rich understanding of the frameworks you are using today, and the technologies you may use in the future. Beyond products and technology, we discussed what you expect from our technical support – and of course we discussed the overall value you place on our products and service.
Thank you for the overwhelming response we received to our reach-out – the changes described below are a direct result of the process so many of you were involved in.
Most of our individual products can now be configured with one of three options for technical support – this gives you the ability to choose the appropriate level of support for you and your team. If you ever need a higher level of support, your subscription can always be upgraded.
For more information and a complete side-by-side comparison of the support plans, click here.
Our DevCraft bundles offer .NET developers the most cost effective way to futureproof their toolbox, and streamline beautiful UI across a variety of technologies and frameworks. Effective today, we are introducing a new ‘DevCraft UI’ bundle that includes all the Telerik UI products that a .NET developer could ever need at an incredible price of $1299. DevCraft UI joins DevCraft Complete and DevCraft Ultimate, which have also been updated. To learn more about our new line-up of DevCraft bundles, click here.
We believe that the biggest changes for our Kendo UI product is the introduction of React and Vue support. React and Vue support join existing support for jQuery and Angular, creating the industry’s most complete UI toolbox for JavaScript developers. You may also notice that we have simplified the product names into a single offer called Kendo UI that comes complete with jQuery, AngularJS, Angular, React, and Vue support. Additional server-side wrappers for ASP.NET MVC, ASP.NET Core, PHP, and JSP can be added as needed, and like our other UI products, Kendo UI can be configured with Lite, Priority, or Ultimate support. To learn more about pricing and what is included in Kendo UI, click here.
While full details can be found here , we are pleased to inform you that you will have access to all the great products and support you initially purchased – and in some cases even more. Additionally, you will maintain the same level of support and the same renewal prices.
Thanks again to our amazing community of developers – we love you and hope you love the new R3 bits and bundles.
Prior to submitting the ticket, you should gather the specifics of your development environment. These will be needed for our developers to better understand the context of your issue. Depending on the platform, this usually includes the following:
Identify all applicable code that is required to clarify the issue. We strongly recommend that, whenever possible, you take the time to isolate the problem in a sample project. A simplified, runnable, standalone application that demonstrates the issue allows our developers to immediately focus on resolving your issue and saves the time needed to first reproduce it. This helps avoid excessive back and forth correspondence, which extends the time required to resolve the issue, and improves the chance of solving it immediately.
Finally, you should prepare a clear written overview of the issue, and create applicable screenshots or video captures that visualize hard-to-describe behaviors or layouts.
Log in to your Telerik Account and using the dropdown menu provided, click on "Support Tickets".
Then, click the "Contact Support Team" button and choose the product for which you need support.
If, after reviewing the most popular support resources for the given product, you still have a support question, you may start typing it in using the dialog provided:
Don’t forget to use the “Attach files” button to upload your supporting files which should include your code and/or screen captures. The allowed extensions are .zip, .rar, .jpg, .png, and .gif, and the total combined size of the upload cannot exceed 20MB (feel free to contact us for help in uploading larger files). Finally, users holding our DevCraft Ultimate License have the option to “submit ticket for pre-screening” which means that we’ll do a quick check and tell you if you've provided sufficient information for the developers to understand your issue and provide helpful insights.
Once you've double-checked that all is in order, simply click the “Submit Ticket” button to initiate the ticket.
You should receive an immediate email confirmation of the ticket in the inbox of the registered email account, featuring a copy of the ticket details. Then, you can monitor your inbox for an email notification of the reply that has been added directly in the ticket by the Telerik support team. This can be expected within the ticket’s time frame as specified in your support contract (typically 24 hours), or evaluation agreement (typically 72 hours). You can reference the time frames offered by the various support plans here.
In the response to your ticket, you may be asked to provide additional insights or supporting files. You can reply to the ticket accordingly. If the response provided does not solve the issue, you can continue the thread until a resolution is found. Any new, unrelated issue should be logged in a separate ticket. Once you've resolved the issue, please use the “Mark as Resolved” button/link to close the thread.
Editor's note: This post was originally written by Georgi Tunev in 2013, and has been updated for completeness and accuracy.
Far and away the most common place for people to start developing NativeScript apps is with the NativeScript CLI. It just makes sense—NativeScript is completely free, open source, and provides everything you need out of the box to create truly native cross-platform apps with JavaScript.
However, we regularly hear from many of these same people that they want to take a project started with the NativeScript CLI and move it to Telerik AppBuilder (part of Telerik Platform). Why? Well, with AppBuilder you get access to:
...the list goes on and on. So clearly there is value in moving a project from the NativeScript CLI to AppBuilder, but how do you do it? That's what this guide is all about.
