NSB App Studio - User contributions [en]

NoSQL DBs and AppStudio

2015-08-19T21:26:36Z

Rcarraretto:

== A Little Bit of Background ==

Before I get into the real thing, I'd like to first share a bit of history:

If you have been into WebApp creation, you probably realized that it is not just the application itself, you'll need to also have other stuff on your backend to be able to make the application meaningful. Considering I'm an old-fashioned programmer, I initially chose the "comfort zone" and had my server based on a LAMP model (Linux-Apache-MySQL-PHP, while other might prefer WAMP. You can figure out what W stands for).

The MySQL part was easy and creating all the tables and relationships was kind of fun and reminded me of the joy of normalizing data and creating all those relationships, indexes, views and so on. Then I had to think about the hard part: how could I interact with the server DB from my app? Easy: PHP as the frontend and I'm done. A friend of mine recommended a look on APIgility [http://apigility.org] and it realy helped with the API-like heavy-lifting and it was quite easy to implement a RESTful HAL+JSON API on top of it, talking to my MySQL database.

Next step, why not cache some records on the WebApp WebSQL (or SQLite if you prefer). By doing this, the app will look faster and it will also work offline. I started coding the caching mechanism and after a long couple months I realized that I was spending much more time on programming the "support" for my application than the application itself.

Now enter CouchDB/PouchDB. If these names sound weird, you definitely should Google about them.

== CouchDB ==

CouchDB [http://couchdb.apache.org] is a initiative from Apache Software Foundation that supports a "Database for the Web" (as the creators refer to CouchDB). It is a NoSQL, document-store database, that has several neat features that can really help speeding up your WebApp development:

1) It is fast enough for most applications;
2) The documents are stored as JSON objects;
3) It provides authentication for your users;
4) It is only accessible through HTTP, which makes it perfect for Ajax calls within AppStudio;
5) It can synchronize seamlessly to other CouchDB instances;
6) It's free, and there are PouchDB-like Cloud providers, where you can host your DB for free!

== PouchDB ==

PouchDB [http://pouchdb.com] is a JavaScript implementation of CouchDB. It is very easy to add to your AppStudio project (just as easy as adding any JavaScript library) and it provides a rich API and lots of plugins to ease the task of accessing your data.

== So what is in for me? ==

Give it a try. It is easier to start with PouchDB as it can all be done within the boundaries of AppStudio. You don't need to worry about your browser, as PouchDB will use the best persistence method available (IndexedDB first, then WebSQL, then LocalStorage).

Then install CouchDB on your computer, play a little bit with it and when you're ready for production, you can sign up for an IrisCouch [http://www.iriscouch.com] or Cloudant [http://www.cloudant.com] account and depending on the volume of data you use, it will run for free.

Happy coding!

NoSQL DBs and AppStudio

2015-08-19T21:24:57Z

Rcarraretto:

== A Little Bit of Background ==

Before I get into the real thing, I'd like to first share a bit of history:

If you have been into WebApp creation, you probably realized that it is not just the application itself, you'll need to also have other stuff on your backend to be able to make the application meaningful. Considering I'm an old-fashioned programmer, I initially chose the "comfort zone" and had my server based on a LAMP model (Linux-Apache-MySQL-PHP, while other might prefer WAMP. You can figure out what W stands for).

The MySQL part was easy and creating all the tables and relationships was kind of fun and reminded me of the joy of normalizing data and creating all those relationships, indexes, views and so on. Then I had to think about the hard part: how could I interact with the server DB from my app? Easy: PHP as the frontend and I'm done. A friend of mine recommended a look on APIgility [http://apigility.com] and it realy helped with the API-like heavy-lifting and it was quite easy to implement a RESTful HAL+JSON API on top of it, talking to my MySQL database.

Next step, why not cache some records on the WebApp WebSQL (or SQLite if you prefer). By doing this, the app will look faster and it will also work offline. I started coding the caching mechanism and after a long couple months I realized that I was spending much more time on programming the "support" for my application than the application itself.

