Getting Started

Owned by Ravikumar Babu CTOO (Unlicensed)
Last updated: Oct 06, 2020 by Lakshminarayanan1 S CTOO (Unlicensed)

This page is intended for developers who are starting to use Canvas Technology platform to build their first web and mobile applications. We recommend you to read through the following sections on this page:

Understanding Canvas Technology Platform

With Intellect Design® Canvas Technology (CT) Platform, you can efficiently develop and maintain rich omni-channel applications that can access the full capabilities of your target devices. The capabilities of Canvas Technology Platform will help reduce your organizations' time-to-market, cost and complexity of development, and enables an optimized customer experience across multiple environments. But first things first, understand what is Canvas Technology Platform, its hierarchy of web page components, its capabilities and its technology stack.

Being a low-code platform, Canvas empowers you with a plethora of ready-made UI components and configuration options via Canvas Studio (web application) built using Canvas framework itself. Deploy the Canvas Studio WAR in your local or remote server and use it to create widgets, forms etc. and configure the layout. Canvas Studio generates the metadata for the UI components configured and stores those in a local or remote database configured. The scripts for the metadata can be exported using Canvas Studio itself and can be promoted to the target environments, e.g. staging, SIT, UAT.

You can further enrich the applications built using Canvas by putting in customized logic at the client-side or server-side. Canvas user HTML, JavaScript and CSS on the client-side (with HandleBars for the component's HTML templatization) and Java on the server-side that uses iBatis for the database interactions. REST web service-based datasources are also supported.

Mapping Application Wireframes to CT Platform Components

Once you are familiar with CT Platform, the next step is to map the wireframes (UI design) for the application you are going to develop using CT Platform with the platform components. This is an offline activity that needs to happen in collaboration with the CT Platform Support Leads. Even though CT is an omni-channel application platform and is responsive by design, it is advisable to use different mock-ups or wireframes for each channel (desktop, tablet or mobile).

The following factors needs to be considered and determined during this activity:

  • Development infrastructure needed, such as database server and application server to be used for application development.
  • Authentication and authorization of the application users, such as Single Sign-On (SSO), systems to be used for authentication and authorization.
  • Security aspects, such as encryption, MIMA etc.
  • Map application functional elements to CT Platform components. For example, what part of the application UI is to be configured as workspace, sub-workspace etc.
  • Based on priority, CT Engineering shall work on any CT Platform enhancements that may be required for the application.
  • Channel-specific requirements, if any.
  • Data source for business data.
  • Deployment strategy.

Building Your First Web Application

Jump to Building Your First Web Application. 

For any training-related queries about CT, send email to canvas.technology@intellectdesign.com.