topic Re: How to build a mobile app for alfresco? in Alfresco Archive

How to build a mobile app for alfresco?

dynamolalit — Wed, 23 May 2012 11:33:53 GMT

Hi,I want to know how can i built a mobile app for alfresco that works on mobile and using this, user can login & see content on his mobile phone while connecting to alfresco repository.

Re: How to build a mobile app for alfresco?

mikeh — Wed, 23 May 2012 11:57:20 GMT

With respect, that's quite a vague set of requirements! :wink:

- Native or web… or hybrid?
- Platforms to be supported - iOS, Android, Windows Mobile, Blackberry, etc…?
- View only?

We're currently working on a mobile SDK for both Android and iOS that will make building third party apps much easier. Until those are released (later this year) you can always access the source for the current iOS app at https://bitbucket.org/ziadev/alfresco-mobile/

Thanks,
Mike

Re: How to build a mobile app for alfresco?

fangjiangz — Sat, 26 May 2012 23:23:45 GMT

is app for android platform also open source? if yes, where can we download them?

Re: How to build a mobile app for alfresco?

stevereiner — Sat, 26 May 2012 23:48:55 GMT

FlexSpaces Mobile for Alfresco
has support for both iOS and Android and is open source
http://code.google.com/p/flexspaces/

CMIS Spaces Mobile for CMIS
has support for both iOS and Android and is open source
http://code.google.com/p/cmisspaces/

Re: How to build a mobile app for alfresco?

mikeh — Sun, 27 May 2012 07:23:00 GMT

is app for android platform also open source? if yes, where can we download them?

The source will be made available once version 1.0 has been released.

Thanks,
Mike

Re: How to build a mobile app for alfresco?

fangjiangz — Mon, 28 May 2012 04:50:02 GMT

is app for android platform also open source? if yes, where can we download them?
The source will be made available once version 1.0 has been released.

Thanks,
Mike

hi Mike,

the version 1.0 you mentioned refers to a new build instead of Flexspace mobile verion, is it right? when will be version 1.0 released? Thanks

Re: How to build a mobile app for alfresco?

mikeh — Mon, 28 May 2012 06:26:12 GMT

Yes - FlexSpaces isn't written by Alfresco.

Mike

Re: How to build a mobile app for alfresco?

gavinc — Mon, 28 May 2012 07:21:41 GMT

The plan currently is to release an Alfresco Android app (v1.0) later this year, in the autumn timeframe, I can't be any more specific than that at the moment I'm afraid.

Re: How to build a mobile app for alfresco?

dynamolalit — Tue, 29 May 2012 06:08:06 GMT

With respect, that's quite a vague set of requirements! :wink:

- Native or web… or hybrid?
- Platforms to be supported - iOS, Android, Windows Mobile, Blackberry, etc…?
- View only?

We're currently working on a mobile SDK for both Android and iOS that will make building third party apps much easier. Until those are released (later this year) you can always access the source for the current iOS app at https://bitbucket.org/ziadev/alfresco-mobile/

Thanks,
Mike

Thanks Mike for Help.

I want to build an app using CMIS on top of alfresco which should be platform independent, may be accessible using mobile browser and has read & write mechanism with alfresco repository.

Any idea which tool/language/platform should be used?

Regards.

Re: How to build a mobile app for alfresco?

gavinc — Tue, 29 May 2012 20:56:09 GMT

Hi,

If you're going to be using CMIS I would suggest you build a native/hybrid app rather than trying to do that using a cross platform tool.

CMIS currently has 2 official bindings, web services and AtomPub (a browser binding (JSON) is on it's way but the standard is not finalised yet). Trying to parse XML from JavaScript won't be much fun so I would personally stick to the native language/tools for each platform.

Re: How to build a mobile app for alfresco?

stevereiner — Thu, 31 May 2012 20:43:25 GMT

For CMIS in a mobile browser you could use apache chemistry opencmis / java in a web app / app server to deal with the xml/atompub or soap cmis bindings and use jquery mobile, sencha touch, YUI? etc for your clientside javascript ui code.

For mobile apps that are easier to customize and more cross platform than all native, the hybrid approach Gavin mentioned (web tech html5/js/css + wrapper apis to native with say PhoneGap + a native cmis and/or alfresco plugin) sounds like the best approach when this is available.

