This guide walks you through KickApp application resources management.
Open in your browser My Apps page where you can find all your applications. Selecting any application (or create new one if you don't have any) you'll be taken to Application Dashboard where you can find all possible configurations for your app.
On top of Application Dashboard, you will find out Resource Manager block which have two options: In-App Resources and Cloud Resources.
As we can see from the image above there are two different kind of resources:
1. In-App Resources - are bundled (hosted) in the app itself. This means that they can work in offline and online mode in the same time.
Detailed description of highlighted items in the screenshot above:
a) This is a small preview of the selected file.
b) Files can be uploaded either by pressing the "Upload" button or by drag over.
c) You can filter files appearance by "all" , "images only" "audio files only" and "video files only". Also there is a search option.
d) The files can be sorted by: Name, Type(Kind), Size and Date Modified. Also there is a "Sync" box for each file. You may enable Synchronization for each file. See the tutorial about the Sync process and how it works here.
e) Each file can be force reloaded (refreshed), downloaded, duplicated, renamed or deleted.
f) Search on Google for images (jpeg, png or gif) and add to App's resources. (see attached screen below).
g) Right click on a file to download, duplicate, rename, delete or Toggle sync (enable sync).
2. Cloud Resources - was created in order to decrease the size of an application. We all want to have applications which do not have big sizes. You may avoid this now by hosting the application resources on our server. The end user may anytime download the resources (Audio, Video, PDF, Images, etc) from our server directly on his device and they will work in offline mode. The user may also anytime delete the resources from the device.
The Cloud
Resources window looks very similar to the In-App Resources one but it works
different and has few additional options.
Detailed description of additional options marked below are:
a) Folder. You may create folders by "right click" > New Folder. Add files in the created folders and sub-folders.
b) Convert to HTTP Live Streaming. This is a streaming format created by Apple and is only for iOS platform. You may convert any media files (audio or video) into HTTP Live Streaming.
How Cloud Resources work?
Cloud Resources (Hosted Resources) can be enabled for any native page type (feature). In your app you can have pages that use images, audio, video or PDF files. You can manage this setting for each page from App Dashboard > Page Settings > Hosted Resources.
What is the limit of uploaded resources?
For each page you may add files that will be downloaded automatically on the device once the page is opened in the app. You may add unlimited files. The maximum file size per file for Hosted Resources is 400 MB. Once Hosted Resources is enabled and files are added for a page, you need to select which file will show up on the device. You may do that from the edit mode of the page (App Dashboard > Edit Pages > select the page and click edit). In the edit mode (for almost each page) there are file picker fields.
Let's take a look on real example (see attached screenshots below):
You may select a file from In-App Resources or Cloud Resources.
In this example we will select the file "sample.pdf" from Cloud Resources. Note that you need to enable Hosted Resources for the mentioned page in Pages Settings > Hosted Resources which I have done above.
Let's see how Hosted Resources work on a device: Once the PDF Reader page is opened in the app (PDF Reader page is just an example. Feel free to use any page type), the PDF file will be automatically downloaded on the device.
Resources Synchronization on iOS Devices
Resources Synchronization on Android Devices
If Hosted Resources is enabled, then once the page is opened for the first time there will be a splash screen showing the downloading process of the file(s). If In-App resources is used, then the file will show up instantly.
Tips & Tricks:
- If the same file or files with the same names are
uploaded in In-App Resources and Hosted Resources, priority will have the ones
from In-App Resources. Make sure to use different file name for each type of
resources.
- The file types supported in the Resource Manager
are: .htm, .html, .css, .js, .png, .jpeg, .jpg, .gif,
.wav, .epub, .mp3, .mov, .mp4, .wav, .avi, .m4a, .3gp, .ogg, .strings, .pdf,
.xml, .plist, .mobileprovision, .cer, .txt, .zip, .json, .ttf.
- Supported character set for uploaded file names in
the Resource Manager are: English letters and characters, + '-‘ , '_’ , '.’
,’@' , '~' .
- Supported platforms: iOS, Android and Kindle.
- Cloud Resources cannot be used on index or tab
pages on iOS platform.
-
Cloud Resources is available only for the users who
have an active subscription.