In this release for BLOX Mobile NX, App Version 215.0/9.16.0, we are improving the overall reader experience of the app with a number of bug fixes and improvements.
iOS and Android features
App managers are now able to change the title of the current and past e-Edition sections shown on the native e-Edition native tab view. This change can be made from Mobile App Manager under ‘Customization’. (TNNOWIOS-1286/TNNOWANDROID-1065)
Pull quotes embedded in the article detail view will now appear with decoration to give a more impactful appearance. (TNNOWIOS-1322/TNNOWANDROID-1116)
The splash screen ad unit and app open ad unit can now be managed from Mobile App Manager. App managers can now set a custom delay to prevent the splash screen ad from disappearing too quickly. This was previously defaulted to 6 seconds. Please see How to add a splash screen advertisement placement to a Mobile NX app and How to set up an app open advertisement placement on Mobile NX for details.(TNNOWIOS-1332/TNNOWANDROID-1159)
The article detail sticky ad unit can now be managed from Mobile App Manager. This ad unit will also be used for internal webviews. Please see How to override the article detail ad unit based on section or keyword for details. (TNNOWIOS-1333/TNNOWANDROID-1161)
iOS features
In Mobile App Manager, two new dropdowns have been added in ‘Article Detail Settings’ for Trinity Audio. The first is called ‘Player Theme’ and will allow an app manager to switch between the light and dark theme colors. The second is called ‘Disable Trinity Audio’ and is now the preferred way to disable the Trinity Audio player from appearing in the app. (TNNOWIOS-1325)
iOS and Android bugs and improvements
Icons displayed alongside each row on the profile view will now be tinted with the text color. (TNNOWIOS-1248/TNNOWANDROID-1054)
The native e-Edition reader will now use JPEG pages instead of PDFs to provide the best user experience to app readers. The file type can no longer be switched. (TNNOWIOS-1363)
The appearance and frame of the play button appearing on a video view has been improved to provide more clarity regardless of the video coloring. (TNNOWIOS-1380/TNNOWANDROID-1211)
HTML added to the byline will now be parsed to remove any stray tags. ‘A’ tags (tags defining a hyperlink) will be parsed into clickable links. (TNNOWIOS-1307/1108)
Segment: Improvements have been made to how the app identifies a user and whether or not they have a subscription to prevent multiple ‘identity’ events from occurring during one app session. (TNNOWIOS-1348/TNNOWANDROID-1192)
On tablets, the amount of blur above the paywall has been increased to prevent the reader from reading shorter articles without having to subscribe. (TNNOWIOS-1351/TNNOWANDROID-1195)
iOS bugs and improvements
Block background color will be clear by default. This color can still be overridden with block settings. (TNNOWIOS-866)
Portrait style images used as article covers will be presented in full height instead of centered within the frame. (TNNOWIOS-869)
A bug caused video slider, notification slider, and utility card image blocks to appear when the block was set to hidden in the asset feed. This has been resolved and hidden blocks will no longer appear. (TNNOWIOS-1121)
The underlying code for analytics has been refactored. This aims to improve the consistency of events sent to Google Analytics 4 and Segment. (TNNOWIOS-1136)
In HTML mode, a bug would cause the paywall to appear after purchasing an in-app purchase subscription. This has been resolved and the paywall will disappear as intended after a subscription is purchased. (TNNOWIOS-1276)
Push notification analytics have been added to provide additional insight into notification interactions. Please see the ‘Push notifications and messaging’ section of Mobile NX Google Analytics 4 for details. (TNNOWIOS-1283)
All cards with an image preview will show a ‘Play icon’ in the left bottom corner if the asset has a child video asset associated. (TNNOWIOS-1289)
Audio assets will now show in the article cover carousel as intended. (TNNOWIOS-1290)
The Facebook SDK has been updated to version 17.4.0. (TNNOWIOS-1296)
For the Customer.io SDK, ‘autoTrackPushEvents’ and ‘showPushAppInForeground’ have been turned on during the initialization phase to improve event tracking. (TNNOWIOS-1305)
When a user clicked on a push notification outside of the app, a bug caused an additional prompt to appear once the app had opened prompting them to click again to open. This has been resolved and opening a push notification outside of the app will open the app directly to the intended asset. (TNNOWIOS-1308)
A bug caused push notification subscriptions to turn off without user interaction. A fix has been added to address this issue. We will continue to monitor this issue to ensure this fix works as intended. (TNNOWIOS-1311)
