SureFox + HTML5 = Deliver Awesome Web Applications to your Mobile Workforce
Get the best of both worlds with complete browser lockdown and comprehensive HTML5 feature set with the new SureFox. Whether it's a basic kiosk implementation or an enterprise with specific business needs, SureFox has something for you. Checkout the rich collection of features, technologies, and APIs of HTML5 supported by SureFox:
FEATURES
OFFLINE: localStorage, Web SQL Database Storage, online/offline events, Application Cache
Boost the performance of your application by storing data in the cache or use it for data persistency and user sessions and when reloading and restoring pages.
STORAGE: Web Storage-sessionStorage, Web Storage-localStorage, Web SQL Database Storage, Web SQL Database - rollback, Storage events
Save data on the device instead of uploading it to server each and every time. Data can also be sync'd back to the server, or it can always stay on the device: that's up to you, the developer.
COMMUNICATION: postMessage(same domain), postMessage(across domain)
Communicate confidential data between frames on same window or different windows by using postMessage API and integrate 3rd party content with more trust
CONNECTIVITY: online/offline events, offline detection, navigator.onLine (Using polls instead of events), offline application using manifest
Handle mobile connections with more control over the connection status hence providing more performance, better user experience.
MULTIMEDIA: video element, audio element
Audio and Video make Web ultra rich with HTML5. The real power of these new HTML elements stands out when they are combined with the other technologies of the web stack.
LOCATION: GeoLocation
Serve your end-users with location-specific content or just gather user statistics to improve your application by implementing GeoLocation & tracking using GPS, Cellular or WiFi network
GRAPHICS: Canvas, 2D Canvas, text element, CSS3 and Interactive Canvas Gradient
Produce animations or visual effects for your web apps & pages with the addition of technologies like the canvas elements, smooth CSS3 transitions and transformations which deal with graphics on the web.
Other available HTML5 features include , contenteditable attribute, dataset(data-* attributes)
Author: Panshul Srivastava
42Gears Mobility Systems
To learn more on how to secure and manage Android and Windows Mobile/CE devices efficiently, visit us at www.42gears.com
How to restrict websites in Android using SureFox
Many enterprises provide mobile devices(tablets and smartphones) to their employees for running web-based mobile apps. However, with the increased availability of online content such as games, music/movies and social networking sites, providing complete web access can distract the users leading to decreased productivity as well as it can pose a threat to enterprise's security as well. Providing restricted internet access to employees can be quite a task. However, SureFox makes it very easy for the device administrators to configure the Allowed Websites on Android tablets and smartphones and block all other websites.
Just follow the steps below to add allowed websites in SureFox:
- Open the SureFox's Settings screen by quickly tapping on back button or on screen 5 times and enter your password
- Tap on "Allowed Websites"
Tap on "Allowed Websites"
- Tap on "Add URL"
Tap on "Add URL"
- Enter Website Details as explained below:
Website Details Screen
URL: Select the URL type:
http : Select if the site uses the http:// protocol
https : Select if the site is a Secured Site(SSL) and uses https://
file : Select if the site is stored on the device's storage memoryDisplay Name: The name specified here is displayed on SureFox homepage for the allowed URL
Allow sub-domains: Tick the check-box if you wish to allow all the sub-domains of the allowed URL. For example: If you have selected www.google.com as the allowed URL, then allowing the sub-domains will provide access to all sites hosted under *.google.com such as maps.google.com, mail.google.com and so on. However note that allowing sub-domains does not allow sites with same domain name but with different extensions such as google.co.in or google.co.uk. They will have to be allowed as a seperate URL.
Set as Starting URL: The selected URL will be set as Homepage and will automatically load with the launch of SureFox
Hide URL: If the Hide URL check-box is marked, the allowed URL will be hidden from the SureFox homepage but will not be blocked if any other page tries to open it. This option becomes quite useful in case you don't want the end-user to directly launch the website but should be accessible when launched by other allowed sites.
