Ignacio Marín

DIMAG: a framework for automatic generation of mobile applications for multiple platforms

Device Independence is a concept based on the idea of making services, applications and contents available to users regardless of the device used to enjoy them. One of the problems for developers of mobile applications is the number of different mobile platforms in the market. Therefore, a software platform to generate an application for as many platforms as possible would increase enormously the number of potential users. We propose a framework (DIMAG: Device Independent Mobile Application Generation framework) to generate mobile applications for multiple software platforms by means of a declarative description of the application. Besides, the generation of an application with this framework takes into account additional requirements like the need of mobile applications to consume and provide data from and to remote machines, or the dynamic load of the classes for code generation for a given mobile platform after identification of the device demanding a copy of the application. The generation of two simple but exemplifying applications shows the feasibility of DIMAG as a framework to relieve the problem of device fragmentation for mobile developers.

Framework for the declarative implementation of native mobile applications

The development of connected mobile applications for a broad audience is a complex task because of the existing device diversity. In order to soothe this situation, device-independent approaches are aimed at implementing platform-independent applications, hiding the differences among the diverse families and models of mobile devices. Most of the existing approaches are based on the imperative definition of applications, which are either compiled to a native application, or executed in a Web browser. The client and server sides of applications are implemented separately, using different mechanisms for data synchronisation. In this study, the authors propose device-independent mobile application generation (DIMAG), a framework for defining native device-independent client-server applications based on the declarative specification of application workflow, state and data synchronisation, user interface and data queries. The authors have designed DIMAG considering the dynamic addition of new types of devices, and facilitating the generation of applications for new target platforms. DIMAG has been implemented taking advantage of existing standards.

Generating native user interfaces formultiple devices by means ofmodel transformation

In the last years, the types of devices used to access information systems have notably increased using different operating systems, screen sizes, interaction mechanisms, and software features. This device fragmentation is an important issue to tackle when developing native mobile service front-end applications. To address this issue, we propose the generation of native user interfaces (UIs) by means of model transformations, following the modelbased user interface (MBUI) paradigm. The resulting MBUI framework, called LIZARD, generates applications for multiple target platforms. LIZARD allows the definition of applications at a high level of abstraction, and applies model transformations to generate the target native UI considering the specific features of target platforms. The generated applications follow the UI design guidelines and the architectural and design patterns specified by the corresponding operating system manufacturer. The objective is not to generate generic applications following the lowest-common-denominator approach, but to follow the particular guidelines specified for each target device. We present an example application modeled in LIZARD, generating different UIs for Windows Phone and two types of Android devices (smartphones and tablets).

Using standards to build the DIMAG connected mobile applications framework

The development of connected mobile applications is a complex task due to device diversity. Therefore, device-independent approaches are aimed at hiding the differences among the distinct mobile devices in the market. This work proposes DIMAG, a software framework to generate connected mobile applications for multiple software platforms, following a declarative approach. DIMAG provides transparent data and state synchronization between the server and the client side applications. The proposed platform has been designed making use of existing standards, extending them when a required functionality is not provided.

Offloading Approach for Flexible Provisioning and Execution of Remote Data-gathering Applications

Nowadays, applications must be provided for mobile devices with very different resources. In order to provide the user with a satisfying experience, some of the computation can be offloaded to a remote server. This paper presents an approach for this offloading process for remote data-gathering applications. The set of requirements to be fulfilled by the approach is identified and presented. This approach takes into account resources such as CPU, memory, storage and connection bandwidth, both at provisioning and execution time, as well as allowing different granularities for the tasks to be offloaded. In addition, it takes into account other tasks being executed in the mobile device and in the server. The approach is based on client-server architecture. A first-approach solution is presented, describing the decisions to be made both at application-provisioning time and during runtime. A prototype of a.NET application for sputum analysis has been implemented in order to show the applicability of the proposed approach. Execution time, memory usage, storage and transmission time have been tested with a variety of devices. The results show how this approach can be applied in practice, even with the limitations that operating systems and real devices impose.

From UAProf towards a Universal Device Description Repository

Techniques to create software and content that adapt to different apparatus require gathering information about device features. Traditionally, Device Description Repositories (DDRs) have provided limited descriptions, in terms of description granularity and of the amount of devices included. A Universal DDR (UDDR) would allow any software developer or content creator to have complete, up-to-date and trustworthy device descriptions for any application domain. Collaboration of all stakeholders in the adaptation business would be necessary to populate the UDDR, but without compromising the quality of the information. Device manufacturers usually publish first-hand device descriptions using UAProf. Unfortunately, UAProf documents are known to contain mistakes or inaccurate/incomplete information. This work suggests a multi-step process to manipulate UAProfs in order to correct their most common mistakes, to extend their expressiveness and to allow amendments from different contributors. More specifically, amendments are annotated with provenance information, enabling device description consumers to decide whether to trust them.