In some cases when the user clicks on a push notification, the asset opens in an article detail view and they see the paywall when they have a subscription. This has been resolved so the user won’t see the paywall when they have a subscription. (TNNOWIOS-1314)
A bug caused livestreams featured in the livestream banner to begin with the audio unmuted upon app open. This has been resolved and the audio will be muted upon app open as intended. (TNNOWIOS-1321)
The card view showing search results featuring an image would appear on a white background. This was causing an issue for apps using a non-white background view color. The card view background will now appear clear. (TNNOWIOS-1324)
For apps using a non-white background view, the advanced search filters view would appear as the non-white background color with black text. The search filters view background will now always appear white with black text regardless of the app’s global background view color. (TNNOWIOS-1324)
The text color of the search query string previously would use the ‘text color’ set from ‘Section Settings’ in Mobile App Manager. This had the potential to cause issues if a light or white color was selected. The text color for the search query will now always appear black to appear properly within the text field. (TNNOWIOS-1324)
In the ‘Add Favorite Sections’ view, the ‘home icon’ will now appear filled using the ‘Cell Fill Color’ set from Mobile App Manager. (TNNOWIOS-1327)
When an app manager would set a color for Embedded Content Background Color and/or Embedded Content Text Color, the app would not change the colors as expected. This has been fixed and color configuration works as expected. (TNNOWIOS-1330)
Additional configuration has been added for the Chartbeat SDK to improve reporting. (TNNOWIOS-1331)
In some rare cases, the ‘current e-Edition’ issue would appear with extra space above the cover. This has been resolved and the cover image will appear as intended. (TNNOWIOS-1347)
Flag text color will now be the same across all flag types to provide consistency. (TNNOWIOS-1349)
On tablets, ads were appearing less frequently as expected when using multiple slider blocks and ad mode ‘Blocks’. This has been resolved and ads will appear as expected according to the configuration. (TNNOWIOS-1350)
The ‘Clear’ button found on the ‘History’ view will now use the nav text bar color. (TNNOWIOS-1353)
In some very rare cases, the app would crash as a result of the Customer.io SDK initializing. This has been resolved and the app will not crash because of the Customer.io SDK. (TNNOWIOS-1356)
Child video assets not embedded within the article body, will appear as the first asset in the article cover carousel when multiple child assets are present to mimic the web. (TNNOWIOS-1359)
Some HTML footer content did not appear as expected and would automatically load the user into a web view. This has been resolved and HTML footer content should work as expected. (TNNOWIOS-1386)
Additional protections have been added to ensure all the current user’s subscriptions are available when access control is evaluated. (TNNOWIOS-1390)
A crash related to embedded collection and missing assets has been resolved. (TNNOWIOS-1394)
When additional segments are added to the e-Edition and are not associated with assets the app would crash. This was resolved with a server change, but additional protections have been added to the app to prevent this from happening in the future. (TNNOWIOS-1396)
Android bugs and improvements
The weather condition icon will now appear the same color as the rest of the text on the ‘Current Weather’ block. (TNNOWANDROID-1052)
The e-Edition reader has been redesigned to use taps on either side of the screen to progress through the issues instead of swipes. This was changed as part of an overall refactoring effort for the feature. (TNNOWANDROID-1069)
Links including ‘mailto://’ will now work as expected and open the device’s default email app. (TNNOWANDROID-1114)
When a user clicks on an audio asset the app will no longer crash and will ask the user for permission to play the audio asset outside of the app. (TNNOWANDROID-1158)
A bug was causing proper m3u8 URLs containing parameters to be recognized as invalid and show the banner instead of the player when used in the livestream banner. This has been resolved and the video player will show as expected for proper m3u8 URLs. (TNNOWANDROID-1174)
When in HTML mode, the paywall will show as expected. (TNNOWANDROID-1234)
This release also makes minor infrastructure changes that should not be noticeable to admin or front-end users.
If you experience any issues or have any questions, please contact customer support at (800) 293-9576 or BLOXDigital.com/support.