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* Fwd: Some thoughts on MobileOrg and its development ....
@ 2014-08-13 15:27 Jorge A. Alfaro-Murillo
  0 siblings, 0 replies; only message in thread
From: Jorge A. Alfaro-Murillo @ 2014-08-13 15:27 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: mat, hdweiss, richard, sean.escriva; +Cc: emacs-orgmode

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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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Subject: Topics

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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From: Alexis <flexibeast@gmail.com>
To: emacs-orgmode <emacs-orgmode@gnu.org>
Subject: Some thoughts on MobileOrg and its development ....
Date: Sat, 09 Aug 2014 10:56:37 +1000
Message-ID: <87a97e1mp3.fsf@gmail.com>


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.




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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 <flexibeast@gmail.com> 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.
>
>

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From: David Masterson <dsmasterson@gmail.com>
To: emacs-orgmode@gnu.org
Subject: Re: Some thoughts on MobileOrg and its development ....
Date: Fri, 08 Aug 2014 21:22:19 -0700
Message-ID: <8638d6wav8.fsf@gmail.com>

Alexis <flexibeast@gmail.com> 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





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From: Ashton Kemerling <ashtonkemerling@gmail.com>
To: David Masterson <dsmasterson@gmail.com>
Cc: emacs-orgmode@gnu.org
Subject: Re: Some thoughts on MobileOrg and its development ....
Date: Tue, 12 Aug 2014 19:07:44 -0600
Message-ID: <53eaba61.0315320a.67ec.ffffc1ed@mx.google.com>

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




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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 <ashtonkemerling@gmail.com
> 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
>
>

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From: Ashton Kemerling <ashtonkemerling@gmail.com>
To: David Wagle <david.wagle@gmail.com>
Cc: David Masterson <dsmasterson@gmail.com>, emacs-orgmode@gnu.org, Ashton Kemerling <ashtonkemerling@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: Some thoughts on MobileOrg and its development ....
Date: Tue, 12 Aug 2014 20:23:44 -0600
Message-ID: <53eacc31.8649320a.5dd1.084d@mx.google.com>

David Wagle <david.wagle@gmail.com> 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
> <ashtonkemerling@gmail.com> 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




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From: Alexis <flexibeast@gmail.com>
To: emacs-orgmode@gnu.org
Subject: Re: Some thoughts on MobileOrg and its development ....
Date: Wed, 13 Aug 2014 12:45:56 +1000
Message-ID: <87ha1hxfq1.fsf@gmail.com>


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.




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From: Ashton Kemerling <ashtonkemerling@gmail.com>
To: Alexis <flexibeast@gmail.com>
Cc: emacs-orgmode@gnu.org
Subject: Re: Some thoughts on MobileOrg and its development ....
Date: Tue, 12 Aug 2014 22:04:53 -0600
Message-ID: <87sil1qbkq.fsf@ashton-Aspire-5560.i-did-not-set--mail-host-address--so-tickle-me>

That seems reasonable to me.

-- 
Ashton Kemerling




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From: Jacek Generowicz <jacek.generowicz@cern.ch>
To: Alexis <flexibeast@gmail.com>
Cc: emacs-orgmode@gnu.org
Subject: Re: Some thoughts on MobileOrg and its development ....
Date: Wed, 13 Aug 2014 10:10:52 +0200
Message-ID: <878umsstbn.fsf@generowicz.net>


Alexis <flexibeast@gmail.com> 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.




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From: Alexis <flexibeast@gmail.com>
To: emacs-orgmode@gnu.org
Subject: Re: Some thoughts on MobileOrg and its development ....
Date: Wed, 13 Aug 2014 12:59:10 +1000
Message-ID: <87fvh1xf1c.fsf@gmail.com>


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.




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From: Jacek Generowicz <jacek.generowicz@cern.ch>
To: emacs-orgmode <emacs-orgmode@gnu.org>
Cc: Alexis <flexibeast@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: Some thoughts on MobileOrg and its development ....
Date: Sat, 9 Aug 2014 09:53:24 +0200
Message-ID: <87fvh6rte3.fsf@cern.ch>


Alexis <flexibeast@gmail.com> 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.




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