I spent a little of my weekend time tweaking the new PhoneGap-based Android
app to make it less dependent on, well, Android. And even on PhoneGap. ;)
The app can now build with PhoneGap for iOS[1] (iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch)
though there are some problems. The iOS stub source and Xcode project are
in the main git repo along with the Android bits, so nothing needs to be
separately maintained or copied.
[1] http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User:Brion_VIBBER/iOS_build_notes
Do note the major problems noted at the bottom of that page; there may be a
bug in PhoneGap itself that's causing articles to open in Safari instead of
in the iframe[2], and we don't yet have a non-Android menu implementation
so not all features are accessible[3].
[2] https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=32069
[3] https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=32068
In addition, the app can now run without PhoneGap at all -- if you load it
straight into a web browser it'll try to just go on its merry way without
initializing the Android or PhoneGap-specific bits. This actually functions
in Chrome -- but for now only if you launch Chrome with the
--disable-web-security option which isn't a good idea. ;)
It needs currently-forbidden cross-origin access to things in the iframe
and over XHR, and will need to be tweaked to work more directly in regular
browsers... but this is a good indication that it'll be relatively easy to
port this to other HTML/JS-based app environments, such as WebOS, ChromeOS,
Mozilla's experimental Boot2Gecko project, etc.
If nothing else, it's a lot quicker to reload in Chrome than to relaunch
the app in an Android emulator. ;)
As with the iOS version, there's no Android popup menu and we don't yet
have an alternate.
A few features -- eg the 'Articles near me' map view -- currently are
implemented as Android-specific plugins and will need iOS and general web
variants too.
-- brion
As i've seen this list get used more and more its made me increasingly
frustrated to not see its archives open. Why aren't they open you say?
.. because this list was initially used for user feedback. Now wether
you agree that those are private or not we have a private archive
right now and that sucks.
For those wanting more detail check out :
https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=28432
We seem to have three choices but certainly let me know if you have a another
1) Open the archives as is
2) Delete the archives and start fresh
3) Move to a different list
I like #1 and #2 with a slight bias toward #2 as it means we don't
surface comments that someone made if what they were assuming was
private. I really don't want to do #3 as we already lists to think
about and keeping them simple like mobile-l@ is key.
Thoughts?
--tomasz
Hi All,
As we think of projects that we would like to work on at the Mumbai
hackathon in mid November, I'd like to examine development of GPS data based
custom mobile map applications. Having custom maps that can be developed
using GPS data as well as generated and shared via mobile devices could open
up contributions to content specific maps on Wikimedia sites. These custom
maps could be incredibly useful to view with articles on places, treks on
topics such as hiking in the Himalayas or Alps, tracing historic
battlegrounds, or trekking though wildlife sanctuaries.
Android recently released an open source app named CustomMaps to help build
such apps. Check out http://code.google.com/p/custom-maps/.
I would really like mobile app developers take up the challenge of building
such apps for Wikipedia content. Anyone interested :-)
-Alolita
Alongside the Google Maps Wikipedia layer and our iOS nearby articles
feature (correct?), the Android/iOS app Geoloqi now has a Wikipedia layer.
More info:
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/new_wikipedia_layer_on_geoloqi_gives_y…
Geoloqi is pretty cool. It has some cool geo features you can tack on to
your apps too: https://developers.geoloqi.com/ in addition to its own
feature set. (If anybody wants a contact, I know the founders.)
--
Steven Walling
Community Organizer at Wikimedia Foundation
wikimediafoundation.org
Hi Mobile Enthusiasts,
There are updates to Feature Corral:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mobile_Projects/features
This is shaping up into feature priorities and some organization around the
India Hackathon and location-based features.
Also there are some new thoughts on Brainstorm:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mobile_Projects/brainstorm
Please note a proposed framework for understanding the spectrum of ideas
that are relevant to mobile.
Comments and participation welcome.
Phil
--
Phil Inje Chang
Product Manager, Mobile
Wikimedia Foundation
415-812-0854 m
415-882-7982 x 6810
What: Android App triage
When: Wednesday, Oct 26, 16:00UTC
Time zone conversion: http://hexm.de/8h
Where: #wikimedia-dev on freenode
Use http://webchat.freenode.net/?channels=wikimedia-dev
if you don't have an IRC client
Next Wednesday, I'll be holding a triage on the Android App for our
mobile development team working top-down with the bugs listed on
http://etherpad.wikimedia.org/BugTriage-2011-10.
If you've forked the github repo (https://github.com/nitobi/Wikipedia),
downloaded the app, or if you would like to help solve issues with it,
then please join us.
Thanks!
--
Mark A. Hershberger
Bugmeister
Wikimedia Foundation
mhershberger(a)wikimedia.org
717.271.1084
Greetings all,
We all know that Mobile needs a lot of UI/UX love. In order to move on
it quickly we've posted a new RFP focused specifically on thinking
about how we'll integrate new features from our roadmap into the
general look and feel of the mobile website. If you know of anyone who
would be a good fit then please have them email us. Details below
RFP: http://t.co/0ZwkCfSi
tweet: http://twitter.com/#!/WikimediaMobile/status/126807562149576706
--tomasz
What does everyone think about building a testing list for our various
mobile apps? I have a handful of users who have been testing the iOS
app and I'm getting a bit tired of having to mail them individually.
--tomasz