Apps migrated to Telerik are ideal for reference or minor ch

I should also add that the title of this posting is lifted from the note at the bottom of page 5 of the "Migrating Mobile Apps" white paper.

gord.

Hi Gord,

The decision to move to Telerik Platform (TP) from Rollbase Mobile explored both the positive and negative impact such a move might cause. It became clear that the power of the Telerik Platform far suppassed OE Mobile and the TP future roadmap is very exciting.

TP recently introduced Screen Builder which is a way to generate screens from a UI template and data source. The TP team continues to work on simplifying the task of building mobile applications and will continue to work on design time tooling while providing more platforms and development options such as NativeScript.

The designer view in AppBuilder is not a robust product at this time and as you have discovered, it does not support the generated UI for Rollbase Mobile. There are many other instances where it does not work - this is not isolated to OpenEdge/Rollbase.

The migration of the MAB project to TP is fully functionally and can be used as a fully supported app. We looked into converting existing Rollbase Mobile UIs in JQM but the control sets were not compatibile so we could not successfully convert to Kendo UI.

You said that you have two files that were migrated. I would be happy to meet with you to discuss how you might be able to move those to Kendo UI with the least amount of work.

Thanks

Shelley

Hello Shelley:

Thank you for replying to my Progress Communities posting.

When I mentioned that I had two files that were migrated what I should have said is that the migration appears to have encapsulated the bulk of my mobile app into the following three files:

 Login.css - 5600 lines

 Login.html - 4800 lines

 Login.js - 10600 lines

In offering to discuss how I should rewrite them into Kendo UI do you mean to discuss generalities or make specific suggestions based on the composition of my app?  If the latter then I am willing to share these files with you, or if you prefer a pre-migration backup of the app from Rollbase/OpenEdge Mobile.

As you can imagine I'm completely new to Telerik.  I had thought I would learn my way about Telerik as I figured out how to support and enhance a migrated app.  Now that I have learned that the migration basically creates an executable with minimal means to support it and no option to enhance it... I can see that it will be of no use in learning Telerik.  It is daunting to find that I have three simultaneous problems... the need to wrap my head about Telerik...  find the time to rewrite a reasonably complex app... and figure out how to convince my customer that they should pay for the development of the same app a second time.

In short this migration is looking difficult and stressful.  For Progress to offer no backward support to existing mobile apps beyond allowing them to be executed and receive minor changes is a bit brutal.  To declare that the migration must be accomplished in the short span of three months (June, July, August) worsens the situation.  At the very least Progress should keep the Rollbase/OpenEdge Mobile environment going for another year past the proposed cutoff date to make it possible to support and enhance existing production apps while Telerik replacements are developed and tested.  My customer will still be annoyed at having to pay me to write the same app twice, but a longer period will allow these costs to be factored into a more reasonable development schedule.

I'm sorry if I seem to be jumping up and down, but I really do think Progress has not done enough, to help mitigate the negative impacts of moving to Telerik.

Please let me know how you'd like to proceed.  You have said you would be happy to meet with me and I am more than willing to take you up on your offer.  I'm unsure, though, how you wish to meet and whether you'd like to see the details of my app beforehand.

Oh... I have just received an email from Progres saying "Now through July 31, 2015, you'll save a full 20 percent when you purchase Kendo UI framework!".  Does this mean that the Kendo UI is an additional cost not included in my Telerik subscription?  

Regards,

Gord.

For some very good business reasons, Progress is moving to Telerik Platform to support the development of mobile apps. Telerik Platform is vastly superior to what we have offered in the past in the form of OpenEdge/Rollbase Mobile. As part of that business decision, we are not able financially to maintain two mobile app development enviornements for an extended period of time, hence the formal retirement of OpenEdge/Rollbase Mobile in September.

Any transition like this often comes with a few bumps in the road. Progress invested significantly to ensure that existing OE/RB mobile apps could be migrated to Telerik Platform, that they would continue to work (with the caveat that backend services if used would have to be modified to make use of the Telerik backend services), and once migrated the apps could be modified to some extent. We've also ensured that it is possible to bind to data in the OE backend using our JSDO technology, and we've documented everything for our mobile app development community.

