Dynamic content refers to scenarios in your mobile application where elements are added, altered, or removed from pages after the initial navigation to the page. Understanding and managing dynamic content scenarios in your mobile application is crucial for accurate codeless analytics and the display of mobile guides. This article addresses how the Pendo mobile codeless SDK works with dynamic content in your mobile app.
Understand dynamic content challenges
The Pendo codeless mobile SDK analyzes the mobile app and creates a structural representation of UI elements when the following scenarios occur:
- A user navigates to a new screen via standard navigation mechanisms.
- The user scrolls through the content on the page.
In other scenarios, when the UI content on the page changes, the stored representation of the UI might differ from the new structure of the page. The SDK might be unaware of the UI changes, which could lead to inaccurate or missing page views and click analytics, as well as guides not being displayed as expected. The most common scenarios that lead to such dynamic content discrepancies include:
- Late rendering of your UI elements on the page as a result of long processing time or waiting for information to be obtained from your server.
- Elements added, altered, or repositioned within the page as a result of user interaction, a state change, or a server response.
- Instead of navigating to a new page using the standard navigation mechanism, the page is implemented by replacing the existing UI elements on the page with new UI elements.
Identify dynamic content in your app
Visual cues are the best method to identify dynamic content, but spotting them can be tricky. Examine your application and be on the lookout for loading spinners, placeholders, or UI elements that display moments after other UI elements when the page loads, as well as pages where the UI layout is modified as the user interacts with the page.
Note: Ignore changes as a result of scrolling a UI element on the page. Scrolling triggers the SDK to update the UI representation it holds.
Inaccurate or missing analytics and undisplayed guides can indicate there may be dynamic elements within the affected pages. It’s recommended to consult with your developers to understand and locate the dynamic elements that exist in your app.
Navigate dynamic content issues
When using custom identifier texts to uniquely identify a tagged page, select texts that remain on the page across the entire lifetime of the page. When selecting the custom identifier, verify the selected texts are visible on the page immediately as the page is loading.
When identifying dynamic content in your application, your developer must call the ScreenContentChanged API. This notifies the SDK to update the structural representation it holds of the UI.
- Call the API after the UI change is rendered and the UI changes are visible on the page.
- If a page has multiple UI states, call the API after each state change happens within the page.
When identifying a page change that's generated by ripping and replacing UI elements on an existing page without the usage of a standard navigation mechanism, it's recommended to use a track event to record the page change. Invoking the ScreenContentChanged API doesn't generate a page view event.