For up-to-date product documentation, see the IBM MobileFirst Foundation Developer Center.

The Direct Update lifecycle

Package and upload updated web resources to the MobileFirst Server. Deployed client Cordova apps can then download them with Direct Update.

A Direct Update scenario

The following diagram shows a typical production scenario. Web resources of a Cordova application that was published to an app store and downloaded to users' devices are updated directly.

Figure 1. Direct update cycle

1. The user downloads the application that was published in the app store. The application is marked and is published as V1.0.
2. Using CLI, the developer generates a package of updated web resources and deploys it to MobileFirst Server
3. Each time the client application makes a resource request to the MobileFirst Server, it checks for updates to the web resources. If any are found, the client is notified and is prompted to download the modified files, for example, a new HTML file.
4. After the download finishes, the general version of the application as shown on the user's device and as shown in the MobileFirst Operations Console is V1.0; however, internally, the web resources that it contains were revised slightly (call it V1.1). The only evidence that something changed is the application checksum, in addition to several internal files that changed too.

Parent topic: Update Cordova client apps directly