Research in Motion continues to stay true to its mission of supporting app developers, releasing today its latest beta for the BlackBerry WebWorks SDK for Tablet OS. It's a mouthful of a name, but it promises great improvements. WebWorks applications are web applications written in JavaScript, HTML, and CSS; they install, work, and have the same security features as traditional apps. The update to the SDK changes much of the architecture, so developers will need to recompile their WebWorks apps in order to run them in the latest Tablet OS (PlayBook) simulator.
- Code signing enabled - you can now secure your application using the BlackBerry code signing process for BlackBerry Tablet OS.
- AJAX support for local context. This fix improves the quality of support for using AJAX to retrieve local resources. A benefit of this fix includes improved support on the BlackBerry® PlayBookTM tablet for JavaScript® frameworks like jQuery.
- Loading screen image - Developers can define a loading screen and transition effect in their config.xml file to improve the user experience during application startup.
- Major improvements in Mac support - Absolute paths now allowed in ZIP archive; _MACOSX folder no longer being included in BAR file; Format of bbwp command line arguments changed from "-" to "/"