Exadel has added new features to its Tiggzi Mobile App Builder, a cloud-based development platform for building rich web and hybrid mobile applications. Described as having a "plug-in architecture", this offering aims to let developers create, save, and reuse API services as plug-ins to other projects.
API services can be saved as data-driven components that are premapped to input and output UI components. Developers working on multiple projects can access prebuilt components from their other projects and reuse these resources as APIs within new applications.
Tiggzi also now has a services catalog, which acts as a library for prepackaged plug-ins and ready-to-use services for developers. Developers can also submit their own data-driven components to Exadel for inclusion in the services catalog. Once approved, Tiggzi users will be able to reuse the plug-ins in their own applications.
According to Exadel, "Tiggzi now makes mapping the UI to services in mobile apps simple with a new and more powerful Mobile Visual Data Mapper. Users can now simply select a variable and drag it to connect it to a service parameter. Simplifying the connecting of UI fields and desired services makes development of applications faster and easier."
The company points out that security is critical to the success of the API economy and so oAuth, the open protocol for delegated authorization and managing access rights, has become the de facto standard for accessing API resources. Tiggzi users can implement oAuth for a REST API services and define customized approaches to oAuth and similar mechanisms.
Tiggzi uses PhoneGap to access device functionality for the creation of hybrid (native/HTML5) apps, which can be submitted to the Apple App Store and Android Market. Specific device functions are invoked from within the Tiggzi visual editor's Device Palette for integration into new apps. The new version of Tiggzi incorporates PhoneGap 1.4 and what are promised to be "frequent future iterations" to ensure support for the latest PhoneGap version.
