CFAir synch

1. Terry Ryan | Evangelist Building ColdFusion Powered Mobile Applications Developer Week June 20 – June 24, 2011

2. Assumptions You know a little ColdFusion You know a little Flex You know what AIR is You’ve heard about AIR on Mobile Devices 2

3. What is this about? “Building ColdFusion Powered Mobile Applications” More specifically ColdFusion support for data in mobile apps. 3

4. Review 4

5. ColdFusion - Do you know what a CFC is? ColdFusion Component Collection of Functions Functions Have “Scope” remote, public, package, and private Remote means accessible to the world remotely through a webservice Remote Access Plain Text WDDX JSON AMF or Flash Remoting 5

6. Flex – Do you know what a remote object is? RemoteObject Remote Server call Uses AMF AMF Client requests data Server converts from server objects to ActionScript objects Server transmits binary objects to requesting client 6

7. Mobile Apps = AIR 7

8. AIR for Devices app.bar app.apk app.ipa

9. AIR and SQLite AIR uses SQLite for offline data access SQLite is tiny footprint database Used in Native IOS Native Android 9

10. Application We are building Staff information for my immediate team 1 table Person information 10

11. Demo – Backend Code 11

12. Approaches to Mobile Data Mobile only (Not Covered) Network Only Read only cache Sync-able cache 12

13. Network Only Backend Server has database User requests data Mobile App requests data Mobile App presents it directly to user 13

14. Network Only 14 Remote Object Service

15. Demo – Network Only 15

16. Network Only Pros Easy to write Simple Apps Cons Good For Demo apps Proof of Concepts Stale data worse then no data Have to be connected to network No interactivity Take away You just turned your app in to a dumbed down browser

17. Read Only Cache Backend Server has database Mobile App has database User requests data Mobile app presents data from its database Mobile App requests data Mobile App overwrites all its data. 17

18. Read Only Cache 18 DAO Service Remote Object

19. Demo – Read Only Cache 19

20. Read only Cache Pros Moderately easy to write Allows offline access Cons Good For Consumption apps Stop gap app No interactivity Take aways Better then network only Still limited Might be right for your users

21. Synch-able Cache Backend Server has database Mobile App has database User requests/alters data Mobile app presents/alters data from/for its database Mobile App synchs all its data. Mobile app and server manage conflicts 21

22. CF AIR Synch ColdFusion 9 Introduced AIR Offline support You write a sychmanager that matched ISynchmanager interface You include cfair.swc in your Flex 22

23. Synch-able Cache 23 Main Synch Manager Service

24. Demo – Synch-able Cache 24

25. Synch-able Cache Pros This is a real app Much easier then writing all of that code Cons Good For Real apps So complex to write, simplified version is still complex Code is obscured Take aways Might work for you Still might have to roll your own

26. Tips 26

27. Sometimes you have to manually cast DAO CFAIR Synch 27

28. Watch out for circular references ORM with relationships Copy ColdFusion ORM and remove relationships 28

29. App should only present local All app data should be displayed from local App should only synch to server 29

30. Prepare databases Ship apps with prepopulated databases 30

31. Use Asynchronous Database calls Little harder then you are used to But allows for responsive apps. 31

32. 32 Download adobe.com/go/try_flashbuilder adobe.com/go/coldfusion Learn adobe.com/devnet/flex adobe.com/devnet/coldfusion

33. 33 Codehttp://bitly.com/bundles/tpryan/2