Adding a Universal link to iOS Apps- Challenges & Solutions

 

 In this blog, I am going to explain how to, without considerable effort, add Universal link and Deep linking capabilities to an iOS app

We are going to cover this in 3 sections

• Understanding deep link, URL scheme, and Universal link
• The issues with a universal link and the difficulty in incorporating it
• A nice workaround to get rid of the complexity of universal links.

If you are aware of the universal link and the challenges in having it up and running, feel free to jump to the 3rd section straight away.

Understanding deep link, URL scheme, and Universal link

- As opposed to a common belief, a URL scheme is not the same as a deep link.

Then what exactly is a deep link?

Well, the term “deep link” is the route to a specific spot on a website or a native app. So, for a mobile app, “deep link” is a link that contains all the information required to navigate the user deep into a section of the app instead of just launching the app.

What is a URL scheme and how it works?

A URL scheme can be treated as a specially designed URL just to open a particular app.
For instance, any iOS app can open WhatsApp with “WhatsApp://” URI using the URL scheme. This is possible because WhatsApp has registered itself with the app store with “WhatsApp” as a URL scheme.

However, to send a “Hello” to a particular number in Whatsapp, the URI needs to be like “WhatsApp://send?phone=(actual phone number)&text=Hello”. This, in turn, will open chat for the given number with the supplied text pre-filled. This is an example of a deep link in action.

So, what exactly is a Universal link? and why at all so we need it?

The URL scheme works just fine as long as the app is installed on the user’s phone. In the above example for instance, if WhatsApp is not available, then “whatsapp://” URI will just not work and so as the deep link to send a message to a user.

Click here to know more.

Like other businesses, if you too are looking to develop IT Solutions, Mindfire Solutions can be your partner of choice. We have gained significant experience over the years working with a diverse clientele. We have a team of highly skilled and certified software professionals, who have developed many custom solutions for our global clients over the years.

Content Source:  Medium

 

Is Robotic Process Automation changing the Test Automation Game?

 

RPA has taken the IT world by storm. I won’t say that it is the newest thing in business because it has been there around for about 10 years now. But now is the time when it is spreading like wildfire. More and more companies want to adopt it.

To set the context, let’s look at how AI has broken all the barriers of our imagination. I bet that a few years ago when we used to see robots in movies, we would think that they are just part of our imagination or even if we considered them to become reality someday, we always thought that the day to be many years away. But what we never imagined was that technology will progress so much so soon. Today Artificial intelligence is making machines more and more human-like. They want machines to not only follow our instructions but to think, and possibly also to exhibit emotions. It is almost like humans want to assemble humans in labs. No wonder then that a robot named Sophia was very recently even given citizenship of Saudi Arabia.

Now going back to Robotic Process Automation. Going just by the words, it seems like Robots automating processes. The catch, however, is that that when we say Robot, we don’t mean an actual physical robot, but a virtual one — the automation program.

What’s the big deal about RPA in software test automation?

Many could argue that in traditional Automation also we were creating automation programs. So what is all the hype about?

The key distinctions according to me are :

• It is script less: Coming from a Manual testing background it was always a challenge for me to always keep learning the latest scripting languages but now I don’t need to learn any programming language to automate a test scenario. You just need to be good with your logics and should be able to think out of the box scenarios.
• Focus is back to product quality: I am not saying that in Traditional automation the product quality was getting hampered, But in my own experience I feel that when I was working on Automation via scripts, most of my time was getting consumed in writing code and at the end of the day, only very few scenarios were automated, and I was not able to cover as much scenario and I didn’t have the time to dive into variety of scenario. So I feel that out of two 1 thing was always getting compromised either the Coverage or the deadline. But with RPA tool this problem of mine has been resolved to a great extent.

How things work when automating test cases with RPA?

There are many RPA tools available in the market like UI Path, Automation Anywhere, Blue Prism and many more. You can use any (FYI: I am not promoting any specific tool).