Now enter CouchDB/PouchDB. If these names sound weird, you definitely should Google about them.

== CouchDB ==

CouchDB [http://couchdb.apache.org] is a initiative from Apache Software Foundation that supports a "Database for the Web" (as the creators refer to CouchDB). It is a NoSQL, document-store database, that has several neat features that can really help speeding up your WebApp development:

1) It is fast enough for most applications;
2) The documents are stored as JSON objects;
3) It provides authentication for your users;
4) It is only accessible through HTTP, which makes it perfect for Ajax calls within AppStudio;
5) It can synchronize seamlessly to other CouchDB instances;
6) It's free, and there are PouchDB-like Cloud providers, where you can host your DB for free!

== PouchDB ==

PouchDB [http://pouchdb.com] is a JavaScript implementation of CouchDB. It is very easy to add to your AppStudio project (just as easy as adding any JavaScript library) and it provides a rich API and lots of plugins to ease the task of accessing your data.

== So what is in for me? ==

Give it a try. It is easier to start with PouchDB as it can all be done within the boundaries of AppStudio. You don't need to worry about your browser, as PouchDB will use the best persistence method available (IndexedDB first, then WebSQL, then LocalStorage).

Then install CouchDB on your computer, play a little bit with it and when you're ready for production, you can sign up for an IrisCouch [http://www.iriscouch.com] or Cloudant [http://www.cloudant.com] account and depending on the volume of data you use, it will run for free.

Happy coding!

NoSQL DBs and AppStudio

2015-08-19T21:19:30Z

Rcarraretto:

== A Little Bit of Background ==

Before I get into the real thing, I'd like to first share a bit of history:

If you have been into WebApp creation, you probably realized that it is not just the application itself, you'll need to also have other stuff on your backend to be able to make the application meaningful. Considering I'm an old-fashioned programmer, I initially chose the "comfort zone" and had my server based on a LAMP model (Linux-Apache-MySQL-PHP, while other might prefer WAMP. You can figure out what W stands for).

The MySQL part was easy and creating all the tables and relationships was kind of fun and reminded me of the joy of normalizing data and creating all those relationships, indexes, views and so on. Then I had to think about the hard part: how could I interact with the server DB from my app? Easy: PHP as the frontend and I'm done. A friend of mine recommended a look on [APIgility|http://apigility.com] and it realy helped with the API-like heavy-lifting and it was quite easy to implement a RESTful HAL+JSON API on top of it, talking to my MySQL database.

Next step, why not cache some records on the WebApp WebSQL (or SQLite if you prefer). By doing this, the app will look faster and it will also work offline. I started coding the caching mechanism and after a long couple months I realized that I was spending much more time on programming the "support" for my application than the application itself.

Now enter CouchDB/PouchDB. If these names sound weird, you definitely should Google about them.

== CouchDB ==

CouchDB is a initiative from Apache Software Foundation that supports a "Database for the Web" (as the creators refer to CouchDB). It is a NoSQL, document-store database, that has several neat features that can really help speeding up your WebApp development:

1) It is fast enough for most applications;
2) The documents are stored as JSON objects;
3) It provides authentication for your users;
4) It is only accessible through HTTP, which makes it perfect for Ajax calls within AppStudio;
5) It can synchronize seamlessly to other CouchDB instances;
6) It's free, and there are PouchDB-like Cloud providers, where you can host your DB for free!

== PouchDB ==

PouchDB is a JavaScript implementation of CouchDB. It is very easy to add to your AppStudio project (just as easy as adding any JavaScript library) and it provides a rich API and lots of plugins to ease the task of accessing your data.

== So what is in for me? ==

Give it a try. It is easier to start with PouchDB as it can all be done within the boundaries of AppStudio. You don't need to worry about your browser, as PouchDB will use the best persistence method available (IndexedDB first, then WebSQL, then LocalStorage).

Then install CouchDB on your computer, play a little bit with it and when you're ready for production, you can sign up for an IrisCouch or Cloudant account and depending on the volume of data you use, it will run for free.

Happy coding!

