The team has been heads-down working on new features and fixes to make sure Ionic Appflow is helping you build and distribute your Ionic apps faster and easier than ever. Here’s a little update on what’s new and what’s to come!
GitHub Integration, Private GitHub NPM Packages, and Cordova Plugins, Oh my!
Now you can link your app in Ionic Appflow to your GitHub repository! Once you’ve linked the app and chosen which branches you’d like to trigger builds, you simply push your code to GitHub like normal and we’ll automatically build your app so it’s available to you to deploy or create a native build. Check these docs on how to link your app to learn more or head to the dashboard and get started!
Apps linked to GitHub also receive the benefit of being able to access private GitHub repositories listed in their package.json dependencies and cordova plugins during the build and package process, as long as the person who used their GitHub account to link the app has access to the private repos. Note that for those not using the Github integration, private repos / modules are not fully supported at this time.
Be on the lookout for Bitbucket Cloud integrations soon as well!
Git Submodule Support
We’ve added support to our build process for Git submodules! If your app uses other publicly available git repositories as submodules, they’ll now be correctly cloned and available to your build process with no additional work necessary on your part.
Subscribe and Unsubscribe from Monitoring Emails
You can now subscribe or unsubscribe for monitoring emails from each app. If you’re on a the Team or Business plan, anyone on your team with access to the app can subscribe and unsubscribe, so that only the team members who need the emails get them and everyone else’s inboxes stay squeaky clean. You’ll find the ability to turn on and off emails for yourself in the settings area of you app under the notifications tab.
New Dashboard URL
You may have already noticed in your browser's address bar that we moved the dashboard to https://dashboard.). We’ll automatically forward you the the new url so no action is necessary on your part. That said, you may want to update your password managers and bookmarks if you have not.
Annual Subscriptions
One of the reasons we created Ionic Appflow is to increase the value we can provide to our developers. In an effort to continue providing you with the best value possible, we have introduced the ability for our existing subscribers to upgrade to an annual subscription which will save you 15%!
Upgrading is easy!
- Log into your Ionic Appflow account
- Under account settings go to billing
- There you will have the option to select an annual subscription
Deploy v5 Alpha Released
We know you like using Deploy to get bug fixes and updates into your users hands as quickly and reliably as possible, so we’ve been working hard laying the foundation for the next major release of Deploy which will bring with it all sorts of goodies when it’s complete.
We released an alpha version of Deploy v5 recently. And while we don’t recommend using it in your production apps yet, we’d love to start getting some feedback from alpha users so we can polish the rough edges and squash all the bugs before we release it officially. To extend our gratitude for being an alpha tester, any live updates made with the alpha version won’t count against your limits!
Here’s a list of enhancements that Deploy v5 alpha brings with it:
- CDN - Your updates are served over a CDN so that your users download updates faster.
- Partial downloads - Updates now only download the files that have changed which can cut download sizes by up to 80% making them faster and saving your users precious data.
- Enhanced Background Updates - Now you can set a time limit so that if your user puts your app into the background for a set amount of time if an update is available it will be applied when they bring it to the foreground again. Previously the app would need to be closed completely.
- Better Recovery - We’ve got you covered if you deploy a version of the app that doesn’t work at all we’ll roll back to the last version and recover gracefully.
- New API - The v4 Javascript API still exists but has been deprecated in favor of a new v5 API which uses promises rather than callbacks.
Here’s a list of things that will be coming to select Appflow plans in the new version:
- Per Deploy Update Method - Ability to specify per deploy whether you want the update to be applied immediately when the app recognizes the update is available, or if it should apply it the next time the user opens the app.
- Code Signing - Updates will be able to be signed with a private key and the plugin will use a public key to verify the updates authenticity.
- Usage Statistics - Ability to see information about how many of your users are on each channel and how many of them are on the latest versions.
If you’d like to be an alpha tester, you can find install instructions and v5 API docs in the README on the GitHub repo. If you encounter issues or have feedback, feel free to open an issue on GitHub! And make sure to keep up with the latest alpha releases as we’ll be releasing the new functionality and bug fixes as they happen!
We've got more exciting updates coming soon so be on the lookout!
Follow us on twitter @getionicpro for continued product updates and announcements.
P.S. Ionic Appflow subscribers can upgrade to our Ionic Enterprise solution that includes access to our Enterprise Customer Success team. Our experts can provide hands-on and highly customized training and advisory services to get you started and keep your project on track. We also offer guaranteed SLAs for peace of mind that your apps will stay up and running.
Learn more by visiting our Enterprise Support page.
Comments
0 comments
Article is closed for comments.