I just pointed out my FlexSpaces mobile and CMIS Spaces mobile projects, based on cross platform Flex / AIR mobile as some stuff that is already available. These are best suited for developers already using Flex. If Flex survives long term, it depends on how well the transition from Adobe to Apache goes, and also whether Apache Flex can get it to target HTML5/JS (with FalconJS to translate ActionScript to JavaScript) in addition to the Flash player runtime. ActionScript does have its advantages as a more structured / object oriented language with type-checking that is still javascript like. I am currently looking into translating (with Jangaroo until FalconJS is avail from Adobe) the FlexSpaces/CMIS-Spaces code base to javascript + newer YUI + PhoneGap. Also looking into the Google Dart language.

Not mentioned above, I think Alfresco recently added some android cmis code to the Apache Chemistry svn codebase.

Re: How to build a mobile app for alfresco?

gopei77 — Fri, 03 Aug 2012 04:32:09 GMT

is app for blackberry platform also open source? if yes, where can we download them?

thanks and regards

Henry

Re: How to build a mobile app for alfresco?

stevereiner — Fri, 03 Aug 2012 05:09:16 GMT

The open source 3rd party apps FlexSpaces Mobile and CMIS Spaces Mobile can target blackberry playbook from the common source. Only have a download for android already built. Just check the "Blackberry Tablet OS" target platform checkbox from the export release build dialog in FlashBuilder 4.6 from the mobile app projects to build for BB (or check Apple iOS for building for iPad).
http://code.google.com/p/flexspaces/
http://code.google.com/p/cmisspaces/

Re: How to build a mobile app for alfresco?

hvh — Wed, 15 May 2013 14:23:03 GMT

Is there any plans to publish apps for WP8?

Re: How to build a mobile app for alfresco?

mikeh — Wed, 15 May 2013 15:14:15 GMT

Currently we're seeing very little (if any) demand for WP 8 in the Enterprise. Same for Firefox OS and Ubuntu for phones. We're also seeing people abandon the Blackberry platform for either Android or iOS.

We're pretty agile regarding team structure and projects in the Mobile Team at Alfresco, so we're keeping a close eye on the market all the time. Right now though Enterprise is dominated by iOS (tablets and phones) and Android (phones) with everything else a significant distance behind.

Thanks,
Mike

Re: How to build a mobile app for alfresco?

hvh — Wed, 15 May 2013 21:12:10 GMT

Sorry to hear that, because in our company there is a demand for that. Market share is not probably the right measure because even the share is small it means that there is millions of users in markets. Microsoft is pushing their own solutions for document management and companies like us who has made a decision to go with Alfresco should now make a police what phones people should use to be able to use Alfresco on mobile. My opinion is that you should suppert your customers not to guide them what phones they are using.
Thank you for your quick and honest answer I appreciate it.

BR HVH

Re: How to build a mobile app for alfresco?

mikeh — Wed, 15 May 2013 23:30:38 GMT

Whilst we would love to support every possible platform out there, we have, like all companies, limited resource; so we must focus effort on what makes sense for the majority. As I said, we're watching the market closely and who knows what the landscape will look like 12 months from now?

Some advice: as you're about to set policies for mobile access within your company, you should look closely at MDM (mobile device management) solutions in order to mitigate and/or prevent data loss. We're working closely with many of the MDM providers, e.g. Good, MobileIron, Symantec, etc. What's telling is that one of the market leaders, Good, have exactly the same view on Windows 8 right now: "<em>This support is on the Engineering roadmap, but no ETA at this time; this is contingent on market demand.</em>". As of writing they still only have iOS and Android SDKs as that's what most people are deploying.

Sorry if that's not the answer you might be looking for, but I do encourage you to research your MDM options before committing your policy to paper. If you'd like to contact me via email (mike dot hatfield at alfresco) I can put you in touch with our Director of Mobile who I'm sure would be glad to talk to you about MDM in the Enterprise.

Thanks,
Mike

Re: How to build a mobile app for alfresco?

ricabuxon — Tue, 21 May 2013 07:01:43 GMT

I also want to know How to build a mobile app for alfresco. Thanks for your comments. It's a big help.

Re: How to build a mobile app for alfresco?

mikeh — Tue, 21 May 2013 07:47:27 GMT

This would be a great place to start: https://www.alfresco.com/develop/mobile

Thanks,
Mike