[O] Fwd: Some thoughts on MobileOrg and its development ....

[Jorge A. Alfaro-Murillo]

Dear Mat, Henning, Richard and Sean

In case you are not subscribed to email list of orgmode, the 
following thread might be of interest to you.

Matthew Jones and Henning Weiss, and Richard Moreland and Sean 
Escriva are the top contributors for MobileOrg for Android and 
iPhone, respectively.

Best,

Jorge.

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> Topics
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> Topics:
>    Some thoughts on MobileOrg and its development ....
>    Re: Some thoughts on MobileOrg and its development ....
>    Re: Some thoughts on MobileOrg and its development ....
>    Re: Some thoughts on MobileOrg and its development ....
>    Re: Some thoughts on MobileOrg and its development ....
>    Re: Some thoughts on MobileOrg and its development ....
>    Re: Some thoughts on MobileOrg and its development ....
>    Re: Some thoughts on MobileOrg and its development ....
>    Re: Some thoughts on MobileOrg and its development ....
>    Re: Some thoughts on MobileOrg and its development ....
>    Re: Some thoughts on MobileOrg and its development ....
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> --- Begin Message ---
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> Subject: 
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> Some thoughts on MobileOrg and its development ....
>
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> Date: 
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> Sat, 09 Aug 2014 10:56:37 +1000
>
>
>
>
> Hi all,
>
> In light of recent discussions about 'MobileOrg' - which seemingly
> actually constitutes two distinct projects for two different platforms -
> together with the apparent relative lack of activity of both projects,
> despite demand for them, i can't help but wonder if the 'MobileOrg'
> endeavour needs a reboot.
>
> More specifically, it seems to me that rebuilding MobileOrg as a single
> project on top of Apache Cordova:
>
> https://cordova.apache.org/
>
> might be a way forward, for several reasons:
>
> * It would help ensure that basically the same set of functionality is
>   available across platforms, modulo specific limitations/issues with
>   specific platforms. And when people add or modify core functionality,
>   that functionality would more easily become available to people across
>   platforms, rather than the functionality being initially implemented
>   on platform X, and people on platform Y having to wait for it to be
>   implemented in its entirety.
>
> * Overall, only one lot of end-user documentation would need to be
>   maintained.
>
> * It would enable MobileOrg to be made available for mobile platforms
>   other than Android and iOS, such as Windows Phone and Blackberry.
>
> * The number of people available to assist with development might well
>   be greater, due to the core development environment involving HTML,
>   CSS and JavaScript. Barriers to entry for both regular and occasional
>   committers would be much lower.
>
> i'm aware that Cordova has various limitations,
> including-but-not-limited-to the lack of native 'feel' of Cordova-based
> applications. However, i feel that the above advantages, combined with
> the my notion that Emacs users are probably less concerned with a
> perfectly slick UI than with having access to functionality they
> need/want, probably outweighs such limitations.
>
> Unfortunately, due to other existing commitments, i wouldn't be able to
> take point on such a reboot. But i'd definitely be willing and able to
> help out!  Particularly in the area of contact management and syncing,
> of course. :-)
>
> Thoughts/comments/criticisms?
>
>
> Alexis.
>
>
>
>
> --- End Message ---

--- Begin Message --- Subject: Re: Some thoughts on MobileOrg and its development .... Date: Sat, 9 Aug 2014 07:13:16 +0300

Would love to see a reboot and further development on org-mobile. I am not a developer myself but would love to help out with testing , writing documentation etc

best

Z

On Sat, Aug 9, 2014 at 3:56 AM, Alexis <address@hidden> wrote:

Hi all,

In light of recent discussions about 'MobileOrg' - which seemingly
actually constitutes two distinct projects for two different platforms -
together with the apparent relative lack of activity of both projects,
despite demand for them, i can't help but wonder if the 'MobileOrg'
endeavour needs a reboot.

