Adobe PhoneGap Future / AwareIM Strategy / Apple April 2020

hpl123

Last evangelical statement lol. It seems it´s even possible to publish PWA´s to appstores (with Apple being a bit slow but most likely getting there fully in the foreseeable future):
https://www.simicart.com/blog/pwa-app-stores/

If we get all of the aforementioned advantages of a PWA + the ability to publish it to appstores (Android/IOS) and Apple catches up with the PWA things e.g installer, push notifications, appstore publishing (and if not having offline isn´t a major dealbreaker for most Aware developers), what else do we need?

aware_support

Thanks, everyone for your thoughts. I don't understand why people are saying that we don't want to be a player in the mobile field. We do. This is high on our priority list and we will be investigating issues with mobile and native for the next release (although the native technology is very messy and hard to test - if anyone can suggest a simulator for testing native, it would be appreciated).

Having said that, there is a lot of talk of Aware IM not being good enough for native mobile, but how many of you have actually attempted to create a native mobile app in Aware IM? One of our clients (a council in Sydney) have just released a native application which is working really well for the council's customers. Yes, they had to fiddle with the configuration file, but in the end their app has been accepted for the Android and iOS stores and has been very well received by the customers.

Not trying to be defensive here, but it would really help if you send us a VERY SPECIFIC descriptions(like Jaymer says) of the deficiencies in the Aware IM mobile, rather than say generic things that it's not good enough.

Jaymer

I don´t really think offline capabilities is that important (that and the fact that in todays connected world, being connected is norm).

no connectivity inside buildings, like hospitals, or basements.
still poor connectivity in South Africa.
Is very important issue for my clients.
fyi, jaymer...

karelh

aware_support wrote
Thanks, everyone for your thoughts. I don't understand why people are saying that we don't want to be a player in the mobile field. We do. This is high on our priority list and we will be investigating issues with mobile and native for the next release (although the native technology is very messy and hard to test - if anyone can suggest a simulator for testing native, it would be appreciated).

Having said that, there is a lot of talk of Aware IM not being good enough for native mobile, but how many of you have actually attempted to create a native mobile app in Aware IM? One of our clients (a council in Sydney) have just released a native application that is working really well for the council's customers. Yes, they had to fiddle with the configuration file, but in the end their app has been accepted for the Android and iOS stores and has been very well received by the customers.

Not trying to be defensive here, but it would really help if you send us a VERY SPECIFIC descriptions(like Jaymer says) of the deficiencies in the Aware IM mobile, rather than say generic things that it's not good enough.

Hey support

As per my post, building a successful AIM native mobile app is possible and I have quite a few consumers and business users making use of it. Yes, it does require some additional config and time but it works and delivers at the end of the day. My biggest concern is the fact that PhoneGap Build is no longer maintained which means we cannot use the WKWebview component, thus preventing apps being published to Apple after April

I do agree with Jaymer that offline capabilities are still important and I think the authentication via biometrics is something consumers are used but that is nice to have. I cannot say I really looked at all the options out there but Monaca does provide a simulator so you upload the zip and then run it on your phone through their mobile app to simulate and test before releasing it to their store. I am sure Ionic has a similar tool and I think their components look good.

Also, the fact that you can run a mobile app OR login in through a mobile browser and have the same interface is a win with AIM. We have some users that don't have smartphones so they access it via a browser on their phones.

Thank you for looking at this and for listing.
Karel

karelh

yahya wrote
Adobe PhoneGap Build and WKWebView
On build.phonegap.com, you simply add the following to the config.xml file:

<feature name="CDVWKWebViewEngine">
<param name="ios-package" value="CDVWKWebViewEngine" />
</feature>

<preference name="CordovaWebViewEngine" value="CDVWKWebViewEngine" />

Thanks for this. Did you actually got this to work and published without getting the warning from Apple? So what you posted above is correct BUT you need to make use of Cordova IOS version 5.1.0 which was released end of last year. So the Cordova/PhoneGap CLI version 9.0.0 is still current but the underlying IOS version needs to be on 5.1.0.

So yes you can add the lines above but PhoneGap Build has not been updated to use IOS 5.1.0 so it still fails. If I am missing something then please let me know but I have tried the above. So the articles I posted in my first post was specifically around the fact that PhoneGap is not being updated and the rumour is that it won't be.

This is why I looked at Monaca. They support PhoneGap files and they are using IOS 5.1.0 BUT the folder structure AIM creates in the ZIP is not correct.

Kind Regards,
Karel

hpl123

aware_support wrote
Thanks, everyone for your thoughts. I don't understand why people are saying that we don't want to be a player in the mobile field. We do. This is high on our priority list and we will be investigating issues with mobile and native for the next release (although the native technology is very messy and hard to test - if anyone can suggest a simulator for testing native, it would be appreciated).

Having said that, there is a lot of talk of Aware IM not being good enough for native mobile, but how many of you have actually attempted to create a native mobile app in Aware IM? One of our clients (a council in Sydney) have just released a native application which is working really well for the council's customers. Yes, they had to fiddle with the configuration file, but in the end their app has been accepted for the Android and iOS stores and has been very well received by the customers.

Not trying to be defensive here, but it would really help if you send us a VERY SPECIFIC descriptions(like Jaymer says) of the deficiencies in the Aware IM mobile, rather than say generic things that it's not good enough.