There are some realities that in the end we cannot overcome. While modest modifications can be made to migrated mobile apps, to achieve the full value of Telerik Platform it is necessary to "start fresh", i.e. rewirte if coming from OE/RB Mobile. We looked at all viable alternatives, but if significant modifications to migrated apps are needed, and especially if you would like to use the full value of Telerik Platform including things like the Kendo UI controls, there isn't any alternative.

Having said that, we are working with any customer in the situation where the migration alone has not proven sufficient, hence the comments from Shelley. I would encourage you to take a look at the available getting started information about Telerik Platform- you may be pleasantly surprised how quickly you can get going and be effective in creating mobile apps. You have a leg up in some respects in that your mobile app is deisgned so simply needs to be implemented.

You may want to start with the "Getting Started With Telerik Platform" resources documented at community.progress.com/.../17946.aspx.

Please also feel free to contact me (rob.straight@progress.com) if you would like to discuss further and if there is additional advice or assistance that Progress can provide.

While this may not be the perfect solution for you, we have worked very hard to make the transition to the new mobile app development platform as smooth as we possibly can, and we want to be sure that you are successful going forward with Telerik Platform.

Thanks,

    Rob

Hi Shelley/ Rob/ Edsel

I'm afraid that I have to agree to some extent with mainroad1 that the OE Mobile service is being withdrawn with undue haste. I am keen to make progress with creating a Telerik platform version of the app, but the situation with the new version of the JSDO and the changes this requires means that I cannot make a proper start until I understand the new version. As it seems at first look that the new JSDO is more complex than the previous version and requires changes to the business entities as well as more complex coding on the front end, I cannot realistically start development until I understand these changes fully. This means that the chances of having a fully redeveloped version by September are remote.

Unfortunately, although my app was imported into Telerik Platform, there are a couple of issues which means that the converted app is not demonstrable. Furthermore, a new problem (something to do with CORS) has emerged out of the blue which means the OE Mobile version has stopped working as well. As I am in the process of negotiating with a couple of Tier One UK Retailers to persuade them to use the app, this is a disaster for me. I don't want to change the OE Mobile version of the app in any way, I just need access to the OE Mobile test environment until this new problem is resolved.

Could I please request a three month stay of execution for OE Mobile? I think this is the least you can offer your loyal OE Mobile Early Adopters

Regards

Brian

Hi Shelley/ Edsel

Just reading the 11.5.1 release notes again and it says: "To allow the Telerik Kendo UI to access OpenEdge data using the server filtering, sorting, and paging features of the JSDO dialect of the Kendo UI DataSource". In my app, the data sets are small and I am not using any UI artefact that supports filtering and sorting - the Kendo UI grid is not present in the Mobile UI and the Mobile UI ListView (which is what I am using) doesn't support filtering and sorting. Does that mean I can ignore making the specified changes to my business entities or do I still have to provide them, even if I don't enable them?

This would simplify what I have to do.

Regards

Brian

Hello Brian,

You only needed the changes to the Business Entities if you want to enable server paging, filtering and sorting.

Please notice that with the Mobile UI ListView, you can specify a filter and sort options in the DataSource definition:

           jsdoDataSource = new kendo.data.DataSource({

               type: "jsdo",

               serverPaging: true,

               serverSorting: true,

               serverFiltering: true,

               filter: { field: "Name", operator: "contains", value: "Will" },

               sort: [ { field: "Name", dir: "desc" } ],

               transport: {

                   jsdo: jsdoSettings.resourceName

               },

               error: function(e) {

                   console.log("Error: ", e);

               }

           });

Also, if you use the endlessScroll option option in the Mobile UI ListView, you would need to specify a pageSize and serverPaging in DataSource definition.

If your dataSource is small, then you do not need to specify/set the server options to true (they are false by default), in which case, paging, filtering, and sorting will be performed locally by the Kendo UI code.

I hope this helps,

Edsel

Thanks, Edsel. In my main app, giving the user the ability to filter and sort is not appropriate, but I guess I need to understand it at some stage in case I need it in a different app, but at least it's not something I need to understand right now