MobileProfile Framework

Transcription

1 MobileProfile Framework Degrees.mobi Limited. All rights reserved. The copyright in and title to the document MobileProfile Framework belongs to 51Degrees.mobi Limited. No part of it whatsoever may be reproduced in any form without the prior authority of 51Degrees.mobi Limited and/or any original source as appropriate. Any agreed copy or extract must be marked with all proprietary notices which appear on the original and will be subject to the requirement that you will acknowledge on the face of each part of the reproduced material that it belongs to 51Degrees.mobi Limited

2 Contents Objectives...3 Prerequisites... 3 Step 1 - Bandwidth & Response Time... 3 Step 2 - Persisting Data...4 Conclusion...6 Copyright 51degrees.mobi Limited Page 2 of 6

3 Objectives Retrieve the average approximate bandwidth between the requesting mobile device and the server and redirect low bandwidth scenarios to different pages. Persist data between multiple sessions without writing custom database code. Remember previous control settings without using cookies. Understand the MobileProfile. Prerequisites Complete Installation Tutorial. Step 1 - Bandwidth & Response Time Mobile web applications are particularly sensitive to available bandwidth performing unacceptably slowly in some situations. That's why we've gone to so much effort to reduce the size of pages created from ASP.NET Web Forms. Sometimes it's useful to know the bandwidth available between your server and the requesting mobile device. 51Degrees.mobi -.Net Mobile Framework's MobileProfile object's Bandwidth property provides the average round trip bandwidth expressed in kilobits per second (kbs). The following code uses the Bandwidth property to redirect the request to an appropriate page. protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e) { // If the connection is too slow to provide any sensible // pages and redirect the browser to a polite message asking // them to come back late. if (MobileProfile.Bandwidth < 14) Response.Redirect("~/TooSlow.aspx"); // If the connection is slow direct the request to home page // designed for low bandwidth situations. else if (MobileProfile.Bandwidth < 64) Response.Redirect("~/LightWeight/Default.aspx"); // Continue as we're in a high bandwidth scenario. } Copyright 51degrees.mobi Limited Page 3 of 6

4 We believe it's better to be polite and let users know the web site know they're not getting the experience intended than allowing users to continue to struggle and have a negative view of the mobile web application. Until mobile operators provide guaranteed quality of service for mobile device data connections there's not much more that can be done. In addition to the bandwidth property Mobile Profile also provides the ResponseTime property which returns the average response time in milliseconds for pages over the past 5 minutes. This can be used to determine in real time the response times being experienced by an individual user irrespective of the amount of data involved. Both Bandwidth and ResponseTime require at least one page request cycle to be fully completed before they return a value other than zero. They will return zero values for mobile devices that do not support JavaScript or where there is insufficient historic performance data available to provide a valid value. 51Degrees.mobi integrates these performance monitoring feature into standard page processing and does not waste valuable data resources obtaining these values. Step 2 - Persisting Data Traditional ASP.NET Web Forms applications enable objects to be stored in the Session between requests. Mobile web applications will often have different usage characteristics with users "dipping" in and out over an extended period of time. In these situations Session storage limitations may become too restrictive. Cookies consume bandwidth as they're continually sent from mobile device to server even if they're not used. To provide the persistence characteristics of cookies, the ease of use and bandwidth friendly benefits of session 51Degrees.mobi -.Net Mobile Framework enables data to be persisted in the MobileProfile. The following code stores the last date and time the application received a request from the mobile device in the Mobile Profile. If the value is present when the page is subsequently requested a label is added to the page to display the previous value. protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e) { // Get the last accessed time from the mobile profile if it exists. string lastaccessedtime = MobileProfile["LastAccessedTime"] as string; // If the last accessed time exists then add a label to the page indicating // the last time the mobile device requested a page from the application. if (lastaccessedtime!= null) { Copyright 51degrees.mobi Limited Page 4 of 6

5 Label label = new Label(); label.text = String.Format("Last Accessed Time: '{0}'", lastaccessedtime); } } Page.Controls.Add(label); // Store the last accessed time for future reference. MobileProfile["LastAccessedTime"] = DateTime.UtcNow.ToString(); The MobileProfile will persist data over a longer period of time than the Session. Data will not be flushed if the mobile device's browser is closed, the web site changed or the device restarted. Step 3 - Remember Previous Choices Many controls have been enhanced to remember previous choices if values are not explicitly provided by the developer. Add the following ASP.NET code to the web page and execute in Internet Explorer. <mob:radiobuttonlist runat="server" ID="RadioButtonListTicketType"> <asp:listitem Text="One Way" Value="1" Enabled="true" /> <asp:listitem Text="Return" Value="2" Enabled="true" /> </mob:radiobuttonlist> <mob:button runat="server" Text="Submit" /> Choose one of the options and then press the submit button. Close Internet Explorer and then restart the application. Notice that the selected radio button will be the value chosen previously. No new properties have been used to provide this functionality which now becomes the default behaviour. Any control that can store a selected value will now exhibit this behaviour including check boxes, radio buttons and text boxes. An additional property called ProfileDataKey can be used to share the persisted value between multiple instances of the same control type. Modify the previous code by adding a second radio button list and adding the ProfileDataKey set to a shared value. Your code should be similar to the following. <mob:radiobuttonlist runat="server" ID="RadioButtonListTicketType1" ProfileDataKey="TicketType"> <asp:listitem Text="One Way" Value="1" Enabled="true" /> <asp:listitem Text="Return" Value="2" Enabled="true" /> </mob:radiobuttonlist> Copyright 51degrees.mobi Limited Page 5 of 6

6 <hr /> <mob:radiobuttonlist runat="server" ID="RadioButtonListTicketType2" ProfileDataKey="TicketType"> <asp:listitem Text="One Way" Value="1" Enabled="true" /> <asp:listitem Text="Return" Value="2" Enabled="true" /> </mob:radiobuttonlist> <hr /> <mob:button runat="server" Text="Submit" /> Open the page in Internet Explorer. Notice how no radio buttons are selected. Chose a radio button from the first list and press Submit. Only the selected radio button in the first list changes. Now close Internet Explorer and restart the application. Notice how both radio button lists have defaulted to the previously selected value. ProfileDataKey can be handy way of synchronising default values between controls capturing the same data but displayed on different web pages. Conclusion MobileProfile is a powerful and simple to use storage mechanism to radically improve a mobile web applications usability. Choices that would requiring many presses of a joystick, or taps of a finger, can be remembered avoiding the need to re-enter the information. Data can temporarily be persisted over multiple pages supporting scenario's where a large amount of data is captured over a number of smaller pages. For example; data needed to complete an e-commerce transaction. Finally new value adding information such as Bandwidth is exposed for use in new mobile only scenarios. Copyright 51degrees.mobi Limited Page 6 of 6