Congress Navigator: There's an App for That

We're hooked on the Internet and uninterrupted access to all of our data that lives in the cloud. But many of us don't take our laptops with us everywhere (not to mention our desktops). In fact, some people use smartphones as their primary Internet device. Responsive websites and dedicated smartphone apps are two ways to make data in the cloud accessible to people on the go.

Website or App?

One way to publish data on the web is with a responsive website, which adjusts the display of the data to fit the screen size of your device. The data provider publishes the data as web pages, and you can view it on any device that has a web browser.

Another way to view data is with an app. The data provider usually publishes the raw data, and provides an app that can read the data and display it. To view the data, you install the app on your tablet or smartphone.

Both websites and apps will adjust the data display to fit on your device. One advantage of an app is that once you have installed it, the app is usually easier to use than a web browser, and it can use the entire screen.

The Congress Navigator Demo Becomes an App

A while ago I created a demo called Congress Navigator, which is an example of a mashup that grabs data from different websites and presents the data together. I thought it was time to give the (browser-based) demo a "little brother," an app that shows the same data on a smartphone.

Under the Hood

As usual, I'm building on top of great Open Source tools that do much of the hard work:

• Vue: "A progressive framework for building user interfaces." Vue is not as well known as some other JavaScript frameworks like Angular and React, but being a progressive framework means programmers can use it with existing HTML pages, as well as creating entire apps with it.
• Framework7: A "full-featured HTML framework for building iOS & Android apps." I define the app screens in a platform-independent manner, and Framework7 generates versions that conform to user interface guidelines for iOS and Android devices.
• Cordova: "An open-source mobile development framework." When I use Vue and Framework7, the result is web pages that look good but that still require a web browser. I use Cordova to bundle up those web pages and actually create an app that can be installed on a smartphone.