If you have an existing NativeScript project created with the NativeScript CLI, let's go through the steps to move this project to AppBuilder.
Note that these instructions work equally well on Mac and Windows!
Locate your NativeScript project in your file system and compress/zip the app
directory:
Next, log in to your Telerik Platform account. Create a brand new NativeScript app by choosing Advanced > NativeScript > Blank Template:
Once your project is created in AppBuilder, use the Code menu option to navigate to the code editor.
You'll now need to delete the app
directory and the package.json
file in the Project Navigator pane:
Next, right click on the project name and choose Add > From Archive. Choose the archive that you created from your existing NativeScript app directory:
Finally, right click again on the project name and choose Add > Existing Files. Choose the package.json
file from the root directory of your existing NativeScript project:
And you are done!
From here you can build in the cloud for iOS and Android, test the app with the NativeScript Developer app (available for iOS and Android), and even deploy your app to both app stores!
If you have an existing Telerik AppBuilder project, you can also export it and continue development with the NativeScript CLI!
It's incredibly easy to take your AppBuilder project and open it up with the NativeScript CLI. Simply right click on your project and choose Export:
Unzip the downloaded archive, open up a terminal window, navigate to the project directory, and run:
tns platform add ios|android
...and finally:
tns run ios|android
...to see your app running in a simulator/emulator.
Alternatively, you can use AppBuilder's built-in Github integration to maintain one repository that can be edited via AppBuilder or your local file system!
You've seen how incredibly easy it can be to move back and forth between the NativeScript CLI and Telerik Platform. If you haven't already, set up your free 30 day trial of Telerik Platform today!
]]>The new release of AppBuilder is here and brings some welcome changes for both NativeScript and Cordova developers. The new features are delightfully simple to use but complex to implement underneath (as it has to be).
We greatly relaxed the limits on what plugins you can use in your NativeScript projects. Now you can use almost all NativeScript plugins, even when they come from npmjs.org, embedded in the project as custom code (the file:// schema in package.json), or from our Plugins Marketplace. This change is so important, that we will follow-up with an in-depth post about it.
NOTE: The NativeScript plugins that will work in Telerik Platform are plugins that have before- and after-prepare hooks (which are also executed during build) and are within the security limitations that we set up.
We are working to implement this enhancement for Cordova projects too. The security framework is almost ready but we need a little more time to verify all changes. We will deliver it with one of our next updates, and we're aiming for a date before our next major release.
Speaking of NativeScript, we now support its 2.4 release and fully enabled the 2.5.1 release throughout the AppBuilder tools. NativeScript 2.5.1 is now the default version for new projects, so you can migrate to it, use it with our Companion apps and so on. The Visual Studio debugger speaks NativeScript too!
While we were working for the improvements in the builds and plugins support in Cordova, we managed to sneak some other updates. We fully enabled Cordova 6.4 throughout our toolset. You can migrate your projects to it, build with WKWebView and CrossWalk plugins, and debug on devices and the AppBuilder Simulator. As a reminder, this is not the default version yet, and the Companion app was not updated with it.
Another important change—we removed our support for Cordova versions older than 4.0.0. They were deprecated for a long time and they were not supported in the upstream Cordova project. You cannot publish apps developed with these versions to the Google Play store. We felt confident removing them at this time after confirming that their usage dropped considerably.
We know that managing iOS device provisioning profiles and cryptographic certificates is a complex task which sometimes requires arcane knowledge to do correctly. This is especially hard for people who just started with mobile development.
One of our internal goals is to allow our new users to get their first app running on their devices in manner of minutes. That's why we wanted to greatly simplify this task.
And now we can!
We are introducing a new way to create provisioning profiles for iOS development:
To access the first feature, use our Visual Studio Extension, and from the main menu choose "Build {project name} and Deploy." The Build dialog opens. If your connected iOS device is not included in a provisioning profile already added to your account, a new option, "Fix Issue," appears.
To perform this operation, we need your Apple developer account. Your credentials are used only to adjust the provisioning profile and are not stored anywhere after AppBuilder finishes the task!
Finally, we present you the list of actions we are going to perform. They modify your Apple developer account! We made sure that we are not performing any destructive operations but please verify the proposed actions twice before proceeding!
After AppBuilder successfully modifies your Apple developer account, the build can proceed.
That's it!
To learn more about these new features, please check our documentation.
We cooked up another useful feature too. When building your Android package, you can choose x86 architecture as a target now. This is useful if you want to build separate packages for publishing in Google Play store.
