HCL Nomad is here to lend you a hand in the digitalization revolution we are living in, and HCL just did an overview of its latest features.
Even though it has been in the making for a while, last year and the COVID pandemic enhanced the need to make our apps work not only on our computers but also on our tablets, phones, even wearables.
Providing the ability to access existing HCL Notes Apps across different devices is a must nowadays.
It’s now news that we are all dependent on our mobile devices and statistics only comes to confirm that: between 2019 and 2020 there were more than 250 million daily app downloads. Around 55% of all website views in January 2021 came from mobile devices. So, you will need your Domino apps to be available on mobile devices as well.
At the same time, going mobile does have its challenges, the most important of them being:
HCL Nomad is HCL Notes Client cross compiled for iOS, Android and the browser with enhancements for usability and it’s comparable to HCL Client for Application Access (HCAA).
The main benefits of HCL Nomad are:
- Allowing you to use your HCL Notes apps on a mobile device with little to no design changes;
- Security (Encryption, PKI, ACL, ECL);
- Offline Access and Replication
- A lot of apps and just one Mobile Client;
- No need to rewrite your app.
One very important thing that you will need to take into consideration is that you might need to make some design changes to your app to make sure that your app will look good on multiple screens. At the same time, the way your app is designed to begin with has a huge impact on how much work will be needed. In the end, HCL Nomad will help you only make some cosmetic changes to your app rather than migrating all together on a new platform.
The webinar has a great demo from Brian Arnold so make sure to watch it to see HCL Nomad in action.
HCL Nomad – What Works and What does not
You will be pleased to find out the 95% of your code will work right out of the box:
- Forms, Subforms
- Views, Folders
- Outlines, Navigators, Pages, Framesets, Images
- Agents, LotusScript Libraries
- LotusScript, @Formula
- Shared Actions, Fields, Columns
At the same time, there are certain things that don’t work:
- Composite Applications require the whole Notes standard Client to run;
- XPages in Notes Client (XPiNC)
- Java Libraries/Agents
- Operating System Dependant references
- OLE functionality
- Code calls to Domino Designer/Administrator
New in Designer are some really cool features like:
- Floating Action Button – View Actions
- Frame Navigation: for your existing apps if you do have an application which launches into a frameset you can create a better smartphone experience. HCL Nomad creates a Frameset Sequence by default when a Sequence is not explicitly defined by the designer.
- Hide From Mobile. You can simplify your app in order to ensure a better mobile experience:
- Hide action from Mobile
- Hide column from Mobile
- Hide paragraph from Mobile
As you might expect HCL is really eager to know if you have any ideas when it comes to HCL Nomad. Leave them into the AHA! portal and also vote for the ones that are already there and you find really useful.
If you want to talk about HCL Nomad, drop us a line and let’s see how we can help.