More specifically, it seems to me that rebuilding MobileOrg as a single
project on top of Apache Cordova:

https://cordova.apache.org/

might be a way forward, for several reasons:

* It would help ensure that basically the same set of functionality is
  available across platforms, modulo specific limitations/issues with
  specific platforms. And when people add or modify core functionality,
  that functionality would more easily become available to people across
  platforms, rather than the functionality being initially implemented
  on platform X, and people on platform Y having to wait for it to be
  implemented in its entirety.

* Overall, only one lot of end-user documentation would need to be
  maintained.

* It would enable MobileOrg to be made available for mobile platforms
  other than Android and iOS, such as Windows Phone and Blackberry.

* The number of people available to assist with development might well
  be greater, due to the core development environment involving HTML,
  CSS and _javascript_. Barriers to entry for both regular and occasional
  committers would be much lower.

i'm aware that Cordova has various limitations,
including-but-not-limited-to the lack of native 'feel' of Cordova-based
applications. However, i feel that the above advantages, combined with
the my notion that Emacs users are probably less concerned with a
perfectly slick UI than with having access to functionality they
need/want, probably outweighs such limitations.

Unfortunately, due to other existing commitments, i wouldn't be able to
take point on such a reboot. But i'd definitely be willing and able to
help out!  Particularly in the area of contact management and syncing,
of course. :-)

Thoughts/comments/criticisms?


Alexis.

--- End Message ---

> --- Begin Message ---
>
>
>
> Subject: 
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> Re: Some thoughts on MobileOrg and its development ....
>
>
>
>
> Date: 
>
> Fri, 08 Aug 2014 21:22:19 -0700
>
>
>
>
> Alexis <address@hidden> writes:
>
> > Hi all,
> >
> > In light of recent discussions about 'MobileOrg' - which seemingly
> > actually constitutes two distinct projects for two different platforms -
> > together with the apparent relative lack of activity of both projects,
> > despite demand for them, i can't help but wonder if the 'MobileOrg'
> > endeavour needs a reboot.
> >
> > More specifically, it seems to me that rebuilding MobileOrg as a single
> > project on top of Apache Cordova:
> >
> > https://cordova.apache.org/
> >
> > might be a way forward, for several reasons:
> >
> > * It would help ensure that basically the same set of functionality is
> >   available across platforms, modulo specific limitations/issues with
> >   specific platforms. And when people add or modify core functionality,
> >   that functionality would more easily become available to people across
> >   platforms, rather than the functionality being initially implemented
> >   on platform X, and people on platform Y having to wait for it to be
> >   implemented in its entirety.
> >
> > * Overall, only one lot of end-user documentation would need to be
> >   maintained.
> >
> > * It would enable MobileOrg to be made available for mobile platforms
> >   other than Android and iOS, such as Windows Phone and Blackberry.
> >
> > * The number of people available to assist with development might well
> >   be greater, due to the core development environment involving HTML,
> >   CSS and JavaScript. Barriers to entry for both regular and occasional
> >   committers would be much lower.
> >
> > i'm aware that Cordova has various limitations,
> > including-but-not-limited-to the lack of native 'feel' of Cordova-based
> > applications. However, i feel that the above advantages, combined with
> > the my notion that Emacs users are probably less concerned with a
> > perfectly slick UI than with having access to functionality they
> > need/want, probably outweighs such limitations.
> >
> > Unfortunately, due to other existing commitments, i wouldn't be able to
> > take point on such a reboot. But i'd definitely be willing and able to
> > help out!  Particularly in the area of contact management and syncing,
> > of course. :-)
> >
> > Thoughts/comments/criticisms?
>
> Sounds interesting.  Unfortunately, I haven't done this type of
> development in many years.  At this moment, I'm not even sure how to go
> about setting up Cordova and its prerequisites.  Otherwise, I might be
> interested in taking the lead on this.
>
> Ultimately, someone will have to pull apart the current
> immplementation(s) of MobileOrg in order to redevelop it in Cordova.
> Anyone got a handle on that?
>
> -- 
> David Masterson
> Programmer At Large
>
>
>
>
>
> --- End Message ---
> --- Begin Message ---
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> Subject: 
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> Re: Some thoughts on MobileOrg and its development ....
>
>
>
>
> Date: 
>
> Tue, 12 Aug 2014 19:07:44 -0600
>
>
>
>
> I did some digging into that a few months ago. While I'm not an
> experienced iOS dev, I flailed about for a few weeks trying to add
> deadline parsing and failed miserably. 
>
> I'm fairly convinced that most of the code is either super platform
> specific or in need of replacing with easier to maintain & test
> components. 
>
>
> -- 
> Ashton Kemerling
>
>
>
>
> --- End Message ---