To use this feature, start Visual Studio, open your project, and when building, select the relevant architecture. The default setting should be usable in most scenarios.
We are not done yet! We used our time to lay the foundations for some exciting new features coming soon. Stay tuned for more details!
We want to hear from you. Are these features useful for you? How can we do better? Please, share your feedback using our portal!
New to AppBuilder and Telerik Platform? You can learn more about AppBuilder here, or start a free 30 trial at the link below.
Try AppBuilder
In terms of SaaS products, Telerik Platform has been around for a long time. What started in 2014 as the merging of disparate Telerik services (such as Icenium and Everlive) soon became a full-fledged hybrid app development environment. Times change of course, and we've noticed a sea-change in mobile app development needs; where individuals and organizations are more focused on providing even more engaging mobile experiences. Something certainly doable with hybrid, but far easier with performant native UI.
This is why NativeScript is becoming more and more critical for Telerik Platform's success. The ability to leverage this robust (and open source) framework for creating truly native, cross-platform, mobile apps is important for the success of the native JavaScript developer.
Today we have a few tidbits to share regarding NativeScript and Telerik Platform, with a bonus for our Cordova developers as well!
Up until recently, there was almost always some delay between a NativeScript release and being able to use that release within AppBuilder. However, now all NativeScript builds (and project templates) will be updated right after the NativeScript team releases framework updates to the public.
This means no more waiting for improvements and bug fixes, you'll have the advantage of choosing a new version to build with immediately!
Now occasionally there are changes to the framework that require updates to the AppBuilder tooling. In these situations there will be a slight delay as those changes are implemented, but generally should be no more than one release cycle.
We know that many of you leverage the AppBuilder services via our extension for Visual Studio. This is why we are happy to announce that the Visual Studio extension now supports the new NativeScript debugger interface!
This is just another example of an amazing joint effort internally with the NativeScript and AppBuilder engineering teams. The debugging UI in Visual Studio brings with it tremendous productivity improvement possibilities.
As with the NativeScript framework, we are always on top of the latest updates from Cordova. Historically we have used the platform-specific versioning to show which version of Cordova we are on. This unfortunately led to confusing versions like "Cordova-iOS 4.3.1" and "Cordova-Android 6.0.1". Our customers are more used to the Cordova CLI versioning, which wraps up the platform-specific bits into one version number.
Therefore, we are now leveraging the Cordova CLI versioning syntax to make it clear that we are staying up to date with Cordova as well!
The latest release of AppBuilder includes support for Cordova 6.4, which includes:
We are always eager to hear what you need to be more successful as a mobile developer. Connect with us via any of these resources:
Start your free Telerik Platform trial today!
We recently upgraded Telerik Platform, with new functionality related to NativeScript, Angular 2, SQLite, Google, Multi-lingual features and more.
A few weeks ago we upgraded Telerik Platform with more compelling features for making your development experience better. Since Telerik Platform is a cloud based product, you can start using these benefits immediately:
You get a new NativeScript + Angular 2 template in the AppBuilder client that is Screen Builder enabled. You can immediately start using the Views service to visually scaffold your NativeScript apps.
Earlier, only verified NativeScript plugins could be used in Telerik Platform projects, so as to prevent security attacks. With this release, we took the first step to allow any NativeScript plugin (even when they come from npmjs.org) into your projects. This was a highly requested feature. Please note that this is but an initial step in and we will deliver this functionality completely for Android and iOS in a subsequent release.
In this release, we have added a new data storage provider in the JS SDK that works with SQLite to handle larger data sets offline.
Your business needs are dynamic, which means the underlying data sources keep changing too. Whenever the schema of the data used in a Screen Builder app changes, you can now update the data provider to match the new schema. This is available for all supported data providers.
In October 2016, Google discontinued browser-based login from mobile apps in an effort to provide more seamless sign-in process. To overcome this limitation, we have added server support for the new Google OAuth policy so that developers can use the authentication flow from the native Google SDK. Read up on this quora.com question if you want to know how Google OAuth works.
You can now create multi-lingual Hybrid apps created with Views service. For adding multi-lingual content, developers can add resource files for each language that the app needs to support. From the end user’s perspective, there is flexibility to change the language while using the app’s UI.
Now you can build for iOS 10 and target its features in your NativeScript projects.
Now you can build your AppBuilder projects in Visual Studio 2017 RC with the AppBuilder extension. We ensured that all our existing features work with VS 2017 RC.
With each release, we make the Telerik Platform stronger for your mobile app development needs. For any usage questions about the features in your mobile apps, please refer to the product documentation or post a question with Product Support via a ticket and we will be more than happy to support you.
