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Developing Applications for Mobile Users Using Visual LANSA

Published On January 8, 2024

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Mobile applications have become indispensable tools for businesses seeking growth and success. This powerful digital asset offers several benefits, transforming the way companies operate and interact with customers. It not only helps businesses streamline their operations but also enables them to stay ahead in todayโ€™s competitive market. As the demand for efficient mobile application development continues to surge, more and more developers are looking for a framework that can simplify and accelerate the intricacies of the application development process. This is where Visual LANSA plays a pivotal role.

Visual LANSA is a development platform that supports the creation of various types of applications, including mobile applications. It offers a reliable IDE (integrated development environment) for building native mobile, responsive, and progressive applications. With this professional low-code tool, developers can create applications end-to-end using just one language, saving their organization a lot of time and resources.

Braum’s success story illustrates the transformative impact of Visual LANSA on mobile application development. In their case, they needed a mobile application that makes it easy for their employees to access information without relying solely on back-office PCs. Visual LANSA helped them by enabling the implementation of mobile applications that allowed managers to access essential business reports such as inventory, sales, and store inspections on their mobile phones and tablets. It further proved instrumental in replacing Braum’s outdated paper-based customer/complaint system. The mobile solution facilitated instant notifications for managers, empowering them to promptly respond to customer inquiries. This transition from a PC-centric environment to a mobile-friendly platform not only enhanced accessibility for managers but also ensured they could stay informed and make timely decisions while on the go.

Simplify native mobile application development

Visual LANSA simplifies the development of native applications by offering a unified solution that allows developers to create applications for multiple platforms like Android and iOS. With it, developers do not need to know the different languages, frameworks, and plug-ins required by each platform. The cross-platform capability of Visual LANSA enables developers to code once and deploy their applications anywhere across environments. Letโ€™s dive deeper into the benefits below.

1. Low-code development

With its low-code development capabilities, developers can build native applications with minimal manual coding. Visual LANSA streamlines the development of native mobile applications by providing visual development tools for designing user interfaces, defining data models, and specifying business logic. By using pre-built components, developers can quickly build mobile applications and deploy them across multiple platforms without doing platform-specific coding. Not only does it simplify the application development process, but it also accelerates time-to-market.

2. Rapid prototyping of new applications

Prototyping is one of the most essential parts of mobile application development, allowing developers to create a working model of the application before investing time and resources into coding. With Visual LANSAโ€™s rapid prototyping tools, developers can design an application easily and quickly. Needless to say, creating prototypes not only helps detect design flaws and usability issues, but also enables users to provide feedback and suggestions. By visualizing and testing the application, resolving design issues, and improving user experience, developers can create high-quality mobile applications that meet user expectations.

3. Modern design and user experience (UX)

In the ever-evolving competitive world of mobile applications, a beautiful interface and seamless user experience can make or break the success of an application. Visual LANSA places a strong emphasis on modern design and user experience by enabling developers to build applications that are not only intuitive but also visually appealing. This professional low-code development tool offers material design controls for those developers who are not experts in building modern UX. It provides a standard set of UI/UX elements that users are already familiar with and know how to operate so that developers do not need to start from scratch.

4. Reusable components

Visual LANSA transforms mobile application development with its repository of reusable components and advanced building blocks. In it, developers can store business logic, visualizations, and custom parts ready for cross-platform deployment. Beyond speeding up development, it ensures a consistent and robust approach, especially beneficial for implementing shared functionalities across diverse enterprise applications.

5. Easy integrations

Visual LANSA provides a wide range of options for integrating with existing systems, databases and applications through APIs. This capability allows developers to seamlessly connect their mobile applications with other business-critical tools and services. Unlike other platforms that often require custom development to build integrations, Visual LANSA supports RESTful APIs, simplifying the integration process. Whether it’s establishing connections with enterprise databases, third-party applications, or proprietary systems, this professional low-code development solution ensures that developers can create mobile applications that work within the existing technological stack of any organization.

6. Security

No one likes to use a mobile application thatโ€™s not secure, regardless of how aesthetically pleasing or feature-packed it may be. Visual LANSA addresses this issue by integrating robust security features into the development environment from the ground up. From secure authentication and authorization mechanisms to data encryption and compliance with industry standards, this professional low-code development solution protects mobile applications built on it against potential threats and vulnerabilities. Moreover, it ensures that data remains protected throughout the application development lifecycle.

Create mobile responsive applications with Visual LANSA

Visual LANSA enables developers to create web applications that can be easily accessed from a smartphone or tablet. It gives users a better experience irrespective of OS, device, orientation, screen size, or browser. With this cutting-edge solution, developers can build dynamic enterprise applications for mobile devices that are fully integrated with their application server using a single language for client-side logic, server-side logic, and everything in between. Furthermore, developers can design responsive applications without using front-end frameworks such as Bootstrap.

Not to mention, the professional low-code development solution enables developers to design interfaces that automatically adapt to various devices with different screen sizes. Visual LANSA incorporates a built-in device detection mechanism that identifies the device type, whether it’s a mobile or tablet, and adjusts the interface accordingly.

Build PWAs effortlessly with Visual LANSA

Thereโ€™s no denying the fact that progressive web applications have revolutionized the way businesses approach application development. Traditionally, businesses faced the challenge of distributing their applications across various application stores, each catering to different operating systems (e.g., Android, Apple, and Microsoft). However, PWAs have resolved this issue, as they can be accessed directly through web browsers. These applications can be installed either from the platform’s application store or directly from the web, simplifying both go-to-market and user adoption.

When it comes to developing PWAs, Visual LANSA aids the process by providing a drag-and-drop user interface design, often with standards like Google Material Design built-in. Like native applications, PWAs created using Visual LANSA can work offline, send push notifications, and access device hardware such as GPS, or camera.

Turn web applications into PWAs with Visual LANSA

Progressive web applications created with Visual LANSA take advantage of both web and browser technologies, making them easily shareable through a URL. Users can send the URL via emails or text messages or share it directly on a webpage. This simplifies the process of sharing the application amongst new and existing audiences.

Furthermore, cache also plays a very important role in making PWAs versatile. The ability to cache resources provides better application performance and reduces network load in areas of low connectivity and slow service. Visual LANSA makes it easy for developers to set their caching strategies and select their resources to be cached. Developers just need to select their cache strategy and drag-and-drop assets they like to have cached when end users use the application or visit the site.

Progressive Web Applications

Harness the power of mobile applications with Visual LANSA

To stay competitive in today’s fast-paced business world, it is essential to leverage the latest technological developments. Mobile applications, once considered optional, have now become indispensable tools for modern businesses. Embracing the potential of mobile applications can not only improve customer relationships but also position a company for long-term success in the digital world.

Deliver mobile solutions that fuel digital transformation fast

Take the next step in mobile application development with Visual LANSA. Whether youโ€™re looking to build a native mobile application or want to release a mobile-friendly solution quickly through PWAs and responsive web, our professional low-code solution is available to support your developers. Enjoy significant cost savings and simplified processes using LANSAโ€™s unified codebase for cross-platform development. Do not compromise quality, security, and scalability for faster time to market. Ask us how you can have it all. Contact [email protected] to learn more.

A smarter, faster way to deliver business software

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

LANSA Editors

LANSA is a professional low-code development platform that helps businesses efficiently build and modernize software. In this blog, the team draws on decades of experience empowering enterprises to innovate on the IBM i and future-proof their mission-critical systems.

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