NoSQL DBs and AppStudio

2015-08-19T19:59:43Z

Rcarraretto:

== A Little Bit of Background ==

Before I get into the real thing, I'd like to first share a bit of history:

If you have been into WebApp creation, you probably realized that it is not just the application itself, you'll need to also have other stuff on your backend to be able to make the application meaningful. Considering I'm an old-fashioned programmer, I initially chose the "comfort zone" and had my server based on a LAMP model (Linux-Apache-MySQL-PHP, while other might prefer WAMP. You can figure out what W stands for).

The MySQL part was easy and creating all the tables and relationships was kind of fun and reminded me of the joy of normalizing data and creating all those relationships, indexes, views and so on. Then I had to think about the hard part: how could I interact with the server DB from my app? Easy: PHP as the frontend and I'm done. A friend of mine recommended a look on APIgility and it realy helped with the API-like heavy-lifting and it was quite easy to implement a RESTful HAL+JSON API on top of it, talking to my MySQL database.

Next step, why not cache some records on the WebApp WebSQL (or SQLite if you prefer). By doing this, the app will look faster and it will also work offline. I started coding the caching mechanism and after a long couple months I realized that I was spending much more time on programming the "support" for my application than the application itself.

Now enter CouchDB/PouchDB. If these names sound weird, you definitely should Google about them.

== CouchDB ==

CouchDB is a initiative from Apache Software Foundation that supports a "Database for the Web" (as the creators refer to CouchDB). It is a NoSQL, document-store database, that has several neat features that can really help speeding up your WebApp development:

1) It is fast enough for most applications;
2) The documents are stored as JSON objects;
3) It provides authentication for your users;
4) It is only accessible through HTTP, which makes it perfect for Ajax calls within AppStudio;
5) It can synchronize seamlessly to other CouchDB instances;
6) It's free, and there are PouchDB-like Cloud providers, where you can host your DB for free!

== PouchDB ==

PouchDB is a JavaScript implementation of CouchDB.

PouchDB is

NoSQL DBs and AppStudio

2015-08-19T19:59:22Z

Rcarraretto:

== A Little Bit of Background ==

Before I get into the real thing, I'd like to first share a bit of history:

If you have been into WebApp creation, you probably realized that it is not just the application itself, you'll need to also have other stuff on your backend to be able to make the application meaningful. Considering I'm an old-fashioned programmer, I initially chose the "comfort zone" and had my server based on a LAMP model (Linux-Apache-MySQL-PHP, while other might prefer WAMP. You can figure out what W stands for).

The MySQL part was easy and creating all the tables and relationships was kind of fun and reminded me of the joy of normalizing data and creating all those relationships, indexes, views and so on. Then I had to think about the hard part: how could I interact with the server DB from my app? Easy: PHP as the frontend and I'm done. A friend of mine recommended a look on APIgility and it realy helped with the API-like heavy-lifting and it was quite easy to implement a RESTful HAL+JSON API on top of it, talking to my MySQL database.

Next step, why not cache some records on the WebApp WebSQL (or SQLite if you prefer). By doing this, the app will look faster and it will also work offline. I started coding the caching mechanism and after a long couple months I realized that I was spending much more time on programming the "support" for my application than the application itself.

Now enter CouchDB/PouchDB. If these names sound weird, you definitely should Google about them.

== CouchDB ==

CouchDB is a initiative from Apache Software Foundation that supports a "Database for the Web" (as the creators refer to CouchDB). It is a NoSQL, document-store database, that has several neat features that can really help speeding up your WebApp development:

1) It is fast enough for most applications;
2) The documents are stored as JSON objects;
3) It provides authentication for your users;
4) It is only accessible through HTTP, which makes it perfect for Ajax calls within AppStudio;
5) It can synchronize seamlessly to other CouchDB instances;
6) It's free, and there are PouchDB-like Cloud providers, where you can host your DB for free!

== PouchDB ==

PouchDB is a JavaScript implementation of CouchDB.

