MobiOne Studio 2.1 Preview 1 introduces new media player widgets for
audio and video and major new widget styling features. We are
providing this preview release to give the MobiOne community an opportunity to work with these features and give us feedback of their
experiences and discuss areas for improvement.
1.1 Highlights
Following are the key improvements available in MobiOne 2.1 Preview 1. See the
Highlights
Showcase for more details and screenshots of these features.
Design Center
New audio player widget
MP3 files and streams
New video player widget (experimental)
H.264 (.m4v), VP8 (.webm), Theora (.ogg)
Full screen playback mode for all devices; embedded video playback only available for iOS tablets
New glossy styling option
Introduced new styling properties all buttons and list widgets widgets; enables creat
Customize application properties
Additional Files - specify files to import into the app such as images, media files, other libraries, and unlinked designer files (.mobi)
JQuery version - specify the version of the JQuery library that should be used in the application
Test Center
Support for audio player with live playback
Support for video player rendering but does not playback live video
Fixed Google map panning with map tile update issue
See Section 3.3 below for more details about App Center.
Operating Systems - Windows Only
Windows 7 (32/64 bit)
Windows Vista (32 bit)
Windows XP (32 bit)
Minimum Hardware
Pentium 500 MHz or greater
1 GB RAM or greater
300 MB hard disk free space
Display resolution: 1280x960 or greater recommended
2.2 Installation
Genuitec provides a Windows installer based on Genuitec’s
OneInstall
technology.
Recommend uninstalling former versions of
MobiOne
While the MobiOne installer is capable of upgrading existing MobiOne
installations, we recommend that you uninstall any former version
before running the MobiOne installer.
3.1.1 Designing for Landscape Orientation and Better Layout on Other
Devices
When laying out a user interface that must render well on multiple
devices or in both landscape and portrait orientations, we recommend
you place all widgets that must adjust their size or location to the
form factor into a panel widget. Use the Auto-Resize layout
properties to configure how each widget will be positioned and sized
for the current display. Also you might need to enable the containing
panel's vertical scrollbar so no content is clipped when the user
interface is rendered on a display shorter than the form size for
which the user interface was originally created.
Note: List, Rounded List, and SelectLists do not support vertical
auto-resize properties
Note: You can not enable fixed left and right margins when a
component's width is fixed. A similar restriction applies to fixed
top and bottom margins for components with fixed height. This applies
to toggle and checkbox components.
3.1.2 In-line Text Editing Renders at 100% Scale
The in-line text editing mode renders text at 100% scale regardless
of the Visual Designer’s current scale. This may result in text
appearing slightly misaligned at times during editing.
3.1.3 Round-trip Design to Code - Not Supported Yet
MobiOne does not keep designs and their corresponding HTML
synchronized. Therefore, if you export a design as HTML and then edit
the HTML layout files and repeat this process, the former HTML files
can be overwritten. To support customization of generated code,
MobiOne generates a customizable JavaScript file named after the
source design file. You can modify this file without concern that
future code-generation will overwrite it.
Example: For the design file, Foo.mobi the file Foo_custom.js is
generated once and never regenerated.
We are working to increasingly improve your ability to customize
MobiOne generated HTML and CSS layout code in a manner that future
design exports will not overwrite.
3.1.4 Undo/Redo Issues
The Undo and Redo edit commands do not function correctly in all
scenarios. Redo is a little sketchy, and in some contexts is
inoperable.
3.1.5 Design Components Must Have Unique IDs
For HTML generation to function correctly, each component in a design
must have a unique ID. During the export process, ID conflicts are
automatically resolved to enable the resulting application to render
properly in the Test Center and on iOS devices. The ID conflict
resolution process prepends a simple prefix to all IDs.
3.1.6 Media Icon Redistribution
The Media palette includes almost 60 icons for use within your
design. When a design containing any of the preinstalled media is
exported as HTML, its images are included in the generated source
code. You are free to redistribute these icons as part of the
original design, as a design template or as a derivative of that
design. The icons are not provided for general reuse and
redistribution outside of the MobiOne design and development process.
3.1.7 Platform Specific UI Themes - iOS Only
At this time, only iOS themed widgets are provided. We plan to
provide additional themes in a future release.
3.1.8 Designing for Android Screen Sizes and Densities
There is a wide range of devices that Android operates upon. The 2.0
version does not provide screen density settings. We plan to provide
screen density settings for a future release.
