SAP Mobile Platform SDK 3.0 SP08 – What is new ?

SAP Mobile Platform SDK 3.0 SP08 – What is new ?

We are happy to announce the release of the latest version of the SDK for SMP and HCP Mobile Services, SMP SDK SP08.  The last version of the SDK already supports a wide range of capabilities including SAML Support, Usage collection and Offline APIs across iOS, Android (ARM), and Windows devices.  SP08 introduces a set of new features for native and hybrid development around developer experience, security & offline.

Let us start with a high level recap of the mobile SDK.

The figure above shows the different programming models that are available in the SDK (native, hybrid and agentry metadata) as well as different consumption paths (cloud, on premise) for platform services.

With every service pack release we focus on creating value in our SDK offering for the development community by addressing themes that are spread over the programming models and consumption paths. The focus themes in SDK SP08 were the following.

Native SDK

Developer Experience improvements

We took a close look at the experience of our developers and we are introducing a set of best practices in managing the SDK experience. The following are the specific improvements that will be available in SP08

• Cocoa Pod support (IOS)– Cocoa Pods is the dependency manager for Swift and Objective-C Cocoa projects. It has thousands of libraries and can help you scale your projects elegantly. A pod spec file will be delivered as part of the sdk installer.

By running a pod install command, the xcode project with all the sdk dependencies could be easily set up.

• Maven Support (IOS, Android) – Maven addresses two aspects of building software: First, it describes how software is built, and second, it describes its dependencies. Maven makes it easy to identify when a project has a dependency on code outside its source control folders. Developers and managers alike would prefer small, componentized builds because they allow code changes to be very quickly tested and integrated.

After installing new deploy.sh script is available under the appropriate OS folder. Through the execution of the script, all artifacts are deployed into the local Maven repository and using a pom.xml, it can be added to the xcode project

• Gradle Support (Android) – We intend to provide more support for Gradle and android studio release-by-release. With SP08 we would start with a getting started guide for android studio based projects and the mobile sdk. We simplify the dependency management for android projects using gradle files that are added to the installation. For more details please refer to the help documentation and the following links.

• Migrating Eclipse Based Projects to Android Studio : http://scn.sap.com/docs/DOC-63141
• Migrating to Android Studio | Android Developers
• How To… Setup MAF resources in Android Studio : – http://scn.sap.com/docs/DOC-63096

Features & improvements

Media Support

• The Online and Offline OData Stores now supports media resource handling, for example creating and downloading of image files. In previous versions of the SDK, the stores supported OData related operations (CRUD) only for OData entities, feeds, properties, links, but not for downloading (GET) of resources such as media files.

Appsettings enhancements

The new ApplicationSettings property of the LogonCore instance replaces the ConnectionData property on the RegistrationContext to access server application settings, allowing a common solution across multiple platforms and providing the following benefit:

• Type safety of the stored settings.
• Validity of downloaded application settings.
• The ability of the application developer to modify settings those are writable with validation.
• Enforcement of consistent state of application setting values on the client and server.
• Prevention of an application developer from (intentionally or unintentionally) creating an inconsistent state by overwriting application setting values locally.

Enhanced SAML Support (iOS, Android)

Previous versions of Logon Manager supported HTTP-POST binding for getting redirected to the Identity Provider. The HTTP-REDIRECT binding is now also supported on iOS and Android. For more details on Http conversation manager and SAML redirects please refer to the following link http://scn.sap.com/community/developer-center/mobility-platform/blog/2014/11/14/request-response-challenge-filters-in-httpconversationmanager on the SAP Community Network Web site.

Hybrid SDK

Features & improvements

• The Hybrid SDK (Kapsel) plugins now support a Voice Recording service that allows a user to record audio information using the new native audio recorder application.
• The X.509 certificate provider interface now supports a new certificate provider library, which provides a new certificate provider interface to communicate with third-party certificate provider implementations.
• The Offline OData plugin, which provides offline OData support to Cordova applications, now provides support for offline media elements.
• The Online plugin has been enhanced to provide busy indicator support when a page starts loading from the server.
• The Application Preferences plugin, Usage plugin, and Toolbar plugin are now supported for use in applications on the Windows 8.1 and Windows Phone 8.1 platforms, in addition to Android and iOS.

Agentry

Agentry Toolkit (64-bit only)

The Agentry Toolkit, which provides the components to create Agentry applications, is available in 64-bit format. The 32-bit version is no longer supported, or available for download. Links to the 32-bit download site have been removed from the documentation.

Agentry Client Changes

The screen-background feature is now available for the Agentry WPF client. (It was previously available only for Agentry Android, iOS, and legacy clients). This feature enables you to change the Screen Background Image, making it easier to distinguish between read-only, editable, and disabled fields on both transaction and non-transaction screens.

Password Validation Audits for Agentry Applications

Password validation audits are supported for Agentry applications using SQL and Java back-end connections. The developer must enable password validation in the application definition. A new script file provides a template for handling password validation audit records. When the user performs a password-related action, an encrypted password validation audit record is created on the client device. The encrypted audit record is sent to the server. Once the server receives the record, the server sends confirmation to the client, and the client deletes the encrypted audit record.

Agentry Publication Changes

Clusters were introduced in 3.0 SP03, which changed how application and server configuration is managed in SAP Mobile Platform. Configuration values are now stored in the SAP Mobile Platform data store, and available to all server nodes. For Agentry, this means the Agentry.ini functionality is no longer needed in production.

When you publish an Agentry application in the cockpit, configuration values are added to the data store, and distributed to all server nodes. When you upload an updated version of an Agentry application, the configuration values are updated in the data store, and distributed to all server nodes.