Develop Apps without any Coding

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.

The wizard based development platform frees a developer from writing code and

provide tools that can be used in application for reporting work as well as

tools for graphical representation of data. LyteRAD doesn't need any database to

connect to store the information, it has its own embedded database that makes it

simple to use and maintain. Though there is an option in LyteRAD Pro to connect

to JDBC compliant databases. So the applications that are created using LyteRAD

will be connected and using existing database for information.

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:

/application//application/mobile

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.