From time to time, one needs to reflect on accomplishments and identify areas of improvement. At CodeNeighbor, with much feedback, new features have been added while earlier ones were temporarily paused for much needed updates.

The challenge of any app is to ensure that the look and feel is great regardless of device, that being a MacBook Air 13″ or a desktop with a 32″ monitor … ensuring parity of visual quality takes time. When CodeNeighbor was initially developed, smaller screen sizes were not initially considered a priority as producing the features people want and have asked for was the priority.

The earlier UI allowed for a wider array of component designs and landscape acreage which did not reflect well on smaller screens. With this release (2.831), this has been corrected as well as some small improvements in performance and a bug fix or two. We hope this new look and feel works well for you and as always, we welcome feedback on any aspect of CodeNeighbor as well as suggestions for new features.

Thanks again for being a CodeNeighbor neighbor and stay tuned for some exciting new capabilities this quarter !

API testing is a process that confirms an API is working as expected. There are several types of API tests, and each one plays a distinct role in ensuring that the API’s functionality, security, and performance remain reliable. Developers can run API tests manually, or they can automate them with an API testing tool.

Developers use API’s as one simply breathes – it is a requirement to be productive, retrieve information … and to stay alive. Testing these API’s (endpoints) is critical to ensure an application continues to function properly, provides the information an application needs and ensures there is no interruption of service.

But … testing is something that developers fundamentally avoid, ignore or overlook. Testing is boring, tedious and takes precious time away from the fun stuff, the work that needs done, the building of features or shiny new components that are important. Simplifying this effort, of testing and having those tests run automatically, with dynamic data parameters and optionally on a scheduled basis is where CodeNeighbor comes to the rescue.

This initial release provides the core foundation of defining an API endpoint, its’ required parameters and headers and the ability to save the result are now available in the version just released today – version 2.7. Work has started on improving this feature to provide data driven tests, using data created in the data artifacts widget, that can provide varied testing situations, simulating real world scenarios and reviewing the results ensuring success or failure.

Additionally, having these tests run on a scheduled basis will also be possible by enabling a feature typically only available to higher subscription levels and that being by using the CRON scheduler. The CRON widget itself will not be available (in full feature mode) to free or entry level subscribers in full, but only allowing scheduling of API test harnesses with somewhat limited scheduling capabilities. If your subscription level allows for full CRON capabilities, stay tuned for advanced features integrating CRON with API testing … in the mean time – happy testing !

“Workflow is a generic term for orchestrated and repeatable patterns of activity, enabled by the systematic organization of resources into processes that transform materials, provide services, or process information.”

That sounds like a great definition … but to simplify what it means to those familiar with this technology, it is a great way to automate repeatable processes and allow for ‘dynamic development’. Depending on what features a workflow engine provides, it may be a simple connection of fixed functions or it may allow for invoking custom code, scripts or applications.

What CodeNeighbor provides with this initial feature release is somewhere in the middle. There are some common workflow steps that provide fixed features, such as listing an S3 bucket in AWS to those steps that invoke scripts or Swift code, that is provided by you, the developer.

Future releases will provide the ability to create custom workflow steps to invoke your own reusable components as well as expanding data integrations when invoking scripts and code — and in future providing ability to use other languages, like Python or …

Please let us know your experiences with this new exciting and powerful feature and have fun creating new workflows !

Version 2.36 is now available and includes some great new features !

Push notifications messaging from the CodeNeighbor system is now available. System messages can be delivered for updates and information. This update allows CodeNeighbor to release timely updates and stay connected with you and your teams. Communication is key to success and these updates provide a pathway to our next steps which is chat messaging support.

The main component of this remote notification setup is the Apple Push Notification service, also known as APNs. APN in actuality is a collection of services that allows the developer to send the notifications from their server to the targeted iOS devices. The APNs are robust and secure methods to establish a connection between the provider server and individual Apple devices. 

Audible and speech cues have also been added to complement any messaging. Incoming messages from the system can provide audio cues when they arrive and we are interested in evaluating the role audio cues can play in improving engagement and outcomes in the context of messaging. This feature does provide the ability to be disabled should one wish to turn it off.