--- Begin Message --- Subject: Re: Some thoughts on MobileOrg and its development .... Date: Tue, 12 Aug 2014 20:47:37 -0500

What's involved in 'rebooting' the project? Are the various owners of the iPhone and Android packages on this list?

I'm not a coder at all, but I've administratively managed software projects before. I'm more than happy to do what I know how to do -- which is mostly send out emails asking people if they can help do stuff?

On Tue, Aug 12, 2014 at 8:07 PM, Ashton Kemerling <address@hidden> wrote:

I did some digging into that a few months ago. While I'm not an
experienced iOS dev, I flailed about for a few weeks trying to add
deadline parsing and failed miserably.

I'm fairly convinced that most of the code is either super platform
specific or in need of replacing with easier to maintain & test
components.


--
Ashton Kemerling

--- End Message ---

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> Subject: 
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> Re: Some thoughts on MobileOrg and its development ....
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> Date: 
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> Tue, 12 Aug 2014 20:23:44 -0600
>
>
>
>
> David Wagle <address@hidden> writes:
>
> > What's involved in 'rebooting' the project? Are the various owners of
> > the iPhone and Android packages on this list? 
> >
> > I'm not a coder at all, but I've administratively managed software
> > projects before. I'm more than happy to do what I know how to do --
> > which is mostly send out emails asking people if they can help do stuff? 
> >
> > On Tue, Aug 12, 2014 at 8:07 PM, Ashton Kemerling
> > <address@hidden> wrote:
> >
> >     I did some digging into that a few months ago. While I'm not an
> >     experienced iOS dev, I flailed about for a few weeks trying to add
> >     deadline parsing and failed miserably.
> >     
> >     I'm fairly convinced that most of the code is either super platform
> >     specific or in need of replacing with easier to maintain & test
> >     components.
> >     
> >     
> >     --
> >     Ashton Kemerling
> >     
> >
> >
>
> Honestly, I don't know exactly what would be involved, I'm not
> experienced in mobile and I don't have anywhere near the spare bandwidth
> to be anything other than a secondary contributor. I do suspect that a
> lot of existing code would be thrown away in a combined approach due to
> the massive semantic and structural differences between native code and
> HTML/JS/CSS.
>
> I can say for certain that we would have to figure out the handoff of
> various credentials from the old maintainers (who I am assuming would
> not like to continue being maintainers) for the respective app-stores
> and Dropbox tokens. 
>
> -- 
> Ashton Kemerling
>
>
>
>
> --- End Message ---
> --- Begin Message ---
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> Subject: 
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> Re: Some thoughts on MobileOrg and its development ....
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> Date: 
>
> Wed, 13 Aug 2014 12:45:56 +1000
>
>
>
>
> Ashton Kemerling writes:
>
>
> > I can say for certain that we would have to figure out the handoff of
> > various credentials from the old maintainers (who I am assuming would
> > not like to continue being maintainers) for the respective app-stores
> > and Dropbox tokens.
>
> Not necessarily. One could, for example, create an entirely new project
> on GitHub called 'MobileOrgRebooted', and create entirely new apps in
> the respective stores using that name. (As it is, there's not a
> uniformly named app in any case - we have 'MobileOrg' for iOS, and
> 'MobileOrg-Android' for, well, Android.) And it certainly seems to me
> that it would be best to start the actual coding of the reboot /first/,