3.1.9 Screen Transition Strategy to Deal with Quirks on Different
Android Versions and Devices
Quirky animated screen transitions is a well-known issue across the 4
major versions of Android. Due to extremely poor performance on
Android version 1 and 3, only the Fade transition performs
respectably. Thus, all screen transitions are implemented as a Fade
transition on Android 1 and 3. Additionally, due to a WebKit bug, the
Flip Left and Flip Right transitions are mapped to the Fade
transition on Android versions 2 and 4.
3.1.10 Jumpy Virtual Keyboard on Input-Field, Password and TextArea
Widgets
On some devices the screen jumps up and down when typing text into
Input Field, Password or TextArea widgets that are positioned near
the bottom of a screen.
3.1.11 Video Player Pause button issue on iPad
When playing a video on an iPad in embedded mode (not full screen) the pause action
renders a large play button that is inactive. Pressing the native play button on the bottom of the player
will resume the video playback.
On some devices the screen jumps up and down when typing text into
Input Field, Password or TextArea widgets that are positioned near
the bottom of a screen.
3.2 Test Center
3.2.1 Mobile Webapp Emulation Support - No Native Application
Emulation Support
The Test Center emulator for the iOS and Android platforms is limited
to emulation of mobile web features.
Therefore, the emulator does not support installation and
execution of native app binaries, e.g., .ipa and .apk files. You
will receive a warning if you attempt to perform an over-the-air web
installation of a native application. The background for the mobile
web emulation scope is that the future of cross-platform mobile
development is squarely concentrated towards the combination of HTML5
and hybrid application technologies. The Test Center emulator will
evolve to support this emerging strategy.
3.2.2 No Video Playback Support
The Design Center's video widget support is limited to rendering the video player UI including poster image. Video playback support is not available at this time. Instead when user presses the player's play button a simulated full screen control is presented that includes a note that playback is not available.
3.2.3 iPhone Device Mode Does Not Support Scaling
The iPhone emulator mode provides only 100% scaling. More flexible
scaling similar to the iPad mode is planned for a future release.
3.2.4 Default iPhone Web Page Scaling Not Available
The iPhone emulator does not automatically scale an unoptimized
website to fit its viewport. We are developing a new viewport
management and rendering model that more closely emulates that of the
iPhone.
3.2.5 Mouse Events Generated
The iPhone emulator converts mouse events to touch and gesture
events. Both the original mouse events and the corresponding touch
events are dispatched to the DOM. This differs from actual iPhone and
iTouch devices, which do not propagate mouse events to the DOM.
3.2.6 Can Not Rearrange Home Sceen (Springboard) Icons
You cannot yet rearrange home screen icons.
3.2.7 tel: and sms: URL Emulation
The emulator is unable to make telephone calls or send SMS message.
When the emulator encounters a URL with the tel: or sms: schema, a
pop-up window is presented with a simple mock message.
3.2.8 Emulated Alert Dialog
Due to a quirk in the Test Center emulator, the Design Center's Popup
Alert action creates HTML code that renders a custom alert dialog in
the Test Center emulator. The native JavaScript alert will appear
when the user interface is rendered on an iOS device.
3.2.9 Panel with Scrolling Background Issue
There is a known WebKit bug that prevents Test Center or Mobile
Safari from being able to clip a scrolling background of a panel with
rounded corners. Thus, you should limit use of the new Panel property
"Scroll background" to only panels that have square corners
(i.e., 90 degree corners).
3.3 MobiOne App Center
3.3.1 MobiOne App Center
MobiOne App Center provides a quick and easy way to build, install
and share native iOS applications and optimized mobile web
applications.
3.3.2 iOS Versions Supported (iOS 4 & 5)
Apps created by App Center are compatible with iOS 4.X and 5.X.
iPhone 3.x OS compatibility is not supported at this time due to an
instability in the Phonegap framework. We are researching this issue
but have no timeline for if and when creation of iPhone 3 compatible
apps will be available as Apple is reducing support for version 3 and
earlier apps.
3.3.3 Security
App Center hosted apps and webapps are accessed using obscure
semi-private URLs, e.g., http://gl1e4z.gl, provided by App Center.
While such URLs are publicly accessible, the are difficult to guess.
Additionally, iOS apps may be installed only on devices defined in
the provision profile you provided during build configuration.
