= Blueprint for Mobile Clients =
[[TOC]]

We want clients on Mobile devices to be able to talk to Sahana Eden servers.

The simplest way to do this is to provide a layout for the web application suitable for smaller screens:
 * BluePrint/Mobile/Portal
 * [wiki:BluePrintCSS#MobileView]

Ideally, though, they should have local storage for use completely offline & then be able to sync back to the server using whatever connectivity becomes available:
 * SMS
  * compressed multi-part SMS to get maximal throughput
  * [wiki:BluePrintMessagingModule#Micro-Syntax]
  * forms should be updatable via SMS
  * photos should stay offline until the phone has better connectivity, but then the photo needs to be used to update the same record
 * GPRS/3G
 * !WiFi
 * !BlueTooth
  * J2ME eedocs:
   * ''tbc''
  * Python docs:
   * Intro: http://www.devshed.com/c/a/Python/Bluetooth-Programming-using-Python/
   * http://lightblue.sourceforge.net/
   * http://code.google.com/p/pybluez/

Using the open XForms standard means that we can support handsets using both Android & J2ME.

XForms editor:
 * Written in Django, so should be easy to port to Sahana Eden:
  * http://github.com/nyaruka/rapidsms-xforms-builder
   * Video walk-through:
    * http://www.screencast.com/t/YmYwYjUzMz
    * http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PyjEruT5uoU
 * Written in GWT, so includable in Eden as a simple HTML page:
  * [http://code.google.com/p/purcforms/ PurcForms] - can import the output from our controller, powerful but not for non-techies!
   * [http://design.openxdata.org Demo]
  * [http://ox-designer.blogspot.com OX-Designer] - more basic, but pretty. No import yet. Built for OpenMRS (which uses ODK)
 * Written in Ruby Rack, so harder to integrate as-is:
  * http://code.google.com/p/opendatakit/wiki/ODKBuild

XForms can be submitted using SMS by including the encoding format within the XForm so that client & server agree on the encoding:
 * http://bitbucket.org/javarosa/javarosa/wiki/SMSSendingAPI
== Android ==
[http://code.google.com/p/open-data-kit OpenDataKit] have a suite of tools to use on Android.
 * UserGuidelinesMobile - how to use ODK Collect with Sahana Eden
 * [MobileAndroid Android Developer Guidelines]
 * [http://bitbucket.org/javarosa/javarosa/wiki/OpenRosaAPI OpenRosa] - joint project between ODK & !JavaRosa

=== !ToDo ===
 * Get the newly-developed features merged into ODK Trunk:
  * jaxdroid work on Sahana compatibility
  * access to Image Library
  * Wireless location fix
  * SMS form submission

 * Dropdown support within the forms (which will be difficult to FKs)
 
 * Client-side validation where possible (which probably needs to be added/maintained manually...but we need somewhere to put these)
 
 * Can the client currently understand validation errors & present these back to the user?
  * We currently send back JSON

 * Send Images
  * Generate appropriate XForms from image_id fields (ideally using XSLT)
   * [http://code.google.com/p/opendatakit/source/browse/Geo+Tagger.xml?repo=forms&r=34910a944c745232d285d2caecf876c3dcae9674 GeoTagger] is a sample Form for ODK which can be used as a template for what needs to be produced by {{{controllers/xforms.py}}}
  * Provide an interface in Sahana through which users can submit these images via ODK Collect & have them stored (in the doc_image table, referenced by the image_id foreign key)
   * {{{controllers/xforms.py}}}
   * ideally use an XSLT to convert the XForm to S3XML
  * See [https://docs.google.com/document/d/1SSl8vtA7RYBrrXmPuqQvA7rQLyzv77ESZjB7KH9s6H4/edit?hl=en Sahana Eden Mobile Photo Upload Blueprint] for additional information.

 * Send Location Coordinates
  * Generate appropriate XForms from location_id fields (ideally using XSLT)
  * [http://code.google.com/p/opendatakit/source/browse/Geo+Tagger.xml?repo=forms&r=34910a944c745232d285d2caecf876c3dcae9674 GeoTagger] is a sample Form for ODK which can be used as a template for what needs to be produced by {{{controllers/xforms.py}}}
  * Provide an interface in Sahana through which users can submit these coordinates via ODK Collect & have them stored (in the gis_location table, referenced by the location_id foreign key)
   * {{{controllers/xforms.py}}}
   * ideally use an XSLT to convert the XForm to S3XML
   * Sahana's Location should have the lower accuracy marked when fix was obtained wirelessly: either source or ce fields (ideally the latter if we have a numeric value available).