> and only worry about naming rights issues if and when it takes
> off. Doing otherwise is likely to bring into play another possible
> obstacle to getting actual implementation happening.
>
>
> Alexis.
>
>
>
>
> --- End Message ---
> --- Begin Message ---
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> Subject: 
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> Re: Some thoughts on MobileOrg and its development ....
>
>
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> Date: 
>
> Tue, 12 Aug 2014 22:04:53 -0600
>
>
>
>
> That seems reasonable to me.
>
> -- 
> Ashton Kemerling
>
>
>
>
> --- End Message ---
> --- Begin Message ---
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> Subject: 
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> Re: Some thoughts on MobileOrg and its development ....
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>
> Date: 
>
> Wed, 13 Aug 2014 10:10:52 +0200
>
>
>
>
> Alexis <address@hidden> writes:
>
> > One could, for example, create an entirely new project on GitHub
> > called 'MobileOrgRebooted', and create entirely new apps in the
> > respective stores using that name.
>
> That strikes me as the sensible thing to do.
>
> > (As it is, there's not a uniformly named app in any case - we have
> > 'MobileOrg' for iOS, and 'MobileOrg-Android' for, well, Android.)
>
> There's also MobileOrgNG for Android.
>
> > And it certainly seems to me that it would be best to start the actual
> > coding of the reboot /first/, and only worry about naming rights
> > issues if and when it takes off. Doing otherwise is likely to bring
> > into play another possible obstacle to getting actual implementation
> > happening.
>
> Agreed.
>
>
>
>
> --- End Message ---
> --- Begin Message ---
>
>
>
> Subject: 
>
> Re: Some thoughts on MobileOrg and its development ....
>
>
>
>
> Date: 
>
> Wed, 13 Aug 2014 12:59:10 +1000
>
>
>
>
> David Wagle writes:
>
> > What's involved in 'rebooting' the project?
>
> My thought involves starting from scratch. Say we use Cordova (i can't
> speak to the pros and cons of Cordova vs. Kivy in terms of things like
> functionality provided, possible barriers to contribution etc.). Cordova
> takes care of a certain amount of the (semi-)boilerplate code needed for
> each platform; and of the remainder of the code, the core functionality
> would need to get reimplemented in HTML/CSS/JavaScript, with 'shims'
> being created between this code and the surrounding platform-specific
> code. Consequently, i think there would likely be very little use of
> most of the code in either current MobileOrg project.
>
>
> Alexis.
>
>
>
>
> --- End Message ---
> --- Begin Message ---
>
>
>
> Subject: 
>
> Re: Some thoughts on MobileOrg and its development ....
>
>
>
>
> Date: 
>
> Sat, 9 Aug 2014 09:53:24 +0200
>
>
>
>
> Alexis <address@hidden> writes:
>
> > i can't help but wonder if the 'MobileOrg' endeavour needs a reboot.
>
> It seems clear that it does.
>
> > More specifically, it seems to me that rebuilding MobileOrg as a single
> > project [...] might be a way forward, 
>
> This is vital!
>
> > on top of Apache Cordova:
> >
> > https://cordova.apache.org/
>
> I'd just like to float Kivy as another possibility:
>
>    http://kivy.org
>
> What makes Kivy interesting to me in this context (apart from its
> cross-platform nature) is its excellent support of gestures, which gives
> me (the perhaps naive) hope that a little more than an utterly trivial
> feature set might be provided on the mobile form factor.
>
> > Unfortunately, due to other existing commitments, i wouldn't be able
> > to take point on such a reboot.
>
> The dreamer in me thinks this might be the itch-to-scratch that finally
> motivates me to getting to grips with Kivy; the realist in me is pretty
> certain that I fall into the same category as you.
>
>
>
>
> --- End Message ---