With Twixl, a user has several ways to read an article:
- On the fly: A content item is only downloaded and opened as the user swipes to the item.
- Collection on demand: A collection can be viewed on the fly or monolithic by long-pressing the thumbnail of a collection.
- Monolithic collection: A collection is downloaded entirely before displaying, ideal for offline reading of a magazine when travelling.
- Keep all data offline (Full offline modus): App is downloaded entirely before displaying, ideal for offline app usage (e.g. a sales app).
While the first 2 options are triggered by the user, the last 2 are managed and enabled by the App Publisher. Downloaded items are never deleted automatically by the system of the device.
1. Collection on demand
When a user wants to be able to read a collection offline (e.g. reading a magazine when travelling), they can long-press the thumbnail of that collection and confirm to download. The only difference with a monolithic collection is that the user is in full control to download a collection or not.
By long-pressing the collection again, the user can permanently delete the collection from the device.
As a publisher, you can help the user to discover this feature by adding a download icon (see further) and by adding a tp-download url scheme to your app.
2. Monolithic Download
When you enable the monolithic option in a collection, the user is forced to download a collection before the browse view or first content item will be shown. This option ensures quick and smooth flows between 2 content items as these are on the device already.
As this is not a general project setting, you can decide for each collection individually if you want to offer it as an on-the-fly or as a monolithic collection.
By long-pressing the collection, the user will permanently delete the collection from the device. A next visit to that collection will force the download again.
2.1. How to activate this feature?
Via Collection > Your collection > Collection Settings > Collection Options > Enable 'Monolithic Download'
Note that if the option Keep All Data Offline in your Application Settings is active (see below), this option will not appear in your collection settings, as it is irrelevant in that case.
2.2. How can the reader use this?
- For collections that have the option 'Monolithic download' enabled, the process will be fully transparent, and a progress bar will be displayed during the download.
- Monolithic downloads are never automatically deleted by the system and stay on the device. To remove the downloaded collection, a user can long-press the item in the browse grid, then delete the content for that collection. It can always be re-downloaded later.
- You can use the custom URL scheme tp-downloads:// to allow users to get an overview of all downloaded collections.
2.3. How to display a download status icon in your browse grid
If you want to make it clearer for a user whether a collection is ready to download or has already been downloaded, you can include the placeholder {icon-download-status} in your item style.
IMPORTANT NOTE:
When downloading a (monolithic) collection, the content items that are downloaded will only go one level deep. This means that, if the collection contains e.g. collection links (to other collections), these will not be downloaded.
3. Full Offline Mode
We provide a configuration setting (i.e. set by the publisher), where all content of all collections will be downloaded completely when first starting up the app. This is ideal for sales people who sometimes don’t have an internet connection when they are on the road. Every time a user goes back to the app and he’s online, a check will be performed if there is new and/or updated content that needs to be downloaded.
WARNING:
Requires users to download all app contents on first startup. Ideal for certain in-house apps, but not recommended for App Store apps, as such an app will most likely be rejected by Apple.
3.1. How to activate this?
Go to Menu > Design > Configuration > Application Behavior and enable the 'Keep All Data Offline' feature.
We advise to thoroughly test the navigation and functionality of your app first before enabling this feature as you constantly need checking during the project designing phase.
3.2. How can the reader use this?
First of all, the reader needs to download the latest version of your app. Every time a user goes back to the app and they are online, the app will check whether there is new and/or updated content that needs to be downloaded or old content that needs to be deleted. When new content is available, a dialog will force the user to download the latest content. When the content has been downloaded and is available offline, the app can be used.
When the user is offline, the app will not check for updates and the user can just start exploring the app.