3.3.4 No iTunes App Store Submission
App Center does not provide automated services to assist with App
Store submission of your iOS applications. We currently recommend use
of
www.appstoreuploader.com,
a low cost provider of App Store submission services.
3.3.5 PhoneGap/Apache Cordova Framework - NO EMULATION OR TECH
SUPPORT in 2.0
MobiOne native apps are built using the open source PhoneGap 1.1
framework. Ownership of this framework has been transferred from
Nitobi to the Apache Foundation where it has been renamed the Cordova
project. This 2.0 release is concentrated toward providing the
services to create Android and iOS applications from your MobiOne
generated webapps.
Therefore, Genuitec will not provide Test Center emulation of
PhoneGap/Cordova APIs and apps until a later release. You are free
to use PhoneGap JavaScript APIs, but we will not provide technical
support for PhoneGap API usage until it is supported by the Test
Center emulator.
3.3.6 Hosting and Data Transfer Limits
The maximum total upload size of a project to App Center for either
native application build or mobile webapp plublishing has been
expanded to 50Mb.
3.3.7 Android Builder can not support Files containing non-Ascii &
Special Chars
The Android App Builder Wizard can not process .mobi and image file
names that contain of non-ascii characters or these +:/\#$&% special
characters.
4. Known Issues
Design Center Issues
13227
Tab key not supported for component navigation
13236
Problems with tooltips on multi-monitor configuration
14349
EFS logs an Exception on start - no effect on MobiOne
14860
Press "del" btn while entering text in TextArea deletes
component not text
15083
Designer becomes very slow when moving several components
14305
HTML for Image buttons & tab bar buttons does not provide
select feedback
16214
Making small button causes its title to shrink while exported
17925
Faceplate image in very large or small "Fit window"
scale could use improvement
18100
When scale != 100% selected component outline is rendered
misaligned on bottom and right
18156
In some cases, scrolled panel does not clip content that extends
outside of its viewport, e.g., long text
18363
Undo not available for alignment operations
18364
Rounded corner panel does not clip scrolling image background
(see #17052)
18519
Text formatting does not match iPhone rendering in some cases due
to diff between Windows font metrics and iOS font metrics
20943
Jumpy editing of InputField, Password & TextArea positioned
near bottom of screen
21810
Video player poster image scales to fill video player at runtime. Image may be distorted.
General/App Center/Update Issues
N/A
MobiOne can not install into path with non-ascii chars
N/A
Can not install into read-only privileged directory, e.g.,
c:\Program Files on Win7 & Vista
N/A
NTLM proxy not supported
N/A
Update Test Center proxy settings requires MobiOne restart
N/A
Duplicate proxy authentication required when update system starts
after Test Center emulator
20872
Android App Builder does not support files with non-ascii names
Test Center Issues
10871
iPhone meta tags for user scale/zoom/viewport are not supported
(yet)
10872
Popup windows are not support
10098
Viewport indicators are not visible during mousewheel scrolling
11020
Inaccurate font sizing on some sites
11116
Odd "try{__injected}catch(e){}" in debugger
11784
iPhone 2.2 should not have access to geolocation API of iPhone 3
11811
No support for 3D CSS
11914
No prompt shown to user to ask permission to let html app access
geolocation
12307
All mouse events still fired on touch/gesture events
14376
Close dirty editor does not warn to save contents
15377
JQtouch swipe event not processed correctly
16409
Ctrl+PrnScn causes controls to disappear rather than print the
screen
17052
Rounded corner panel does not clip panel contents - WebKit bug
18553
Native json API not supported
18572
Spinner control does not automatically close on page transition
or form submit
20987
Mouse-wheel scrolling clips view in Android devices
21052
No settings to customize Android personalities background
21055
Android Nexus S homescreen emulation should not rotate when in
landscape orientation
N/A
Native kinetic scrolling (flick scrolling) not available
N/A
Flash is enabled when N/A on iOS devices
N/A
Some proxy settings not supported such as NTLM proxies
N/A
UI does not refresh correctly when overlapped by other app window
that is moved
N/A
UI corrupt layout when moving app window over Test Center
repeatedly, e.g., Exchange
N/A
Emulator browser does not report cross-domain access violations -
use Local Web Server to resolve
N/A
No emulation of PhoneGap/Cordova SDK and API
N/A
No
5. Contact Us
We welcome your feedback. Please share with us your opinions on what
we are doing right and areas for improvement on the
MobiOne
Feedback forum.