Packaging Mobile Applications

Overview

Once you are done building the mobile application, you can package the application targeting some common mobile platforms. ColdFusion builder packaged applications can access the native capabilities of the mobile platform.  When you are building the applications, you will be writing only CFML code and not any device-specific native code.

Ideally, you will be using ColdFusion Builder for building the mobile application and ColdFusion Server for translating the ColdFusion code in your application to corresponding HTML/JavaScript code that can be packaged and installed on the device. ColdFusion builder gets this translation done through ColdFusion Server seamlessly with a few easy configuration settings. ColdFusion Builder helps in creating platform-specific installers (.apk and .ipa) by invoking the PhoneGap build service. However, you do not need to package the application targeting individual platforms if you are not using any hardware or device-specific functionalities.

See Types of mobile applications for all the supported types while building ColdFusion-based mobile applications. Information available in this chapter is only applicable for Type 1 and Type 3 deployments.

Supported mobile platforms

The ColdFusion builder currently supports packaging applications for the following mobile platforms:

• Android 4.x or higher
• iOS 6.0 or higher

Note that the platform requirements are enforced by the PhoneGap build service and not by ColdFusion Builder.

Packaging applications using ColdFusion Builder

After creating your mobile application in ColdFusion Builder, you can generate a platform-specific package that can be installed on the mobile device (iOS and Android). ColdFusion Builder sends the ColdFusion (.cfm) files to the ColdFusion Server, which converts the .cfm files to .html and .js files. All these files along with a generated PhoneGap configuration file (config.xml) are bundled and submitted to the Adobe’s PhoneGap build service. When the PhoneGap build service completes the build process, you can download the builds to the local file system.

Global configuration requirements

The following sections describe the global configurations required to prepare ColdFusion Builder for creating platform-specific mobile applications.

Step 1 – Get the required certificates

The ColdFusion Builder supports creating platform-specific builds for Android and iOS platforms. In order to package the mobile applications for these platforms, you need to configure the ColdFusion Builder to sign the applications with an appropriate developer/self-signed certificate. In the case of Android, providing the certificate details is optional as you can create an Android Application Package (APK) file for testing on your devices without signing it. However, testing the mobile application on iOS devices require you to have a developer certificate and a provisioning profile file.

Ensure that you follow the steps provided in this article to get started:

For iOS development

• Create and download development provisioning profiles. Note that you need to first join the iOS developer program to generate developer certificate for testing your mobile applications.

For Android development

• Create the keystore file for signing applications.

Step 2 – Register for a PhoneGap plan

You need to register on the PhoneGap build service site and get a suitable PhoneGap build plan. Choose from the available plans here and complete the registration. You can either register and create a new account or you can login using your Adobe ID.

Step 3 – Provide the server and authentication details

Once you have created and stored the required certificates, go to Windows > Preferences > ColdFusion > PhoneGap and provide the required details as shown in the following screen:

Project-specific configuration requirements

The following sections describe the project-specific configurations required to prepare ColdFusion Builder for creating platform-specific mobile applications.

Step 1 Configuring the mobile project properties

• If you have already created a ColdFusion Builder Mobile project (see Building Mobile Applications), right-click the project in the Navigator panel and click Properties.
• Select the ColdFusion Mobile Project in the left pane to see the available properties for configuration.
  Note: For packaging Server CFCs, go to the Miscellaneous tab and provide the application base URL.
• In the ColdFusion Mobile Project panel, select the Resource Selection tab and ensure that only the CFM files and other supporting assets (under the Server’s web root directory) are selected:
  

• Keep your CFM files and other supporting assets in a separate directory under the web root directory so that you can select just that directory. 
  Important: All the selected files must be present under the Server’s web root directory or under web root’s sub-directories. Also, it is mandatory to have an index.cfm file in your application. PhoneGap mandates its index file to be present in the root folder, because of which ColdFusion has to mandate all the mobile applications developed by ColdFusion Builder should have the index.cfm or index.html in the application root folder.
• Select the PhoneGap tab. 
  

• All these properties are automatically populated by ColdFusion Builder. You just need to change the author-specific information. Alternatively, you can also load the PhoneGap settings from an external PhoneGap configuration file. See https://build.phonegap.com/docs/config-xml for a sample PhoneGap configuration. If you need to add any other platform-specific attributes, you can add them through by clicking the Add Attribute… button. Note that there major changes from PhoneGap version 2.9 to 3.x. If you want to manually specify a PhoneGap version, you need to understand the changes mentioned in this document.
• Also, you need to link the web root path to your project. Click ColdFusion Project > Add to map the ColdFusion Server web root directory to a linked alias:

Step 2 Invoking the PhoneGap build service

After you have configured the mobile project with PhoneGap build service settings, you can invoke the PhoneGap build service, by right-clicking the mobile project and by clicking Generate PhoneGap Build. You may need to wait for a few seconds to obtain the platform builds from the PhoneGap service.

If you have triggered multiple builds, you can quickly check the status of your builds by invoking the PhoneGap build status view by clicking Window > Show View > Other > ColdFusion > PhoneGap Status.

Note that you need to add the PhoneGap Status view to the ColdFusion perspective.

You can also log into the PhoneGap build service site and check the progress of your builds:

• Go to https://build.phonegap.com/
• Click Sign in
• Click Apps and check the progress of the builds

If there are no errors while generating the platform-specific builds, you will see the download buttons for downloading the builds from the PhoneGap build server.

When you click the Download button, the build will get downloaded and stored in the PhonegapApps directory under the ColdFusion Builder workspace and you will get a notification message as shown in the following figure:

Testing the mobile application

Now that you have generated the platform-specific builds, you can test them on your mobile device to ensure that the application is functioning properly.

On Android

To test the application on an Android device, perform the following tasks:

• Transfer the APK file to the SD card or the phone memory.

• Execute the APK file to start the installation

• Once installed, invoke the application from the Applications menu:

Note that you need to enable your Android device to install non-market applications. See the troubleshooting section on installing non-market applications.

On iOS

When you have an IPA file stored locally, you can use Apple iTunes software to install the application on your iOS device.

To install the test application on your device, perform the following tasks:

1. In the Finder, drag the provisioning profile (the file with the .mobileprovision extension) to the iTunes icon in the Dock.
2. Double-click the app archive <App_Name>.ipa. The app appears in the iTunes Applications list.
3. Sync your device. If the version of iOS on your device is earlier than the test application can run on, you need to update your device with the current version of iOS.

See this video to understand how IPA files can be installed on devices using Apple iTunes. Ensure that the test device is provisioned before installing the IPA file. See this document to understand device provisioning.

Loading Hybrid applications (Type 3)

You can use the PhoneGap Shell Application (available for download from the pre-release forum)  to load hybrid applications on your mobile device.

To build a hybrid application, develop a ColdFusion Mobile application in ColdFusion Builder and deploy the application on ColdFusion Server.  You need to include the /CFIDE/cfclient/useragent.cfm file that will allow your application to detect the mobile platform and will correspondingly load  the platform-specific (Android or iOS) Cordova JavaScript file at runtime.

You can then run the mobile application deployed on the ColdFusion Server by entering the URL in the PhoneGap Shell Application or from your own customized shell application.

When the hybrid application is invoked, the content gets loaded from the ColdFusion Server. Also, the platform-specific Cordova-*.js file gets served by the ColdFusion Server depending on the mobile platform.

Use the PhoneGap Shell Application while developing your ColdFusion Mobile project to quickly test the application.

References

• Understand the PhoneGap build configuration