How to turn your website into a mobile App

Previously, the general trend was to create a website on the Internet to ensure an online presence. Now and after the mobile revolution, website owners are turning to convert their site into a mobile application. Many customers want to convert any site to an Android or IOS application. If you are considering creating an Android application for your site; You should take a look at the principles that convert the site into an application according to three perspectives: business, user, and platform. So how to turn your website into a mobile App?

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How to turn your website into a mobile App

In terms of business, why you need to build an App?

There are a lot of examples of companies that started as a website and then later switched to a mobile app like Dropbox, Airbnb, Google Docs, and more… but did you ask yourself why do you think they made this decision? This is because mobile devices have become widespread and circulating with millions of the world’s population, and this has been for many years. But the real reason is not “mobile phones” itself, the real reason is due to the users. As the website, email, SMS, mobile apps, text messages, customer service, and phone calls are all these things that are simply the channels companies use to interact with their customers. As the user has become more inclined to use the applications for reasons like speed, ease of use, and their presence all the time into their mobiles.

User Experience

The evolution of the user experience is the reason why companies are moving to convert their site into a mobile application, and it is up to you to decide how exactly you want to provide your services and your site to the user. Would you choose to include all the features of your website in the mobile application, or just specific functions available in the application? even sometimes some mobile applications have some functions that are not available on the websites, and that’s for a good reason.

It doesn’t matter whether the application is a direct translation of a website or not, what matters is creating a good and effective user experience; Each platform or channel has different rules to follow – whether you are developing a product from scratch or turning your site into an app. Among the three most important components to formulate a good user experience is in application development, platform knowledge, and business experience.

Does turning your website into an App costs a lot?

The cost of converting a site into an app can be somewhat high, due to the variety of features that sites typically provide. The idea of converting the site into an application is an idea that needs to be studied well. You must know the nature of the user of your site, and what is the expected reaction, and whether the mobile application will affect positively or negatively on your project.

how to achieve a smooth integration of UX

The original applications have a very distinct look and feel. the (UX) in the mobile app must be completely different from the (UX) of a website. You should not ignore good design and make a good first impression, and pay attention to brand value. Therefore, let’s highlight some of the most common user expectations that distinguish the mobile app from a website.

Consistency across screen sizes

Obviously, it’s hard to get the whole site on a small screen. For further clarification, for every four to five pages on a website you will have five to ten screens on the mobile app. This is another reason why you should capture only the main features, at least in the early versions of your mobile application.

Ease of navigation

The steps on the website are usually complex and require more than one click to reach the desired page. But the opposite should happen in terms of the mobile application. When you convert the site to an application, consider the characteristics of the mobile as it is the first step that leads you to convert the site into an application. In other words, every page is designed with a clear direction. There is nothing that causes confusion to users. they don’t have to waste their time trying to get to the page they want.

Speed up the work

Users expect that the presence of the mobile application will help them quickly completes the task required in terms of accomplishing something and then going out. Because instant gratification is the only way to keep users engaged and keep them coming back to use the application.

Users become less willing to use the application the more complicated, and the more time it takes to load the page. The more clicks between screens, and the more fields the user needs.

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The converting platform

Since websites and mobile apps have things in common, the question you should ask is not “How can I convert a website into an app?” Rather, “How can I develop a mobile app with the best user experience?”

The mobile apps are distinguished from the sites, with many advantages that you can use to take your business to a better level. One of the biggest advantages of mobile apps is the ability to connect to device services and hardware components. You can access the phone’s menu, photos, camera, contacts…

The mobile application is a part of the user’s lifestyle because it is designed for repeated use. It is available on the user’s phone 365 days a year, 24 hours a day.

The process

When you start thinking about creating a new mobile service application, you should study some important points, especially if you are thinking about a first-class technical project.

You should know that when designing and developing a mobile application you will need to program three main parts:

1- Backend, which is the management control panel, through which the project and its content are fully controlled, and programming in web languages ​​such as ASP.Net or PHP, and the data is stored in a database.

2-   Programming and designing the application: There are two types of programming for Native and Hybrid applications, and do you need to program an application that works on iPhone or Android phones?

•   In the case of Native, the iPhone application will be programmed in C ++ and Android in Java.
•   In the case of Hybrid, the two types will be programmed in the same language as Titanium or React Native.

3- Web Service, which is the link between the application in the client’s hand and the database, and it is also programmed in web languages.

One of the most important points that must be studied is the type of programming that you will choose in implementing mobile application programming. Is it Native or Cross? We will try in this article to explain the differences between the two systems.

Native Apps

Native Apps code works faster and better. They may work better with device functions as a camera/microphone…

Through the Native Apps, we can obtain data about the actions that the user performs easily and analyze them, and this makes it easy to judge the efficiency of the application’s properties and the effectiveness of the promotional campaigns that you conduct.

Native Apps are usually better when it comes to speed and uptime.

Cross-platform Apps

Cross-platform mobile development is the creation of software applications that are compatible with multiple mobile operating systems. The complexity of developing mobile apps was compounded by the difficulty of building out a backend that worked across multiple platforms. This is very attractive for those who want to build game apps for example.

How to turn your website into a mobile App

The next half of this article will be an explanation of how to create a simple Android application for any website using the Android studio program, but before you start the steps make sure that your site is responsive to work well on the phone.