PouchDB is

NoSQL DBs and AppStudio

2015-08-19T19:50:28Z

Rcarraretto:

Before I get into the real thing, I'd like to first share a bit of history:

If you have been into WebApp creation, you probably realized that it is not just the application itself, you'll need to also have other stuff on your backend to be able to make the application meaningful. Considering I'm an old-fashioned programmer, I initially chose the "comfort zone" and had my server based on a LAMP model (Linux-Apache-MySQL-PHP, while other might prefer WAMP. You can figure out what W stands for).

The MySQL part was easy and creating all the tables and relationships was kind of fun and reminded me of the joy of normalizing data and creating all those relationships, indexes, views and so on. Then I had to think about the hard part: how could I interact with the server DB from my app? Easy: PHP as the frontend and I'm done. A friend of mine recommended a look on APIgility and it realy helped with the API-like heavy-lifting and it was quite easy to implement a RESTful HAL+JSON API on top of it, talking to my MySQL database.

Next step, why not cache some records on the WebApp WebSQL (or SQLite if you prefer). By doing this, the app will look faster and it will also work offline. I started coding the caching mechanism and after a long couple months I realized that I was spending much more time on programming the "support" for my application than the application itself.

Now enter CouchDB/PouchDB. If you never heard of them, you definitely should Google about them.

NoSQL DBs and AppStudio

2015-08-19T19:02:39Z

Rcarraretto: NoSQL databases are a very good option for WebApp development, instead of always relying on SQL (local) and on a webserver with an SQL backend, on top of an API (usually PHP).

( UNDER CONSTRUCTION )

Tech Notes

2015-08-19T18:59:11Z

Rcarraretto: /* Tech Notes */

These Tech Notes provide additional information that is not contained in the printed documentation. You may also be interested in our Tutorials. Check back here from time to time for updates!

If you have an idea for a Tech Note, please let us know. We will be happy to post it, giving you full credit.

== Tech Notes ==
* [[Solutions_to_Common_Problems|Solutions to Common Problems]]
* [[Compatibility_with_other_versions_of_BASIC|Compatibility with other versions of BASIC]]
* [[The_role_of_JavaScript,_HTML5_and_WebKit|The role of JavaScript, HTML5 and WebKit]]
* [[Emulators_and_Simulators|Emulators and Simulators]]
* [[A_Field_Guide_to_App_Studio Controls|A Field Guide to App Studio Controls]]
* [[Using Smart Device Sensors]]
* [[Ajax_made_Simple|Ajax made Simple]]
* [[Using_the_PhoneGap_API|Using the PhoneGap API: Device, Camera, Contacts, Barcodes]]
* [[Using_the_PhoneGap_API:_Pushwoosh|Using the PhoneGap API: Pushwoosh]]
* [[Using SQLite|Files: Using SQLite to save data]]
* [[SQLite Reference]]
* [[ToolBox Files]]
* [[How to run fullscreen in an Android Chrome app]]
* [[Using Dropbox to save files]]
* [[Using a Dropbox Datastore]]
* [[Using Google Glass with AppStudio|Using Google Glass]]
* [[NoSQL DBs and AppStudio|NoSQL databases: good option for WebApp development]]

=== Distributing your App ===
* [[Distributing_your_App|Distributing your App]]
* [[Web_Apps_Compared_to_PhoneGap_Apps|Web Apps Compared to PhoneGap Apps]]
* [[Using PhoneGap to create an iOS App]]
* [[Submitting to the iOS App Store]]
* [[Using PhoneGap to create an Android APK]]
* [[Submitting to the Google Play and Amazon Stores]]
* [[Making Desktop Apps with App Studio|Making Desktop Packaged Apps with AppStudio]]
* [[PhoneGap CLI|Using the PhoneGap CLI]]

== Courses ==

These are the notes for our 4 day course. It assumes the trainees have a programming background. You can follow through the course notes and lab sessions on your own: if you would like on site training please contact us for details.

* [[AppStudio Course]]
* [https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/4451197/AppStudioCourse.zip AppStudio Course Samples, Labs and Solutions (zip file)]