wiki:BluePrint/Mobile

Version 75 (modified by Fran Boon, 12 years ago) ( diff )

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Blueprint for Mobile Clients

Table of Contents

  1. Online
  2. Offline
  3. Android
    1. ToDo
  4. J2ME
    1. Alternatives
  5. iPhone
  6. HTML 5
    1. jQuery Mobile
    2. Sencha Touch
  7. Mapping
  8. Other projects

We want a versatile client for Mobile devices to be able to talk to Sahana Eden servers which can be easily maintained and adapted to meet new requirements rather than the point solutions which have been developed to date which are unmaintained & not adaptable.

The ideal would be the ability to generate the code using the same core framework and data models. XForms are promising here, although our current XForm interface isn't complete (doesn't handle either Images or Locations) and can only handle data entry, not reporting.

Online

The simplest way to do this is to provide a layout for the web application suitable for smaller screens:

An initial protoype should be developed in static HTML/CSS which can then be ported to Eden.

  • download a couple of pages' HTML & CSS & tweak the CSS until it is fully resizable.

Offline

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:

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

XForms editor:

XForms can be submitted using SMS by including the encoding format within the XForm so that client & server agree on the encoding:

Android

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)
      • ​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 ​Sahana Eden Mobile Photo Upload Blueprint for additional information.
  • Send Location Coordinates
    • Generate appropriate XForms from location_id fields (ideally using XSLT)
    • ​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 ​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 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 XForms & ​J2MEPolish:

This supports using Mesh4j to do synchronisation via SMS:

Alternatives

Another XForms/J2MEPolish client (Xfolite):

KUIX can be used to develop lightweight applications which work across may handhelds & forms can be customised easily via XML/CSS:

Old, un-maintained J2ME client for the PHP back-end, which just uses XML-RPC (=> requires Internet):

iPhone

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

HTML 5

jQuery Mobile

This has a lot of industry backing for a truly cross-platform solution:

Sencha Touch

Cross-platform (Android/iPhone) HTML5 environment based on ExtJS

Mapping

OpenLayers now has touch support:

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:

Taking the Map offline:

OpenStreetMap on Android:

Google Latitude would make an excellent Mobile Presence tool:

Other projects

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