New to Telerik Platform and interested in trying out it? Start your free trial right here.]]>The life force of a construction company is operational efficiency. Accordingly to McKinsey, the construction industry is amongst the least digitalized, and is thus ripe for disruption. However, the role of mobile apps is becoming increasingly important in the construction sector, with contractors using smartphones, tablets and other portable devices to conduct everything from safety observations to quality checks to financial accounting and reporting.
Mobile solutions enable construction companies to improve responsiveness and use data even more intelligently. Whether construction workers are in the field collecting information about pouring concrete or in the yard signing out equipment, apps enable them to record, share and act upon critical data instantly. A plethora of other use cases can be read up here.
One large construction company, Cianbro, had a problem they were solving with clunky binders, where a mobile app could be much more effective. In this blog, I want to tell you how Cianbro boosted its operational efficiency with Telerik Platform by making an innovative B2E mobile app.
But first, let us try to understand the business landscape in which Cianbro operates. Cianbro is one of the largest (40+states) and most diverse open-shop construction and construction management services companies in the U.S. Having being in business for more than 65 years, Cianbro needs to live up to its reputation for completing projects safely, on schedule and on budget.
As part of its digital journey, Cianbro implemented a new Equipment Management Software (EMS) solution, which eventually fell short in terms of its ability to meet their actual business needs, especially pertaining to warehouse management.
The new EMS solution came with a barcode-based inventory management system for keeping track of tools used by employees as they are moved from the warehouse to the jobsite. While this feature worked well for some equipment, it didn’t for some bulk items, such as concrete forms.
As a result, Cianbro had to print binders full of barcodes to scan these bulk items. Employees had to manually flip through these thick books and scan the page to receive items. Clearly, this was not only inefficient, but also very frustrating. The employees needed to focus on doing their job, rather than wasting time on scanning their tools in between jobs. Cianbro recognized the risk of rogue solutions coming up if they didn’t respond to this intelligently. Surely, there was a more efficient way of doing this!
Cianbro looked upon Telerik Platform by Progress to make a mobile app to handle this in a more efficient way. “We wanted to be able to handle multiple mobile devices, while still utilizing a skillset that our development team already possessed, and Telerik Platform gave us that,” said Greg. Having used Telerik solutions successfully for 12 years to deal with .NET development challenges, choosing the Telerik Platform to design and deploy a mobile barcode application was an easy choice for Cianbro.
The results were pretty groundbreaking. After just a couple months in development, Cianbro was able to create a mobile application that enabled users to quickly look up barcodes from the palms of their hands instead of having to page through entire binders. Through the app, the workers could retrieve the item barcode and image of tool by searching for an item name. They then scanned the barcode with the existing EMS scanner. Its noteworthy here that the product image was useful to reduce incorrect item scanning to a minimum.
Looking at the success of the barcode catalog mobile solution, Cianbro opted to use Telerik Platform to rollout other applications. The second solution, an equipment maintenance application, took Cianbro only two weeks to develop.
Now that Cianbro’s developers are more familiar with Telerik Platform, Greg expects even quicker turnaround times in the future. “We’re likely to see about a 50 percent decrease in development time for mobile applications utilizing Telerik Platform, versus developing directly in native Objective-C development languages,” Greg said.
In addition to getting solutions to market faster, one of the reasons Greg went with Telerik Platform by Progress was that he knew from years of experience that he could count on us to keep support costs low. We’re proud of our longstanding reputation for first-class support, and we’re dedicated to the success of our customers and partners.
You can watch the story unfold in multimedia in this video below or read up the case study here.
]]>Last week, Burke Holland, Jen Looper, and I (Rob Lauer) hosted a free webinar focused on how the Telerik Platform is addressing the needs of modern developers who want to build native mobile apps with Angular 2. We covered a lot in this webinar, including:
Jen showed off the myriad improvements in Telerik AppBuilder and how you can leverage TypeScript, NativeScript and Angular 2 to create engaging mobile apps. She also covered some of the latest and greatest from the NativeScript framework itself. I showed how to use the Telerik Platform Views service (a.k.a. Screen Builder) to bootstrap your app in a code-free environment.
If you'd like to watch a recording of the webinar and follow along with the presenters using a free 30 day Telerik Platform trial, feel free to do so here:
Watch "A Deep Dive into Telerik Platform Support for Angular 2"
As with all of our webinars, we give out great raffle prizes to some lucky attendees. Here are the winners this time around:
This time we gave out an extra prize to a person who asked what we thought was a great question on Twitter, using the #AskTelerik hashtag:
Congratulations to our prize winners, and a big thank you to everyone who attended!
]]>