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Follow UsBANGALORE, INDIA: Development techniques have been fast changing and newer techniques are being adopted for faster and reliable application development and deployment. Agile development is one such development trend.
With enhanced customers' demand for applications to be built and deployed in a jiffy; the job of developers has become tedious. However, there are tools based on Rapid Application Development framework for developers that can really help them design, develop and deploy applications at a very fast pace.
LyteRAD has made it possible to make simple database application enabling developers to build small applications related to database that can be packaged to use for personal purpose by customers. Many a times, a software development Team Manager would face a situation where he needs to develop an application for in-house use on an urgent basis for simple tasks like stock keeping work or for personal data management.
Though the requirements of the application might not have been demanding but that would require more developers for this application. With a tool like LyteRAD, the Team Manager could himself create such lightweight database applications without even writing a line of code and that too with minimal effort.
About LyteRAD
Rapid Application Development (RAD) is a concept of developing quality applications faster through re-use of software components and gathering of application requirements. Its newest version 2.1 enables you to start developing applications right away once you have installed the LyteRAD setup.
This platform is best suited for developing lightweight database applications, without even having to bother about the server settings, database administration and connection, and above all coding. LyteRAD provides a code free application development platform, where one just has to conceptualize the application and design it accordingly in an intuitive development environment. It is available in two editions: Compact Edition (CE) and Pro.
Also using Pro edition you can mobilize your applications that have been built using LyteRAD. These mini applications provide limited functionality of a desktop LyteRAD application on a J2ME enabled mobile device.
Getting started
With this month's PCQ Professional DVD we are distributing LyteRAD CE. It supports Windows. For Linux platform you can download corresponding LyteRAD from vendor's site. After installing the exe file of LyteRAD, you can launch LyteRAD and start using it. As the Java based application starts, a console window pops up and this makes LyteRAD platform portable across operating systems.
In this article, we will create a demo application wherein we will store employee details. Click on 'Create New Table' in the home page of LyteRAD to create the table structure of the information to be stored in the database. Name the table as the table wizard begins (in our case, PcqDemoTable). We will create it in the following steps and define the schema of the table. The table will have columns as shown in the visual. For each data filed there are predefined datatypes listed from which we can choose the appropriate datatype for a field. For instance, we can select numeric datatype for telephone while for name we can define it as text type. Once the table is created we can start building the application.
When we click on 'Create New Application', an Application Wizard initiates. We name it as 'PcqDemoApps'. On the Add Widgets window, we select the options for Add Data and Table Viewer widget to the application. Add Data widget is to enter data into the table and Table Viewer, as the name suggests is to display the contents of the table. On the following window, we select the table PcqdemoTable for our application and then click finish. We are done with the creation of the application. Through the confirmation window we can launch our newly created application.
Adding widgets
Now when our application gets created through wizard, we can add some other widgets to the application. Click on 'Packager' icon on the toolbar, select open application option and then select the PcqDemoApps for adding more widgets to the application. We want to add report functionality to our application. To do so first we create a Report and add that report to the application by selecting Report Viewer widget. When we select the Report Viewer widget, a window is launched where we can select the newly created report to the application. Also we add an Authentication widget to the application to specify a User-Name and a Password for the users who will use that. When we have done adding additional widgets to the application, we can click on 'Save' to add the modifications to the application.
To launch the application, we can find it listed above the right pane on the LyteRAD home window. By clicking on PcqDemoApps, we can launch the application. As we have added an authentication widget, a prompt window pops up asking for the user name and password before we start using the application.
Going mobile
LyteRAD Pro also gives a functionality to make applications run on J2ME enabled mobile phones. To make an application go mobile, we need to have a lyteMobile runtime installed on the java enabled mobile phone. LyteMobile functions as any other Java midlet and once it is installed, it can be used to execute LyteRAD mobile applications. The mobile applications can function as the companions for the main desktop application and their data can also be synchronized with the desktop application's main database. To create a mobile application called RADlet using LyteRAD, we go to the 'Packager' option and then click on 'Create new application', name the application as 'PcqDemoMobile' and select the option 'Generate Mobile Companion'. When the Packager window opens up, we can select Mobile widgets for the application. The Mobile Data Browser is to browse contents of database while Mobile Data Form widget is to enter values to the database. There is one useful functionality widget called as 'Send Data Record as SMS', using which we can send a record set from the table as an SMS.
Once when the mobile RADlets have been created -to make them work on a J2ME handset -we have to import them with lyteMobile runtime. We used Sony Ericsson K810i phone to test the RADlet. The Packager option creates 3 files that need to be copied to the mobile from the following location:
The RADlet will be the file having .mobile extension, the lyteSettings file and PcqdemoTable.dat file, which is the table for the application. Once you have copied and installed lyteMobile runtime on your mobile, copy the lyteSettings file to root folder of your mobile. And create two directories on your mobile's memory, 'Apps' for storing RADlets and 'Data' for storing tables files. Copy PcqDemoMobile.mobile file into the Apps folder and PcqDemoTable.dat file into Data folder. When you initiate the lyteMobile midlet on your phone for the first time, you have to go to the settings menu and change the Application & Data directory to point to the corresponding locations on your mobile, i.e. Apps and Data folders. For instance, on the K810i mobile phone the path was file:///e://Apps/ and file:///e://Data/ correspondingly. That will list the RADlets in yours Apps location. Once the settings are pointed towards the RADlet location, the RADlets will be listed under Choose lyteApp menu. Select the 'PcqDemoMobile RADlet' and choose 'Launch' to start the application.
This way, simple mobile applications can be created using Mobile Packager option available with the Pro version of the LyteRAD tool.
Final words
LyteRAD is a useful utility tool that is easy to use for creating simple applications. It can be useful for a developer to create apps without being bothered about other settings needed during traditional software development approach. The tool is also handy for business users as well, who have the business knowledge and so can create applications for their own use by this simple to use tool.