There are few basic criteria on which all the RPA tools are based on:

• Already defined user actions: Most of the user actions that one can think of while automating a test case like the click of a button, mouse hover, opening browser, typing into a text box and many more, they are already defined and the user doesn’t have to code.
• Built-in decision logics and looping statements: The best part about using RPA tool for creating scripts was, I didn’t have to worry about the syntax of my decision logic and adding loops, for example, do-while, for, etc. They are built-in and I just needed to use them.
• Configuring of user events through Parameters: Every user action or event that we use can be easily configured using its parameters. Almost every property of a user event is made available so as it can be customized as much and as easily as possible.
• Easy to create variables: RPA tools make it very easy to create a variable without stressing upon the syntax.
• Error handling: If there is an error that occurs while configuring the user events or in the full flow, RPA tools have very good error handling mechanism. It helps the user to narrow down the area of error and also gives very clear and specific error messages making it very convenient for the user to correct the error.

What RPA has changed in my Automation Testing approach?

• So as I said above, for me RPA has put the focus back to thinking about logic, covering some out of the box test scenarios, rather than spending hours just automating the basic functionality.
• RPA has improved my testing coverage also, as I am able to cover number and different types of scenarios.
• Thanks to RPA, I am able to automate the test scenarios faster as I don’t have to write every single line of code on my own.
• Another advantage of using an RPA tool is, I face less number of errors while automating a test case. As in RPA tool, they have built-in codes for most of the logics and I just have to make sure that I use them in correct flow.
• With RPA tool, I was able to manage my scripts much easily as most of the times it just making tweaking into the properties of the built-in user actions.
• Also when I create my scripts using RPA tool, they are more easily readable and I am able to explain them to another person in a better way
• Being from a manual testing background, it was always a big challenge for me to always keep on learning the latest scripting languages but now I don’t have to invest my time learning the coding languages.
• I can invest my mind in more decision making tasks rather than some boring and repetitive tasks that can be done by machines also.

Now, when I extract the essence of all the benefits, the bigger picture that I get is RPA helps to increase Test Automation Coverage, reduces the time required, hence reducing in the process the cost of Testing and in turn increasing the Company’s profit.

Having said that, I did face challenges while automating test scripts with RPA Tool?

1) I was not able to automate everything
Having worked with different scripting automation tools, I feel that there are some scenarios which I can’t achieve using RPA tools like I am not able to automate scenario which deals with complex Database entries, multiple formats of input or unstructured input data.

2) It executes at a slower pace
When I execute a script created via any RPA tool it executes at a UI speed but when I run a script created using scripting languages, it is much faster. So I feel that RPA is comparatively slower than the processes automated using traditional automation.

3) Not much available on Web, so need to explore yourself
Test Automation using RPA is relatively new. So there are many built-in user actions and functionalities of different tools that you have to explore on your own and not much help is available on the web. So that was also one of the challenges that I faced.

4) It can increase a company’s Test Automation cost
When I started automation using RPA, most of the RPA tools that I came across were paid and just 1 or 2 had free versions available and that too had not much-advanced features contrary to the open-source scripting tools available in the market. So I feel that this can also prove to be a disadvantage as it will increase the cost of Automation for a company.

But I feel that the pros somewhere outnumber the cons and the proof of this is that more and more companies are investing in Test Automation using RPA. So in my opinion, if you are the one who wants to adopt RPA in Test Automation, then the time to act is now.

Like other businesses, if you too are looking to develop RPA solutions, Mindfire Solutions can be your partner of choice. We have a team of highly skilled and certified software professionals, who have developed many custom solutions for our global clients over the years.

Content  Source:  Medium

Is React being preferred to develop progressive web application?

 

A Progressive Web Application (PWA) is a web application that combines the advantages of native and web applications. It combines hardware functionality into cross-platform software that is easier to design and maintain than a native app.

PWAs offer features that aren’t available on traditional websites. For instance, PWA offers features like Offline work, push notifications, geolocation, camera and microphone. It can even run without a browser, thanks to a native app shell that can start up automatically.

PWA innovation makes use of an expansive ecosystem of Web-based tools and frameworks that Android and iOS developers can only imagine. Deployment and maintenance are also a lot easier with progressive web apps. They’re quick to manage and only functional with one version of the programme.

We now understand what PWA is. Let us concentrate on the benefits PWA offers.

