2 Getting to Know MAX

How Do I Build a Mobile App Using MAX?

It’s a three-step process to get your app to its users.

1. Create the foundation of your app by choosing its first screen. You can decide how you want to arrange the content by selecting a template for a commonly used screen type, like a dashboard or a list. If none of these templates reflect your use case, you can choose a blank page and then populate it with UI components later on.

2. Add content to your app. You can drag and drop UI components to quickly build your app’s screens. You enable these screens to display data using a service published by your development team. To help you integrate the right data from the service into your UI, your development team defines a set of business objects, which use concrete terms to describe the data and how to use it.

3. Build, test, and publish your app. You can test your app in a hosted simulator to see how the actual data renders in your UI. You can see how your app interacts with live data on an actual device by viewing it through the MAX App, which you can download from the App Store or Google Play. After you’ve built your app, MAX generates a QR code that enables you to share the app with users. This QR code remains the same even when you’ve updated the app.

   
   
   Description of the illustration max_process.png
   

How Do I Get Started?

Before you build a mobile app, you should define a use case, how the user experience can be expressed by the screen flow of your app, and how your app (and its users) will interact with the data.

Even as you gather requirements and construct your use case scenarios, you can login to and get oriented by watching the videos. From there, you can peruse MAX to see which of its page and UI components fit your needs. The central piece of your mobile app will be the data that it accesses. While MAX enables you to give your mobile app access to backend data, you need to work with your dev team to learn about the available resources before you actually start building your app.

What Do I Need to Access MAX?

To access MAX and run your mobile apps, you need accounts for MAX itself, as well as a test user account, and mobile user account.

Check with your administrator to make sure that you have the following:

Account Type	Description
A MAX account	This is the user name and password that enables you to login to MAX. If your account has been set up properly, then you can build and publish mobile apps. You might have problems if your account configuration is incorrect or incomplete, so keep the following in mind: Contact your administrator if you don’t see the MAX UI after logging in to Oracle Cloud. Contact your administrator if you see an error message similar to the following when you’re trying to publish an app: A Mobile Cloud Production environment has not been configured for your user ID.
A test user account	You need a test user account to preview your app using live data. Ask your administrator to create this account, which you also need to generate the QR code for testing your app on a device. You can also use the test user account to test an app on a device.
A mobile user account	Anyone (including you) who runs mobile apps needs a mobile user account. If you’re already using mobile apps created by your company, then you have this account. Otherwise, make sure that you have it so that you can run your apps on a device.

Creating the First Screen of Your App

You can create the foundation of your app in just few clicks. Just give it a name and pick out a style for its first screen.

1. After you login, click New Application.
   If this is your first visit to MAX (or if you haven’t created an app yet), you’ll see a welcome page that looks like this:

   
   
   Description of the illustration new_app_first.png
   

   If you’ve created an app already, then welcome back! In this case, you’ll see the Applications page after you login.

   
   
   Description of the illustration apps_page1.png
   

   You can also create a new app from here as well as delete, update, or republish your existing apps. For now, however, just click New Application.
2. Next, give your app a display name and then click Next.
   
   
   Description of the illustration name_app.png
   

   You can change the default icon (and other default images). To find out more, see Using the Image Gallery.
3. Now that you’ve named your app, you’re ready to create the first screen that users see after logging in. First, choose from among these commonly used formats. You can opt to create a landing page with non-scrolling, banner-like summary pane at the top. Screen Summary describes these components, including how to add or remove them.
   
   
   Description of the illustration first_screen.png
   These templates all have a main menu icon (). After you finish your first screen, the main menu becomes active – you can open and close it. See What’s Next? to find out more. There are two versions of each screen type: one that has a summary field where you can display things like KPIs or images, and one that doesn’t.
4. Next, enter a name in the Screen Title field.
   If your first screen includes tabs, you can create them by replacing the Tab 1 , Tab 2, and Tab Title text in the Tabs fields with your own names. You can add up to four tabs top tabs or five bottom tabs.

   
   
   Description of the illustration screen_title_page.png
   
5. Select the layout option for your content (that is, for the UI components you want to add and ultimately, for the data that they display). Click Next.
   
   
   Description of the illustration content_page.png
   

   Tip:

   If you’re not sure how you’ll lay out your content, then choose the Custom option for now. You can explore other options in the Designer later. To find out more, see Getting to Know the Designer.
6. If everything looks OK (so far), click Create. If you want to pick a different format, you can go back through the wizard using either by clicking Previous () or by clicking on the progress trail at the top of the page.
   
   
   Description of the illustration review_page.png
   

   Tip:

   Later on, you can add another screen an make it the first screen that your users see when the open your app. See Rearranging Screens to find out more.

What’s Next?

MAX has already added some functionality to the first screen that you’ve just created, like navigating to your app’s main menu when you click the menu icon (). You can also traverse through your app using tab or pagination functions.

Description of the illustration built_in_nav.png

With the basic structure of your first screen now complete, you can use the Designer to dress it up with UI components, add other screens to it, and sequence them into the flow that supports your scenario. The Designer lets you integrate your UI with the service that provides your app with its data. It also lets you build, test, and publish your app. To find out more, see Getting to Know the Designer. If you want to jump in, check out the tutorial.

Description of the illustration designer.png