TPDP Episode #5: Developing Mobile Apps with Telerik NativeScript

There are a lot of different ways to develop mobile applications. On my first two podcast episodes I discussed some of these app development solutions, but this time I’m doing a followup on one in particular. In this episode of The Polyglot Developer Podcast, guest speaker TJ VanToll and I are going to take a deeper look at Telerik NativeScript, who should be using it, and what separates it from the other frameworks that exist.

TJ VanToll is a Developer Advocate for Telerik and is working on making the NativeScript framework a success for developers and enterprises. In Episode #5: Developing Mobile Apps with Telerik NativeScript, we’re going to cover everything that can be covered without actually looking at code. I ask TJ questions that I often receive on my blog as well as at events.

My Experience Developing with Telerik NativeScript

I’ve been using Telerik NativeScript for a few months now and figured it would now be appropriate to share my experience and opinions of the framework. I’ve already compared NativeScript against Ionic Framework, but this article is going to be a little different.

I have no plans to make comparisons against other frameworks in this article. Instead we’re going to take a look at what NativeScript can and can’t do and how I feel about everything. This article will be opinion based more than anything.

Deploy A NativeScript App With A Pre-Filled SQLite Database

Recently I wrote an article regarding how to use SQLite in a NativeScript Android and iOS mobile application. In my previous tutorial the assumption was that the database would be created fresh. However, what if you want to ship a pre-filled SQLite database with your application? Maybe you have 10,000 records that you prefer not to have to download from a remote web server, or maybe there is another reason. Having a pre-populated database is fair game.

We’re going to take a look at what it takes to ship a NativeScript application with a SQLite database that already contains data.

Using Local Notifications In Your NativeScript Mobile App

When developing mobile apps, at some point in time you may find yourself needing to show a background notification to your users. There are two types of notifications, one being the push notification which is sent from a remote server and the other being local notifications that are triggered from within the application.

We’re going to focus on local notifications here.

So when might you need to use a local notification? There are many scenarios. Let’s say you’re creating an app that communicates with iBeacons. When you’re within proximity maybe you want to trigger a notification to the user. There are many other scenarios that I won’t get into.

We’re going to see a basic example on how to use local notifications in a NativeScript Android and iOS mobile application.

Send Emails In A NativeScript App Via The Mailgun API

I get this question a lot, not necessarily for NativeScript, but for other mobile frameworks. The question is, how do you send emails from within your Android and iOS application without launching one of the already installed mail apps? In other words how do you send emails via a custom form within the application or in the background?

A solution to this question would be to use a backend web server that can send mail and create an API endpoint to it that can be accessed from your mobile app. However, this solution takes work and other resources. Instead you can make use of a transactional email service.

There are many of these email services available, but for this example we’re going to look at using the Mailgun service in a NativeScript application.

Use SQLite To Save Data In A Telerik NativeScript App

Not too long ago I wrote a tutorial regarding saving data in a NativeScript mobile application using the application settings module that closely resembled that of HTML5 local storage. If you’re not familiar with the application settings module, it is persisted storage using key value pairs. What if you wanted a storage option that was a bit more query friendly? Like other hybrid app platforms, NativeScript supports SQLite for persisted data as well.

Both iOS and Android supports SQLite and since Telerik NativeScript can interface directly with native APIs, it becomes possible to use SQLite. We don’t need to write all the interface logic by hand because there happens to be a nice plugin available to make our life easier.

We’re going to see how to make use of SQLite in an Android and iOS NativeScript application using the available SQLite plugin.

Unit Testing In A Telerik NativeScript Mobile App

Unit testing! It’s something that we as developers all understand the importance of and implement in every project, right?

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Anyway… did you know NativeScript supports unit testing out of the box? It’s true!

By unit testing your application, you can ensure that any changes you’ve made to your code are working properly and that they haven’t broken any previous code. You could also integrate it into your Continuous Integration process and automate the running of your tests on a regular basis, or on each code check in!