Benefits and Foundations of PWA development:

So, what is it about progressive web application that make them so powerful? Let’s take a closer look at the technology that underpins them to address this issue. The following are some of them:

1. Service workers

The service worker is a piece of code that your browser processes in the background to guarantee that web apps run in offline mode. This component is in charge of caching and utilizing the cached files in order to provide a consistent user experience.

2. Web manifests

A web app manifest is a JSON file that defines the appearance and feel of your progressive online application. With its assistance, you may customize the app description, icon version, theme color, and launch style.

3. Mobile-like experience

It gives a native-like experience on mobile devices. Although it is a web app, it has the feel of an Android or iOS app.

4. Application shell

This essential feature of PWAs allows for quick performance. It’s also necessary for progressive web apps with fixed navigation and dynamic content.

5. Progressive enhancement

It works for all users, regardless of browser preference. Your app will work across a variety of browsers and will gently degrade when specific features are unavailable while still providing a good user experience.

6. Responsiveness

It can adapt to any screen size, whether it’s a tablet, smartphone, iPad, or desktop. It adapts automatically to compensate for a fresh space or a tight place.

7. Offline functionality

Your application can be used without an internet connection.

8. Push Notifications

PWAs are engaging with the use of push notifications, which pop up a notification to notify you about a friend request, current news, new message, or anything else. You will feel compelled to respond to the notification (to respond to the message, to read the news, to check out the new friend) and re-launch the app, re-engaging you with the web app.

Now, let’s explore what React is and what its unique features are.

React was created by Jordan Walke, a Facebook developer, as an open-source JavaScript library. React was created with the goal of making user interfaces that are quick, easy, and scalable. The Facebook team maintains the library, which is currently incorporated into Facebook and Instagram. React is clearly the frontrunner in terms of JavaScript package downloads, with an average of 8,227,335 every week.

React facilitates the creation of large, adaptive web applications with hot reloading features. It implies that your software will keep running as you make modifications to it at runtime. This feature is quite important for fine-tuning the UI’s functionality.

1. High-powered

React is ideal for creating flexible and fast web apps while avoiding performance issues. Performance concerns with DOM (Document Object Model) manipulation are common in JavaScript apps. The Document Object Model (DOM) is a structural representation of your web page that programming languages can interact with. Instead of utilizing code-heavy bootstrapping libraries like JQuery, you may use React to make updates to the page in virtual memory. In addition, the faster rendering speed of React minimizes the time it takes for a page to load.

2. Simple to learn

React is less hard to grasp than the Angular or Ember JS frameworks. If you’re wondering how to create a React progressive web application, don’t expect it to be easy.

React supports JavaScript syntactic extension that allows developers to write code that resembles HTML. However, you are not required to utilise JSX in React; it is simply a more convenient method.

3. Well-equipped

React’s developer tools, boilerplates, and libraries make debugging, testing, and design easier. It offers a variety of options from which you may choose the one that best meets your requirements. React Developer Tools, Facebook’s Create React App, Semantic UI React, and Ant Design are some of the more well-known examples.

4. SEO-friendly

Errors in the Web Rendering Service are a common SEO issue when working with large web applications. This implies that some of your website’s content will not surface in Google search results. Because of the usage of virtual DOM, your content on React-powered web pages will be correctly indexed.

5. Community-backed

At the time of writing, React was the seventh most frequently starred open-source repository on Github. And the React development community is robust and responsible.

Progressive web application success stories:

Some of the Progressive web app examples built with React are as follows:

Starbucks, Tinder, Pinterest, Twitter, Forbes, Trivago and Flipkart.

Let us look at the benefits of implementing PWA in depth.

1. Pinterest -

Pinterest chose to create a PWA after discovering that their website was too sluggish. Only 1% of their traffic converted to signups or app downloads for iOS and Android. A PWA enhanced key performance indicators. Visitors spend 40% more time on Pinterest’s PWA than on the mobile website.

2. Flipkart -

Flipkart, an Indian e-commerce site, had a 70 percent increase in conversions after launching a Progressive Web App. Due to the fact that more than half of Flipkart consumers had a slow Internet connection, the company integrated online and native app features to develop an offline solution. This new app resulted in a 40% boost in re-engagement. Customers spent three times as much time on Flipkart Lite as they did on the original app. The Flipkart PWA is 300 times smaller than the iOS app, requiring only 100KB of data storage.