Icon: Lets you to choose the display icon for each allowed URL on SureFox homepage
Favicon : Fetches favicon from the site dynamically
Default : Displays a globe icon for the site
Custom : Manually specify an image file - Tap on Done.
Website added to the "Allowed Websites" list
Repeat the steps to add as many allowed sites and that's it, user will be able to access only the sites you allow and restrict the rest.
Author: Panshul Srivastava
42Gears Mobility Systems
To learn more on how to secure and manage Android and Windows Mobile/CE devices efficiently, visit us at www.42gears.com
Configure Icon View of Allowed Websites in SureFox
SureFox now allows you to show custom icons for "allowed websites". Custom icons can be of three types- favicon, default icon or custom image. Here's a sample screen to give you an idea of what you can do with your SureFox:
Icon View Display of SureFox
Details of SureFox Custom Icon Types:
Favicon:
Selecting "favicon" as display icon
favicon fetches the custom icon from the allowed website dynamically and displays the same in SureFox.
Default Icon:
Selecting "default icon" as display icon
Default icon displays a default globe icon for the allowed website you have selected
Custom Icon:
Selecting "custom icon/image" as display icon
Custom icon allows you to display any image type as a thumbnail image for the selected website. Tap on "Custom" to launch file browser and select the image file of your choice. (Note: You can manually specify a local image path or an image over internet too. For Ex.: http://www.site.com/image.png)
After making the required changes in "Settings", tap on "Done" button to apply the changes and that's it. You are done with customizing the display of SureFox.
Author: Panshul Srivastava
42Gears Mobility Systems
To learn more on how to secure and manage Android and Windows Mobile/CE devices efficiently, visit us at www.42gears.com
Modifying how to access SureFox Settings
A common problem faced by end-users of SureFox was unintentionally bumping into SureFox's admin password screen thereby disrupting the application flow.
Worry no more. SureFox now comes with an option to customize the way you access administrator settings. Here's how you can do the same:
- Access the SureFox admin screen using your password and follow as shown in steps below:
Steps for SureFox
- In Misc Settings, you can find the options to modify the settings to access Administrator's Password Prompt.
- Number of Taps: Change the Number of Taps required on screen to open the Password Screen for Admin
Edit "Number of Taps"
- Access Settings Timeout: Change "Access Settings Timeout" to control the time(in seconds) after launch of SureFox within which the Admin can try to access Password prompt for Admin Setting
Edit "Access Settings Timeout"
- Number of Taps: Change the Number of Taps required on screen to open the Password Screen for Admin
That's it. Your SureFox's admin screen is restricted according to the settings you configure and reduces the chances of unintentional launch by end-user.
Author: Panshul Srivastava
42Gears Mobility Systems
To learn more on how to secure and manage Android and Windows Mobile/CE devices efficiently, visit us at www.42gears.com
How to embed Flash objects in html webpages
Plain html web pages is no big deal but to make a webpage feature-rich, you might want to use HTML5, the new standard of web pages or you can embed Flash objects to implement high quality multimedia content in your web pages. SureFox supports rendering of HTML5 as well as Flash content.
There are many ways to embed flash into your web pages, however here is the simplest way to do it:
Embedding Flash in html page
The highlighted code needs to be inserted as:
<object classid="clasid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=7,0,19,0" width="100" height="330" id="yourfile" > <param name="movie" value="yourfile.swf" /> <param name="quality" value="high" /> <param name="bgcolor" value="#000000"> <embed src="yourfile.swf" quality="high" bgcolor="#FFFFFF" width="400" height="400" name="yourfile" align="" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" pluginspace="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer"> </embed> </object>
where yourfile.swf represents the flash file to be embedded and the display dimensions can be set via width and height attributes.
Finally, upload all the files(html, flash, etc) to web server or your device's memory from where you want to access the webpage.
Note: You can refer the post on how to use local web pages in SureFox by clicking here
To learn more on how to run your web-applications on Android Tablets & Smartphones in Kiosk mode, visit us at www.42gears.com/surefox
Author: Panshul Srivastava
42Gears Mobility Systems