Pega^® Mobile Client 6.10 features several enhancements, including support for Android 6 and the introduction of new APIs.

Android 6 support

Pega Mobile Client now supports Android 6. For details, see the Supported platforms section below.

Document Picker API

You can now capture media (such as audio, video, or images), as well as retrieve various documents from the device's gallery or other sources (for example, Google Drive), taking advantage of native UI components. Unlike the current Pega Mobile Client APIs, this API does not use callbacks to obtain operation results; instead it relies on JavaScript promises. The API's operation results in returning a promise that can be used to retrieve a fileEntry that represents the picked media resource or a DOMerror, which describes the nature of the failure.

See the Document Picker API reference for details.

Notifications API

This release of Pega Mobile Client includes a new Notifications API that supports push notifications and local notifications. Both the Push Notifications API and the Local Notifications API have been deprecated. The new API emulates them transparently for backward compatibility. Unlike these two APIs, the Notifications API does not use callbacks to obtain operation results; instead it relies on JavaScript promises. The API's operation results in returning promises that can be used to retrieve different parameters, or DOMerrors, which describe the nature of the failure.

See the Notifications API reference for details.

A new operating mode of the app building mechanism has been introduced to complement the existing ones. You can use this mode for testing purposes, to mimic the behavior of the platform's building mechanism. The bundle-based mode is limited in terms of configuration options and functionality. All app configuration and branding is done in a single ZIP file. For more details, request the low-level documentation available from your Global Customer Service representative.

New permission model for Android 6 affecting custom module generation

Pega Mobile Client now supports the new runtime permission model in Android 6 and later. Pega Mobile Client provides a new API to support the new permission mechanism on Android 6 devices and later versions. It is transparent to devices, which do not support this feature. If your application is intended for use on devices with Android 6 or later, you must modify your existing custom modules to adjust for this change.

Although all permissions must be granted in the AndroidManifest.xml file, the following conditions apply, which means that Pega Mobile Client must check the permission status every time an API that requires it is used:

• Some permissions are now granted automatically during installation
• Other permissions must be granted explicitly by the user when they are needed
• All permissions can be revoked by the user at any time

For a list of permissions that can be granted by the user, see the Android developer's reference. All permissions with a protection level other than "normal" must be requested at run time.

For a description of the new Permissions API, review the Javadoc information that is included in the distribution package for Android, which you can obtain from your Pegasystems Global Customer Support representative. Also, review the Developing custom modules for Android article.

Changes in the parameter set of the Container object

Because of changes introduced in Android 6, the Container object's parameter set has been modified in the following ways:

phoneNumber - The phoneNumber parameter is no longer supported.

deviceId - The deviceId parameter does not contain the IMEI number (or MEID in the case of CDMA) any more. It now contains the device's serial number or (if this number is not available or is not unique) the Android ID of the device.

Package name and class prefix name change affecting custom module development

If you develop custom modules, this release of Pega Mobile Client introduces important changes that require that you modify your existing code.

On iOS:

• All class names, types, and constant definitions that previously used the "AHC" prefix now use the "PM" prefix instead.
• All package names that identify product modules have also been updated, for example, "AHCPlugin" is now "PMPlugin".
• Old import declarations could not be preserved. They must be updated in your existing custom modules, for example:
  #import <AHCBase/AHCPlugin.h> must now be #import <PMBase/PMPlugin.h>.

On Android:

• All Pega Mobile Client classes have changed their package names:
  com.antennasoftware.hybridcontainer.* is now com.pega.mobile.*
com.antennasoftware.commontools.* is now com.pega.commontools.*
• All imports in your custom module classes must be modified to account for the new package names.
• All artifact group names for Pega Mobile Client product modules have changed. Instead of com.antennasoftware, they are now com.pega. Therefore, all dependencies in the build.gradle file of your existing custom module must be updated, for example:
  dependencies { compile 'com.antennasoftware:base:6.9' } must now be dependencies { compile 'com.pega:base:6.10' }.

Arbitrary repeat interval of local notifications

On Android devices, you can now use the schedule method of the Local Notifications API to display notifications repeatedly at arbitrarily chosen intervals. The interval between notifications can be configured by setting a number of milliseconds as a value of the repeatInterval parameter. The arbitrary delay value must be greater than or equal to 100. Unsupported values are ignored.

Pega Mobile Client documentation

In addition to this release information, numerous PDN articles are published with each release of Pega Mobile Client. Refer to the following information for the most up-to-date version of the documentation:

• Pega Mobile Client
• API reference

Supported platforms

Device platform support

Pega 7 Platform support

This version of Pega Mobile Client supports Pega 7.1.7 and later.