Final thoughts:

Any frontend framework will work just fine for a PWA but React does have one key advantage over other frameworks as its component structure, which divides UIs into separate components. The component approach in React JS allows us to separate our interface into small parts of code, which solves the previous JavaScript downloading problem.

React has the advantage of being a beautiful and enjoyable way to create frontend applications. It’s also a sought-after expertise. You’ll be about as future-ready as one can be in the fast-paced web development world if you combine React expertise with PWA experience.

Hence, React is the one of the best framework for building progressive web application.

Like other businesses, if you too are looking to develop Progressive web application, Mindfire Solutions can be your partner of choice. We have a team of highly skilled and certified software professionals, who have developed many custom solutions for our global clients over the years.

 

Content Source: Medium

SMBs achieve remarkable TTM leveraging Laravel-PHP Framework

 

Laravel, the developer’s favorite PHP framework, got a few updates in 2021. The unanimous feedback is that now it is one of the best frameworks out there- thanks to a bunch of great features. This makes it a great choice for small businesses; who want to cut costs and deliver fast.

If you are an SMB owner- Laravel is a great option; because it makes development easy and fast- which can help you optimize time, to market for your brand.

How Does Laravel ensure it?

With its expressive and beautiful syntax, Laravel makes web development quicker, simpler, and more fun for developers by removing all the pain points associated with complicated PHP code.

So that developers may concentrate on developing the app’s business-related features, it simplifies some of the frequently performed activities, including routing, authentication, sessions, caching, and others.

Taylor Otwell developed the Laravel framework to make complex code simpler, quicker, and better for website developers.

How Does Laravel Help SMBs?

Many people wonder why Laravel has become so popular. If you’re wondering why, it’s because they want to build web applications with peace of mind, and Laravel offers much more than that. Its ease-of-use and quality have certainly contributed to its enormous popularity, but utilizing this popular framework also opens the door to several additional advantages.

When it comes to other PHP frameworks, Laravel has been well-researched, well-resolved, and well-tested. Note that the PHP Laravel framework includes built-in testing, ensuring that your web application is bug-free and secure.

As a result, SMBs web development experience with Laravel will be smooth and efficient with the following advantages:

1. Laravel Development Equals Quicker TTM

To make routine jobs more accessible, the PHP framework Laravel is modular. So, Laravel has several pre-built functions and structures that operate on the newest PHP concepts to create responsive web apps quickly. They have been developing these resources since Laravel’s inception in 2011 since it is an open-source framework.

Consequently, Laravel becomes more intuitive and faster to build web apps. As a result of Laravel’s framework, you don’t have to spend countless hours and weeks developing code. As a result, it speeds up the application delivery process while also being cost-effective.

2. Authentication and Seamless Authorization Options

In the words of Wikipedia, “Taylor Otwell developed Laravel as a more sophisticated alternative to the Codelgniter framework, which did not offer capabilities like built-in support for user authentication and authorization.”

To build an entire authentication system using the Laravel framework, including Login, Registration, and Password Reset, is very straightforward. All of this is accomplished by Laravel with a single command. You may arrange authorization logic and restrict access to resources using this tool.

3. Eliminating Technical Pain Points

‘Security Vulnerabilities’ is a part of the web development process. The OWASP Foundation has identified web application security vulnerabilities include SQL injection, cross-site request forgery, cross-site scripting, and others. These vulnerabilities get more expensive and take longer to resolve as you move through the software development lifecycle (SDLC). No other framework can safeguard your online application against the most severe security risks: SQL injection, cross-site request forgery, and XSS.

4. Ecosystem of Tools

● Laravel Passport: This package integrates the PHP League OAuth 2.0 Server package into Laravel. It includes all required database migrations, routes, controllers, and even optional Vue components, recommended for API developers.

● Laravel Scout: Another Laravel package for adding full text search to eloquent models. It syncs your search indexes using Model observers. While Algolia has its driver, the community has developed others such as Elastic search. This driver provides full-text search capabilities in PHP to your models.

