A Conversation About Conversations

David Pitt Articles, Conversational Apps, Development Technologies & Tools, JavaScript, Keyhole Creations, Mobile, Node.js, React Leave a Comment

We created a platform that supports developing a “conversational” type application through SMS. The user experience between a user and an SMS application can be thought of as a conversation. A user texts a question or topic, and a reply is returned, then another question and reply is performed until a desired result is accomplished.

Now, this is not a universal user experience, but for many use cases it can provide an easy to deliver users functionality quickly and conveniently. There is no need to install or download apps, or pop open a browser and type in a URL; just have a conversation through your texting app.

In this blog: Why conversational applications are handy, examples of conversational applications we have created, and a walkthrough of the application architecture used to develop those SMS applications. Includes how to make texting a richer experience, state, and session handling insights.

Building Applications Using the backbone.khs Framework Extension

John Boardman Articles, BackboneJS, Development Technologies & Tools, JavaScript, Node.js Leave a Comment

Backbone is a very powerful application development framework. However, it can be a little “close to the metal” in terms of how much work is needed to produce a working application with it. I see Backbone as a low level framework that could use some help in making it a bit easier and faster to use.

Keyhole has released an extension to help! The backbone.khs framework extension npm module (available by clicking the link) does its best to minimize the work necessary to get a Backbone application up and running.

The extension makes it easier to deal with:
• browser history
• root level non-Model Object implementation
• caching
• session support
• regions (which break pages up into more workable segments)
• a top-level Application object to manage the application
• modules to help with page and URL routing
• a Backbone View extension to seamlessly integrate Backbone Stickit and make Marionette templates easier
• a Collection View to enhance working with groups of items.

In this blog, I’ll describe these enhancements with some code examples…

Getting Started With Angular CLI Commands

Brett Smith Angular, Articles, JavaScript, Programming, Single-Page Application Leave a Comment

A tool that helps the journey of learning Angular is the Angular CLI. The CLI is a useful tool that can help set up and add different elements to your projects. It follows some of the best practices that have been laid down by the Angular team, even handling some of the plumbing for you so that things will work well together.

This post shows some of the basic commands available within the CLI. We will look at some of the basic commands that can help get a project started and built, paying particular attention to the different commands and what they produce, as far as application structure and file layout is concerned…

Getting Started With Ionic 2

Adam Costenbader Angular, Articles, Development Technologies & Tools, JavaScript, Mobile, Tutorial, TypeScript Leave a Comment

Everyone wants to have an “App” to represent them, their company, or just to perform some common task they might have in mind.

The problem with this is that there is so much to mobile app development. iPhone apps require that you have a Mac to compile them. Android apps have to deal with platform fragmentation. iPhone apps can mean working with Objective C, Android can mean Java– and if you aren’t a polyglot and fluent both these languages, you probably feel that mobile app development is quite the daunting task.

Luckily, though, there are other options to choose from – like the Ionic 2 framework. In this blog, we’ll show just how easy it is to get up and running with Ionic 2 by creating a reference mobile application. By the end of this blog, our application will have the ability to run in the browser, emulator, or be built-out to run on a device.

Learning Angular C.R.U.D.

Chris Berry Angular, Articles, Development Technologies & Tools, JavaScript, Tutorial 5 Comments

So, you’ve learned JavaScript and now you’re wanting to get into Angular. But where do you start?

There are quite a few examples out there. One of the best ideas I have personally found useful for a new developer to learn is how to do Create, Read, Update and Delete operations.

In this blog we’ll go through the process of building a simple, working Angular address book application with C.R.U.D. operations. By the end, and by studying the full, working code, you should have a better grasp on Angular.