Re: [xwiki-devs] GSoC 2011 - "XWiki Android client"

Hi Thomas& Ludovic, Thanks for your quick response and clarifying the project's deliverables. In Android development, I am not that experienced so I would still need your guidance :) I agree with what Ludovic said that now we have cross platform toolkit such as Titanium to write native mobile application for both Android and iPhone. I am new to this cross platform development and would be interested to see some challenges ahead. For example, one challenge I am thinking would probably be performance issue as there is an extra layer becomes involved on top of mobile hardware.

@Ludovic: Would you please elaborate what do you mean by Mobile skin? Regards Rauf On 20 March 2011 17:17, Ludovic Dubost<ludovic(a)xwiki.com> wrote: > > Hi, > > I wanted to rename this project to Android/iPhone instead of Android only. > > I tend to think that today FULL native client development on Android or iOS > is outdated. > There are now libraries like Appcelerator Titanium ( > http://www.appcelerator.com/) or PhoneGap (http://www.phonegap.com/) > that allow to do cross platform development with "native UI" look and feel > in Javascript and with very nice web integration. > > I've done a prototype with Appcelerator and calling REST/JSON apis from it > is a breeze and the result is a very nice native looking application. > The great advantage is to develope mostly once for both platforms.

> Also the application is tightly connected to a good mobile skin. Indeed > given XWiki's web capabilities, you cannot have of an application developped > on top of XWiki working on a mobile without actually calling the application > itself in web mode (good example is a livetable). So you can't only interact > with the content engine of XWiki. Therefore a good native mobile XWiki > application is a front end with nice "mobile" oriented widgets for the home > page, the activity stream, the search and maybe others which then link to > the native XWiki pages embedded in a mobile skin. > > Althouth native mobile application + mobile skin are connected they can > still be viewed as different projects as the mobile skin can be used on it's > own. > > Ludovic > > Le 20/03/11 18:00, Thomas Mortagne a écrit : > > Hi Rauf, >> >> Great you are interested in this project ! >> >> On Sun, Mar 20, 2011 at 17:32, Abdul Rauf<raufbutt(a)gmail.com> wrote: >> >>> Dear Thomas Mortagne >>> >>> >>> I am very excited to contribute in open source community through the >>> platform of Google Summer of Code 2011. I have visited the ideas page >>> of “XWiki” at http://dev.xwiki.org/xwiki/bin/view/GoogleSummerOfCode/for >>> GSoC 2011. I am interested in working on “Google Android client” for >>> XWiki. >>> The reason being is my interest in smartphone development. I have >>> previously >>> worked in Windows Phone 7 and to some extent in Blackberry. I want to >>> experience development in other platforms such as Android. I've worked in >>> Java, CSS, HTML and Javascript. >>> >>> >>> I am writing to let you know my understanding of the project and would >>> like >>> your feedback on it. My understanding of the requirements is as follows: >>> >>> >>> - To develop a smartphone application for XWiki. >>> - The application should be able to navigate wiki spaces and pages. >>> - The application should allow offline editing of wiki space and pages >>> and synchronise results on connecting with the repository. >>> - The application should also allow users an option to launch a browser >>> window. >>> >> That is for the UI part yes. >> >> The user need a way to view the result and there is a lot of ways >> which are not requiring the same work: >> - launch the browser to the page (which will be the minimum for this GSOC) >> - integrate the browser into the application if you have more time >> - something event more integrated in the application if you have lot >> of time but i doubt it will be possible ;) >> >> Plus any commons sense you are thinking of since you are probably more >> eperianced than me in mobile development ;) >> >> But there is also another side of the project which is to develop a >> nice android library package that could be used by any other Android >> app to comunicate with XWiki. >> >> More than the featuires what is important is to have a good >> architecture (maven build, follow Andoird good practices) that will >> make what you did easy to improve and add other features later by >> someone else. That's the better way to make XWiki have a good android >> client in the long run. >> >> I have some knowledge of XML-RPC client/server communication. However, >>> you >>> mentioned you are interested in using REST API for such communication. >>> Does >>> XWiki already have REST API or this API needs to be created as part of >>> this >>> project. Would you please refer me some material to study in this regard? >>> >> Yes there is already a very complete REST interface, a lot more >> complete than the XML-RPC one which is why the project should be based >> on it. >> >> >>> I look forward to your response. >>> >>> >>> Regards >>> >> Notes: I only did a bit of Android developement mostly to test it so I >> will not be able to help much on very advanced Android stuff