Unplugged for iOS
Unplugged Engine for iOS®
Extend Lotus Notes® to iPhones® and iPads®, with mobile sync
With the Unplugged XPages Engine and HTML5, Teamstudio® introduces a simple yet powerful vision for extending your Lotus Notes®/Domino® applications to iOS devices. The Unplugged XPages Engine works with the Domino Designer to create XPages apps that run on iOS® devices and update via mobile sync to Domino servers.
With its HTML5-based architecture, the Unplugged XPages Engine unleashes the full creativity of the mobile user interface designer. You can create touch-optimized, visual, customized mobile apps for iOS which look as good as consumer apps. The Unplugged XPages Engine is cross-platform. You create a single code base across the most popular mobile platforms which is easier to maintain.
To experience the richness of an Unplugged HTML5 user interface (in this case working to a remote data store) simply go to http://emea.teamstudio.com/vab/vab_demo.nsf from your Safari browser on your iPad or iPhone.
Use your existing design tools
The Unplugged XPages Engine dramatically simplifies the job of creating custom, mobile sync-enabled mobile apps for the enterprise. It does this by extending your existing platform for collaborative applications, starting with Lotus Notes and Domino. Unplugged XPages Engine developers work with the standard Domino Designer tools within the standard Eclipse IDE, so there is no need to climb the learning curve of a new and complex mobile application development platform.
HTML5 user interfaces
HTML5 is a new standard defined by the W3C, for structuring and presenting content on the Web. In conjunction with HTML5, the Unplugged XPages Engine offers the benefits of:
- a single UI architecture
- a single maintainable codebase
- easier-to-use visual user interfaces, not just text fields and forms
- cross-platform support for the major mobile OSes
- support for online or occasionally-connected modes of operation
How does Unplugged work?
The Unplugged XPages Engine acts as a miniature Lotus Domino server running on the iOS device. This miniature server comprises a datastore, a JavaScript engine, a replication client and an XSP engine working together. This allows applications to be created in Domino Designer which can read and write to the local data store on the iOS device. Any changes to the data are then updated with the Domino server via mobile sync at the next convenient replication event.
Choose your method
Unplugged XPages Engine applications are developed using either the “XPages Controls” method or the “Freeform” method. Both use the same code and may be freely mixed within the same application. The XPages Controls method is useful for creating simpler apps that do not require very fine control of the user interface. The Freeform method allows you to build a rich, visual mobile UI using all of the power of HTML5 and 3rd party script libraries.
Why use Unplugged?
A quick summary of the benefits from the Unplugged approach:
- Fully functional custom apps can be created quickly on iOS, (as compared to primitive field mapping apps)
- Reliable operation: Unplugged apps with mobile sync just work, even if signal strength is weak
- Easier-to-use visual user interfaces can be built quickly using HTML5
- No need to buy a specialized mobile app dev platform, just extend your existing enterprise app development environment
- No expensive specialized consultants required; use existing skillsets
- No need to develop a new set of enterprise software connectors
- A reduction in the number of system components means fewer points of potential failure
Unplugged roadmap
On the device side, Teamstudio is developing versions of the Unplugged Engine for all the major mobile OS platforms. For more information on the Unplugged product roadmap, click here.
