Emulators

Last update: January 14, 2025

CREATED FOR:

  • Developer
IMPORTANT
New installations of AEM 6.5 do not support AEM Mobile Apps functionality. The preferred editors for managing headless content in AEM are now:

Adobe Experience Manager (AEM) enables authors to view a page in an emulator that simulates the environment in which an end-user will view the page, as for example, on a mobile device or in an email client.

The AEM emulator framework:

  • Provides content authoring within a simulated User Interface (UI), for example, a mobile device or an email client (used to author newsletters).
  • Adapts the page content according to the simulated UI.
  • Allows the creation of custom emulators.
CAUTION
This feature is supported only in Classic UI.

Emulators Characteristics

An emulator:

  • Is based on ExtJS.
  • Operates on the page DOM.
  • Its appearance is regulated via CSS.
  • Supports plugins (for example, the mobile device rotation plugin).
  • Is only active on author.
  • Its base component is at /libs/wcm/emulator/components/base.

How the Emulator Transforms the Content

The emulator works by wrapping the HTML body contents into emulator DIVs. For example, the following html code:

<body>
<div id="wrapper" class="page mobilecontentpage ">
    <div class="topnav mobiletopnav">
    ...
    </div>
    ...
</div>
</body>

is transformed into the following html code after the start of the emulator:

<body>
 <div id="cq-emulator-toolbar">
 ...
 </div>
 <div id="cq-emulator-wrapper">
  <div id="cq-emulator-device">
   <div class=" android vertical" id="cq-emulator">
    ...
    <div class=" android vertical" id="cq-emulator-content">
     ...
     <div id="wrapper" class="page mobilecontentpage">
     ...
     </div>
     ...
    </div>
   </div>
  </div>
 </div>
 ...
</body>

Two div tags have been added:

  • the div with id cq-emulator holding the emulator as a whole and

  • the div with id cq-emulator-content representing the device’s viewport/screen/content area where the page content resides.

New CSS classes are also assigned to the new emulator divs: they represent the name of the current emulator.

Plugins of an emulator may further extend the list of assigned CSS classes, as in the example of the rotation plugin, inserting a “vertical” or “horizontal” class depending on the current device rotation.

This way, the complete appearance of the emulator can be controlled by having CSS classes corresponding to the IDs and CSS classes of the emulator divs.

NOTE
It is recommended that the project HTML wraps the body content in a single div, just like in the example above. If the body content contains multiple tags there may be unpredictable results.

Mobile Emulators

The existing mobile emulators:

  • Are below /libs/wcm/mobile/components/emulators.

  • Are available via the JSON servlet at:

    http://localhost:4502/bin/wcm/mobile/emulators.json

When the page component relies on the mobile page component ( /libs/wcm/mobile/components/page), the emulator functionality is automatically integrated in the page through the following mechanism:

  • The mobile page component head.jsp includes the device group’s associated emulator init component (only in author mode) and the device group’s rendering CSS through:

    deviceGroup.drawHead(pageContext);

  • The method DeviceGroup.drawHead(pageContext) includes the emulator’s init component, that is, calls the init.html.jsp of the emulator component. If the emulator component does not have its own init.html.jsp and relies on the mobile base emulator ( wcm/mobile/components/emulators/base), the init script of the mobile base emulator is called ( /libs/wcm/mobile/components/emulators/base/init.html.jsp).

  • The init script of the mobile base emulator defines through JavaScript:

    • The configuration for all the emulators that are defined for the page (emulatorConfigs)

    • The emulator manager which integrates the emulator’s functionality in the page through:

      emulatorMgr.launch(config);

      The emulator manager is defined by:

      /libs/wcm/emulator/widgets/source/EmulatorManager.js

Creating a Custom Mobile Emulator

To create a custom mobile emulator:

  1. Below /apps/myapp/components/emulators create the component myemulator (node type: cq:Component).

  2. Set the sling:resourceSuperType property to /libs/wcm/mobile/components/emulators/base

  3. Define a CSS client library with category cq.wcm.mobile.emulator for the emulator appearance: name = css, node type = cq:ClientLibrary

    As an example, you can refer to the node /libs/wcm/mobile/components/emulators/iPhone/css

  4. If needed, define a JS client library, for example, to define a specific plugin: name = js, node type = cq:ClientLibrary

    As an example, you can refer to the node /libs/wcm/mobile/components/emulators/base/js

  5. If the emulator supports specific functionalities defined by plugins (like touch scrolling), create a configuration node below the emulator: name = cq:emulatorConfig, node type = nt:unstructured and add the property that defines the plugin:

    • Name = canRotate, Type = Boolean, Value = true: to include the rotation functionality.

    • Name = touchScrolling, Type = Boolean, Value = true: to include the touch scrolling functionality.

    More functionalities can be added by defining your own plugins.

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