Putting it together

Putting it together http://www.flickr.com/photos/ourcage/8343799386/

Let's put the pieces together • Creating a little native mobile app • To show how to combine cloud with native mobile • To illustrate some maintainability-related issues • Including modular code structure • Including use of events to decouple code • To introduce a few new APIs • Detecting network connection • Closing windows / back button • Minor styling APIs

Key functionality of this example app • For a native mobile app user… • Browse through a list of short textual snippets previously entered • Enter a new textual snippet • Native mobile app should automatically detect network connectivity & copy to server

Code Walkthrough: DearDiary (Note: tested only on Android emulator)

Detecting network connection • Key concepts • Network connectivity is flaky • You can ask the operating system for the current network connection status • Key code • if Titanium.Network.networkType != Titanium.Network.NETWORK_NONE

Modular code structure • Key concepts • Splitting into modules promotes maintainability • Each module (file) exposes selected functions (effectively presenting an interface) • Key code • Put related code in the same JS file; put unrelated code in different JS files • exports.fnName = function(…) to declare a function • varmylib = require('filename') to reference a module

Decoupling code using events • Key concepts • Exposing events makes it possible to trigger code without explicitly referencing that code • When something happens in object Y, then object Y can cause function X to run without Y having to reference X • Key code • object.fireEvent('myevt', param) to fire off an event • object.addEventListener('myevt', function(param) { … }); to register event handler

Putting it together