What Is io.Connect Desktop?

What Is io.Connect Desktop?

io.Connect Desktop is a real-time user interface (UI) integration platform. Apps are combined at the user interface level to provide a better user experience (UX). UI integration makes it easier for users to access the right data and functionality at the right time and also reduce the number of times they need to copy/paste their way between one app and another. The objective of io.Connect Desktop is therefore to provide intuitive paths from one function to the next, in order to deliver business outcomes quickly and reliably. io.Connect Desktop allows developers to connect to any (legacy, third-party or modern) web or native app and have multiple apps interact with each other in real time.

The io.Connect Desktop platform supports for Windows and macOS.

ℹ️ For details on using io.Connect Desktop on macOS, see the Developers > macOS Support section.

io.Connect Desktop offers Application Adapters for integrating Microsoft Office and other products with web and native apps.

Why UI Integration?

The Challenge Faced by Users

Mobile and web apps have proven that UI design is a vital component of software development. User experience (UX), however, isn't about how pretty an app is, but rather how easy it is to use in conjunction with other apps and data sources. Is the information a user needs at their fingertips? Is it easy to do everyday tasks or is the process lengthy, complex, and cumbersome? The companies that have pioneered user experience centric design have had great success and everyone else is running to catch up.

UX has often been a secondary consideration for in-house apps - or at least in-house teams don't have the resources of Apple or Google to devote to UX. Coupled with this is the fact that users depend on not one, but multiple apps to do their jobs successfully. While ALT + TAB has gotten better over the years and window snapping has made it easier to place apps side by side, the average user still faces a huge challenge when working with data across multiple apps.

One solution is to migrate legacy native apps to web apps that can pull data from many different databases and offer a variety of views. This isn't always practical as legacy apps are often hard to migrate without a significant expenditure and disruption. Secondly, there are many third-party apps that simply can't be migrated but are still critical, such as MS Office or Salesforce. And what about in-house developed web and mobile apps? How can they be easily integrated with the legacy apps without significant work?

Another solution is to use workflow services. This allows you to achieve data synchronization between web apps relatively quickly, but workflow services have considerable drawbacks. The integrations are quite limited and there are significant delays (sometimes minutes) from when a trigger is fired in one app to when it it's received in the connected app. io.Connect Desktop offers a way to improve this situation via UX integration powered by a high-performance real-time messaging infrastructure.

Explore io.Connect Desktop

Customization

io.Connect Desktop is highly customizable, both visually and functionally. In many cases, clients adopt io.Connect Desktop as the foundation for their internal desktop integration platform, tweaking the visual elements and adjusting its features to satisfy their own business demands and preferences. Some of the modifiable elements include:

  • configuration files;
  • images, icons, branding texts and more;
  • splash screen and loaders;
  • the frames of io.Connect Windows, window groups, and Workspaces;
  • the io.Connect Launchpad;
  • the io.Connect notifications and notification apps;
  • the Feedback app, dialogs and other system apps;
  • the io.Connect Desktop installer app;
  • the built-in io.Connect themes;
  • For more information, see the How to... > Rebrand io.Connect Desktop, the Developers > Seed Project, and the Developers > Platform Styles sections.

Keep Learning

This section offers only a quick and limited glimpse into the io.Connect Desktop platform and its unparalleled capabilities. All functionalities and UIs are entirely customizable in order to meet your specifications. This allows for outstanding tailored enterprise solutions, completely fulfilling your business needs and requirements.

For more information, visit the official product site or explore the io.Connect Desktop Capabilities.

To request a tailored demo or to discuss the io.Connect Desktop platform and how it can benefit you and your business processes, contact us.

io.Connect Desktop for Developers

Seed Project

  • Use the io.Connect seed project as a convenient approach for retrieving, customizing, building, testing, and packaging io.Connect Desktop.

Share Data Between Apps

  • Shared Contexts - named objects, storing cross-app data;

  • Channels - named contexts, allowing users to dynamically group and instruct apps to work together;

Offer Existing Functionality to Other Apps

  • Interop - offer functionality to other apps; discover apps offering functionality; publish and subscribe to data streams;

  • Pub/Sub - raw pub/sub support for apps already using a pub/sub technology;

Manage Your Interop-Enabled Apps

  • io.Connect launcher - use the io.Connect Launchpad app as a central hub for managing your apps;

  • Apps - manage your apps and app instances programmatically;

  • App Preferences - save and restore user-specific app preferences;

  • Intents - find and start the right app, offer the user a list of all appropriate apps for performing a certain action;

Advanced Window Management

  • Workspaces UI - fully customizable io.Connect web app for hosting interop-enabled apps in slick and highly efficient Workspace layouts;

  • Window Management - create and manipulate windows;

  • Layouts - save the arrangement of any set of interop-enabled apps and restore it later;

Notifications

  • Notifications - normalize, consolidate and deliver notifications directly to the desktop;

Searching

  • Global Search - enable search across multiple search providers;

Gather System & App Feedback

  • io.Insights - gather extensive metrics, traces and logs describing system, platform and app performance;

io.Manager

  • io.Manager - use this server-side solution to provide data to io.Connect (apps, Layouts, preferences), monitor and interact with users running io.Connect.

Integrate Third-Party Apps

  • Application Adapters - take advantage of the functionalities offered by third-party apps like Excel, Outlook, Bloomberg Terminal, Salesforce Lightning, etc.

Testing & Debugging

  • Use the io.Connect Dev Tools during development to easily spot, investigate, and solve issues in your interop-enabled apps.

  • Write and execute your own platform and app via the supported testing framework.

  • Debug your io.Connect platform build.