Download Android Studio. And let’s start

The first step: Create a new project with Android Studio

1- Opening a new project using the Android Studio File> New Project
2- Write the name of the application and the package
In this project, I chose the name WebView
  Package: com.yourside.httpwww.webView
  Then choose Minimum SDK and click Next
3- From the next window, choose Empty activity, then Next, then Finish

Step two: add codes to the project

The addition of programming codes will be in the three files located in the project to the left of the program as shown in the picture:

Copy the following codes and replace them with the codes in each file separately:

First File: AndroidManifest.xml
You’ll find it here: App> Manifests> AndroidManifest.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<manifest xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    package="com.yoursite.httpwww.webview">
        android:versionCode="1"
        android:versionName="1.0" >

        <uses-sdk
            android:minSdkVersion="8"
            android:targetSdkVersion="23" />

        <uses-permission android:name="android.permission.INTERNET" />
        <uses-permission android:name="android.permission.ACCESS_NETWORK_STATE" />
        <application
            android:allowBackup="true"
            android:icon="@mipmap/ic_launcher"
            android:label="@string/app_name"
            android:supportsRtl="true"
            android:theme="@style/AppTheme">
            <activity android:name=".MainActivity">
                <intent-filter>
                    <action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN" />

                    <category android:name="android.intent.category.LAUNCHER" />
                </intent-filter>
            </activity>
        </application>

    </manifest>

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<FrameLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    xmlns:tools="http://schemas.android.com/tools"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="match_parent"
    android:paddingBottom="5dp"
    android:paddingLeft="5dp"
    android:paddingRight="5dp"
    android:paddingTop="5dp"
    android:orientation="vertical"
    android:gravity="center_horizontal|center_vertical"
    tools:context="com.yoursite.httpwww.webView.MainActivity">

    <WebView
        android:id="@+id/webView"
        android:layout_width="fill_parent"
        android:layout_height="fill_parent" />

    <LinearLayout
        android:id="@+id/layoutProgress"
        android:layout_width="fill_parent"
        android:layout_height="fill_parent"
        android:orientation="vertical"
        android:gravity="center_horizontal|center_vertical" >

        <ProgressBar
            android:layout_width="fill_parent"
            android:layout_height="wrap_content"
            android:id="@+id/progressBar"
            style="?android:attr/progressBarStyleLarge"
            android:layout_gravity="center_vertical" />
    </LinearLayout>

</FrameLayout>

package com.yoursite.httpwww.webView;
        import android.content.Context;
        import android.graphics.Bitmap;
        import android.net.ConnectivityManager;
        import android.net.NetworkInfo;
        import android.support.v7.app.AppCompatActivity;
        import android.os.Bundle;
        import android.view.KeyEvent;
        import android.view.View;
        import android.webkit.WebSettings;
        import android.webkit.WebView;
        import android.webkit.WebViewClient;
        import android.widget.LinearLayout;
        import android.widget.ProgressBar;
        import android.widget.Toast;

public class MainActivity extends AppCompatActivity {
    private WebView webView;
    private ProgressBar progressBar;
    private LinearLayout layoutProgress;
    @Override
    protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
        setContentView(R.layout.activity_main);
        webView = (WebView) findViewById(R.id.webView);
        progressBar = (ProgressBar) findViewById(R.id.progressBar);
        layoutProgress = (LinearLayout) findViewById(R.id.layoutProgress);
        webView.setVisibility(View.GONE);
        WebSettings settings = webView.getSettings();
        settings.setJavaScriptEnabled(true);
        settings.setBuiltInZoomControls(true);
        settings.setSupportZoom(true);
        settings.setDisplayZoomControls(false);
        webView.setWebViewClient(new WebViewClient() {
            @Override
            public boolean shouldOverrideUrlLoading(WebView view, String url) {
                view.loadUrl(url);
                return true;
            }

            @Override
            public void onPageFinished(WebView view, String url) {
                webView.setVisibility(View.VISIBLE);
                layoutProgress.setVisibility(View.GONE);
                progressBar.setIndeterminate(false);
                super.onPageFinished(view, url);

            }

            @Override
            public void onPageStarted(WebView view, String url, Bitmap favicon) {
                layoutProgress.setVisibility(View.VISIBLE);
                progressBar.setIndeterminate(true);
                super.onPageStarted(view, url, favicon);
            }
        });
        if(isOnline()) {
            webView.loadUrl("http://www.yoursite.com/");
        } else {
            String summary = "<html><body><font color='red'>No Internet Connection</font></body></html>";
            webView.loadData(summary, "text/html", null);
            toast("No Internet Connection.");
        }
    }
    private void toast(String message) {
        Toast.makeText(this, message, Toast.LENGTH_LONG).show();
    }

    private boolean isOnline() {
        ConnectivityManager cm = (ConnectivityManager) getSystemService(Context.CONNECTIVITY_SERVICE);
        NetworkInfo netInfo = cm.getActiveNetworkInfo();
        return (netInfo != null && netInfo.isConnected());
    }

    @Override
    public boolean onKeyDown(int keyCode, KeyEvent event) {
        if ((keyCode == KeyEvent.KEYCODE_BACK) && webView.canGoBack()) {
            webView.goBack(); // Go to previous page
            return true;
        }
        // Use this as else part
        return super.onKeyDown(keyCode, event);
    }

    }

This code is in the JAVA language and is responsible for some of the commands, including:

      – Open the site through the application
     – Allow zooming in and out
     – Allow browsing the site through the application without exiting an external browser
     – Activate the back button so that you can go back to the pages that were visited without exiting the App.

All that remains is to test and preview the app over the phone or emulator.

If you need any help, please contact us.

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Thanks for reading
BrainFood+ Team