● Laravel Envoy: It can send alerts to Slack and GitHub, Bitbucket, and self-hosted GitLab servers. Without downtime, it can deploy fresh versions of your projects to one or more servers.

● Laravel Spark: Laravel Spark is a fantastic place to start. Taylor created this scaffolding package to help you get started with authentication, teams, billing, invoices, subscriptions, and user impersonation. It comes with two-factor authentication and API authentication. A powerful installer and upgrader are included. It’s the only first-party Laravel package that costs money, yet it saves you time!

● Testing: Laravel Framework offers automated testing tools to ensure that your web app runs appropriately, making it easier to test an app. As a result, you may do expressive testing of your app by mimicking users’ fundamental behavior (for example, performing requests, evaluating outputs, and clicking forms).

There is a list of endless tools apart from the ones mentioned above.

5. The Ability to Automate the Task-Execution and Scheduling Process

When required, every web application requires a task scheduling system that allows it to automate certain activities. Emails to subscribers, app notification messages, or database cleaning to make web applications quicker are all examples of this.

Before, web developers had to create a Cron entry for each job they wanted to schedule to automate it. Using Laravel’s automated command scheduler, you can eliminate this hassle. A single Cron entry on your server is all that’s needed to perform the job.

This feature of the Laravel framework not only improves the performance and speed of your web project but also helps you save money on hosting.

6. Handling of Traffic

As the application’s popularity increases, it becomes more difficult to manage the traffic. A web application’s request volume increases as it receives more traffic. Hosting the online application will cost a lot of money, or the website server may cease working due to data loss.

Your worst nightmare might come true!

A message queue mechanism is included in the PHP Laravel Framework for load balancing purposes. To maintain a swift web server, the system helps handle traffic efficiently. This is one of the numerous advantages of Laravel.

Using Laravel’s queue service, you may access several queue back-ends from a single unified API in a single application. You may postpone the processing of a time-consuming operation, like sending an email. Queues dramatically speed up web requests to your application, allowing you to work more efficiently.

There are unified APIs for caching views in Laravel, whereas Symfony caches both source code and views. Symfony has a longer website loading time because of this. A typical Laravel website loads in 60 milliseconds, while a Symfony website takes around 250 milliseconds.

Why use Laravel for Business?

If you want to create an e-commerce website or a portal for your business, you will need to customize and add features to engage your consumers. Among the key reasons why Laravel is the best option for your website are:

Popularity:

Laravel has a worldwide community of devoted developers. They can help solve your issues by giving you typical answers and suggestions. Laravel also offers extensive documentation that enables you to self-learn and experiment with the framework’s many components.

Boosted Performance:

Every startup needs a boost in performance to gain popularity and clients. Laravel offers an application with unique features like multilingual support and improved security to enhance its potential and speed. Laravel also supports memcached and Redis caching technologies natively. With Laravel, you can speed up your applications. Its cache driver stores various cached items, allowing rapid program development.

Offers Better Cost Of Development:

Laravel is a PHP framework that is free and open source. You may create a website using Laravel for absolutely no money. For those who are not acquainted with coding, hiring a Laravel web development team will always be less expensive than working with another framework. Laravel is much simpler to use than competing frameworks or content management systems, which is why Laravel development is offered at a cheaper cost.

Conclusion

There is no question that Laravel does a great job of addressing the shortcomings of its predecessors. Fast, intuitive, cost-effective, and scalable online apps are just a few of the reasons why Laravel web development is growing in popularity.

Laravel, which has more than 60,000 stars on GitHub, also has a large community behind it. Using Laravel and its outstanding capabilities, you can build a solid online experience with the assistance of a reputable Web Development Company.

Like other businesses, if you too are looking to develop solutions in Laravel, Mindfire Solutions can be your partner of choice. We have deep expertise in Laravel PHP Development. With a team of highly skilled and certified software professionals, that have developed many custom solutions for our global clients over the years.

Get in Touch with Us

https://www.mindfiresolutions.com/

US East Coast: +1 248.686.1424

US West Coast: +1 415.226.6334

sales@mindfiresolutions.com

 

Content Source: Medium