 * Support Component Tabs for a multi-table form

 * SMS (building on the current NCSU code)
  * Need to give user feedback that SMS is sent when HTTP fails (currently they just get a 'Submission failed' message!)
   * Should really give them an optional Prompt
  * Need to compress the form submissions
   * Use the [http://bitbucket.org/javarosa/javarosa/wiki/SMSSendingAPI OpenRosa SMS API]
   * Strip out empty/default fields
   * encode the characters more efficiently
  * Need to authenticate the form submissions
  * Needs to work on the Sahana server side with more than just the controllers.msg.tropo() method (like sms_handler_modem)
  * Should have optional response notifications per complete form to say one of:
   * Submission Successful: URL of record: http://..../
   * Validator Error: xxx
  * Need to delete the submitted form from the mobile device when it the submission was confirmed successful.
  * The [MobileAndroid#SMSStructure current multi-part transmission] uses a very custom sequence number, which should be made more standard (& take up less room)
  * Want to be able to download Forms via SMS
   * Push updates from server
   * Pull requests from client

 * QR Code to download the Trunk version (which should update from this version & not default ODK location)
  * UserGuidelines on creating/embedding a custom QR code for a deployment-specific version

 * Have the list of downloadable XForms more easily configurable (currently hardcoded in controllers/xforms.py formList())
  * e.g. Use the same approach as Importer does by marking resources in the modules list in 000_config.py
== J2ME ==
Documentation on the current implementation is here: http://wiki.sahanafoundation.org/phase2/doku.php/dev:j2meclient
 * This needs updating to the latest version of !JavaRosa

!JavaRosa is a fast-developing framework which uses [wiki:XForms] & [http://www.j2mepolish.org/ J2MEPolish]:
 * http://code.javarosa.org

This supports using Mesh4j to do synchronisation via SMS:
 * http://code.google.com/p/mesh4x/wiki/SMSAdapter

=== Alternatives ===

Another XForms/J2MEPolish client (Xfolite):
 * https://projects.forum.nokia.com/XFormsJ2ME

KUIX can be used to develop lightweight applications which work across may handhelds & forms can be customised easily via XML/CSS:
 * http://www.kalmeo.org/projects/kuix

Old, un-maintained J2ME client for the PHP back-end, which just uses XML-RPC (=> requires Internet):
 * http://wiki.sahanafoundation.org/doku.php?id=dev:sahana_mobile_intro

== iPhone ==
Sahana Software Foundation have a developer license which can be used by anyone interested in developing this.

== HTML 5 ==
 * http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/xml/library/x-html5mobile1/index.html

=== jQuery Mobile ===
This has a lot of industry backing for a truly cross-platform solution:
 * http://jquerymobile.com
=== Sencha Touch ===
Cross-platform (Android/iPhone) HTML5 environment based on ExtJS
 * http://www.sencha.com/products/touch/
 * http://dev.sencha.com/deploy/touch/getting-started.html

== Mapping ==
!OpenLayers now has touch support:
 * http://m.openlayers.org
 * http://www.slideshare.net/cedricmoullet/openlayers-mobile-code-sprint-2011

On our map, the !Panning/Zooming works already, but Popups cannot be clicked yet.

We'd also like to move the !LayerTree to a native-style widget.

!ExtMap Touch:
 * http://www.extmap.com/index.php?pid=2

Taking the Map offline:
 * iPhone: http://www.offmaps.com

!OpenStreetMap on Android:
 * http://developers.cloudmade.com/projects/show/j2me-lib-android

Google Latitude woulkd make an excellent Mobile Presence tool:
 * http://googlemobile.blogspot.com/2011/02/check-in-with-google-latitude.html
 * http://code.google.com/apis/latitude/v1/getting_started.html
== Other projects ==
 * [http://frontlinesms.ning.com/profiles/blog/show?id=2052630%3ABlogPost%3A8449 FrontlineSMS]
  * {{{FrontlineForms is a proprietary add-on for FrontlineSMS allowing a mobile Java client to connect to FrontlineSMS and share data with it.}}}
 * [http://grt.com Global Relief Technologies]
 * Ranked apps for iOS: http://ios-disasterapps.ideascale.com/