Topic: Android App for Mibew 1.6.x available

[scalior]

Hi guys,

I have been leading a project to develop a Mibew client for mobile devices. Since we primarily own Android devices, that's what we targeted for the first release. This now available in the Google Play Store as Mibew Mobile. This is a great tool to help your customers on the go. Give it a try and follow its progress on the app's website at http://mibewmob.scalior.com.

This project is not sponsored by the Mibew developers, but we look forward to establishing a partnership with them down the road. We certainly appreciate the fine work that the Mibew developers have been doing to keep Mibew messenger alive. It serves us well as a great tool for interacting with our customers.

Although I will answer some basic questions in this thread, if you have any support related issues with the app please post to the app's support forum instead of here. No need to clutter this forum with issues for which you can't be helped.

Sincerely,

Eyong

[MichaelTunnell]

This looks very interesting and the design of the app looks good. I am excited to give this a try.

I do have a few questions.

1. Is this going to be Open Source, like Mibew is? (it looks to be the case but just checking)
2. Have you talked with the Mibew project about support with Mibew 2.x?
3. Have you talked to them about possible inclusion with the project as well?
4. If it is Open Source, would you like a new icon for the app? I am actually the designer for Mibew. I designed the updated Mibew icon and will be designing the new UI for Mibew 2.x.

[falcon]

I have tested your solution and want to write my feedback, questions and feature request.

1. What is the update time of main window? When I will see new dialogs? I have a problem. I don't recieve new dialogs. I should exit an application and open again. (Like 2nd my problem)
2. As I understood there are no chat ajax update for now, aren't it? I should go to main window and go back to dialog to see new messages. Or maybe polling interval is too long. I tryed to wait about 1m.
3. Any sound solution for new dialog/message? I think, you can take default sounds. Maybe solution to use it repeatedly (loop or interval between messages) while dialog is not opened by operator.
4. Maybe working as service to:
    a. recieve notifications in realtime
    b. as I know when there is low memory, OOM kills empty/background applications firstly. So, I wish you protect this and guarantee operator to recieve his messages
5. Eventhough, thank you very much for your solution It will be very useful for me. It's annoying to use browsers
6. If this should be sent to your forum, sorry, I'm too lazy today
7. P.S. After pressing chat in android app there is a problem, when I can see in android app path to my avatar: /images/avatar/filename.png like a message (:
8. P.P.S Server details doesn't have my avatar. (No image available)

[scalior]

This looks very interesting and the design of the app looks very good. I am excited to give this a try.

I do have a few questions.

1. Is this going to be Open Source, like Mibew is? (it looks to be the case but just checking)
2. Have you talked with the Mibew project about support with Mibew 2.x?
3. Have you talked to them about possible inclusion with the project as well?
4. If it is Open Source, would you like a new icon for the app? I am actually the designer for Mibew. I designed the updated Mibew icon and will be designing the new UI for Mibew 2.x.

Answers:
3. I have been in touch with the Mibew developers. Mibew 1.6.x has been locked down so no new features will be included in it. However, the server component needed by the app is easy to install. It has been designed so that the both the server component and Mibew core installation can be updated independent of each other.

2. For 2.x, the app should communicate with the server using the Mibew APIs and the plugin framework. The integration should be more seamless.

1. The source code for the server extension is currently found at https://github.com/alberto234/mibew/tree/mibewmob-1.6.12/src/mibew/mobile. The source code for the app is however currently closed. I'm still working out what license to use (more like working on stability issues for now). I anticipate that before the 2.x release I should have sorted that out.

4. I'll take you on that offer once I sort out how to make this available. I started the project a year ago when Mibew was still at 1.6.5. Your artwork is a wonderful improvement from the old icon.

I have tested your solution and want to write my feedback, questions and feature request.

1. What is the update time of main window? When I will see new dialogs? I have a problem. I don't recieve new dialogs. I should exit an application and open again. (Like 2nd my problem)

The app automatically updates to check for new visitors and issues a notification, but this happens within a schedule. Go to "Menu -> Settings" to set your daily availability. Check out the app's support forum for issues that have been uncovered and fixed so far.

[MichaelTunnell]

Answers:
3. I have been in touch with the Mibew developers. Mibew 1.6.x has been locked down so no new features will be included in it. However, the server component needed by the app is easy to install. It has been designed so that the both the server component and Mibew core installation can be updated independent of each other.

2. For 2.x, the app should communicate with the server using the Mibew APIs and the plugin framework. The integration should be more seamless.

1. The source code for the server extension is currently found at https://github.com/alberto234/mibew/tree/mibewmob-1.6.12/src/mibew/mobile. The source code for the app is however currently closed. I'm still working out what license to use (more like working on stability issues for now). I anticipate that before the 2.x release I should have sorted that out.

4. I'll take you on that offer once I sort out how to make this available. I started the project a year ago when Mibew was still at 1.6.5. Your artwork is a wonderful improvement from the old icon.

3. Very nice and yes it is cool that they can update independently thus not causing any core conflicts. Well done on that.
2. sounds great
1. that's understandable...I still haven't decided on a license for some of my projects.
4. thanks and just let me know.

------

I have done some preliminary testing on the app and server extension and so far it works in the terms of connecting and display content but unfortunately I have ran into many problems that make the app undeployable. I'll do some further testing tomorrow and record my issues so you can see what exactly the issues I ran into were.

[faf]

Just to make clear the official position of Mibew Messenger project.

1. We know about @scalior's project for some time now. But (at least for now) we're not affiliated with it in any way.

2. A moment of bitter truth. Once Mibew Messenger 2.0.0 will be ready to be used in production, this app will become a kind of blocker preventing its users to migrate to the last version of Mibew. Sad but true.

3. We're open for collaboration to make this app compatible with Mibew Messenger 2.0.0. Any suggestions on Mibew architecture / APIs (at least) will be carefully reviewed and evaluated.

4. It is obvious that the level of collaboration and our involvement in the app development process will be defined by the licensing policy for the app. We promote and support free/libre software after all.