Thanks for the update support and looking forward to see what you in the end do with mobile. I myself am one of the developers that has not used native so for me, it´s mostly loose thoughts about this in general with thoughts on my PERCEPTION of native Aware and not meaning to trash it (also why it´s a bit hard for me to give informed, concrete feedback about missing things). To risk being a bit corny, "it´s because I care" 🙂 and want Aware to become better in this area.

Jaymer

Since KarelH really wanted to focus on Phonegap Build issues, Vlad has asked for feedback on another subdiscussion here...that of shortcomings in Aware's mobile offering that need to be fixed. Please contribute to the new discussion thread for Mobile. thx

karelh

Hey support,

I hope you are all doing well and staying safe in these strange times. 🙂

Apple has now officially stopped accepting Apps with UIWebview in them and after a lot of time trying to find the correct person at Adobe, it seems they are not going to update PhoneGap build to support the new version of Cordova IOS 5.1.0. This means no more apps can be published to the Apple store via PhoneGap build.

Is there a current workaround or perhaps another way to get this done? I was playing with Monaca but the folder structure is not correct.

Thanks.

aware_support

There is no workaround that we are aware of. We do hope that PhoneGap build will support this sooner or later.

If you manage to get Monaca to work please let us know (if it is just a matter of re-arranging the folder structure it is probably doable).

karelh

Hey Support

Thank you for the response. Unfortunately from the replies, I received today it seems that PhoneGap Build will no longer be maintained by Adobe although nobody wants to communicate it as the official response.

The good news is that I got my App published via Monaca and I got no errors from Apple(Just need to change the folder structure a bit. Nothing major. I Will send it in a separate post.....so that is a win and some good progress.

In their dev environment, the app works as expected but when I publish it to the store and then install it I get the following error when logging in: "Connection failure: Status: error".

After some digging through my firewall logs and the Tomcat access logs I discovered that in fact, it does make a connection to the server so at least we know traffic is hitting the server. Below is a snippet from my access logs. PLEASE can you try and see why it will fail to login?

3 tries and all of them failed:
192.14.226.143 - - [06/Apr/2020:17:09:19 +0200] "POST /App/request.awmn HTTP/1.1" 200 85
192.14.226.143 - - [06/Apr/2020:17:09:26 +0200] "POST /App/request.awmn HTTP/1.1" 200 85
192.14.226.143 - - [06/Apr/2020:17:09:37 +0200] "POST /App/request.awmn HTTP/1.1" 200 85

From the dev instance where it works:
41.13.11.23 - - [06/Apr/2020:17:15:22 +0200] "POST /App/webif.awr HTTP/1.1" 200 1251
41.13.11.23 - - [06/Apr/2020:17:15:22 +0200] "GET /App/urlRequest.aw?actionType=run_query_action&query_string=FIND

Jaymer

3 tries and all of them failed:
192.14.226.143 - - [06/Apr/2020:17:09:19 +0200] "POST /App/request.awmn HTTP/1.1" 200 85
192.14.226.143 - - [06/Apr/2020:17:09:26 +0200] "POST /App/request.awmn HTTP/1.1" 200 85
192.14.226.143 - - [06/Apr/2020:17:09:37 +0200] "POST /App/request.awmn HTTP/1.1" 200 85

this is good, because you now know that it is hitting the server for sure.
But you don't know whats in those 85 bytes of a reply.
Probably "unauthorized user"

The key will be in the Server/Tomcat Output Window.
You should see the attempted login, and the user DOMAIN, ID, PW coming in... and the reply from Aware.
So whats in that log area should help.

Also, are you using the default "red" login screen still?

karelh

Hey Jaymer

Thank you very very much for the info. Interesting results.

Whether I log in with the right or wrong credentials I get the same error BUT in the tomcat output, I can see it failing to authenticate AND actually successfully logging into the app.

So this shows that the App correctly authenticates to the server but fails to display the actual home page or in the case of the wrong credentials, return the correct error message.

I am not using the red login screen but all I changed was a logo on top and the color of the button.

Hopefully, I am close to getting this solved and if so we can continue developing mobile apps.

So basically the log output is the same when I log in from a working app vs the new app published via Monaca.

Jaymer

from the phone...

to Aware, initially, there is NO DIFFERENCE between the Mobile App logging in, vs. the Mobile Browser logging in.
So if you are using the same credentials, then there is no reason it should work from Browser, and NOT work from NativeApp.

If IT DOES NOT WORK, then I would think the issue has to be in the parms sent from the Red screen to logonOp.aw
Besides userid & pw, it also sends Domain. if thats wrong, you'd get invalid credentials.
Maybe there's a typo in what you entered for the Domain.

To test logging in from the phone Browser, I'd make sure you connect to logonAdmin.html so that it makes you enter the Domain.
Check the source code in the unzipped Phonegap.zip file inside "index.html" and make sure that domain field matches what you enter when logging in from the Browser.
I think you just have a typo somewhere.

But you're very close. At this point, Monaca has nothing to do with it. its ALL in the index.html file (the red screen)

karelh

I agree but the strange part is that although it gives the connection error I can see it authenticate with the correct credentials, domain, and url in the tomcat logs. It also loads the dashboard and queries as if everything loaded correctly. So I am confident that to log in and domain info is correct but its struggling to load the initial page...

Monaca has a debugger app that you can run on your phone that syncs the app from their cloud and runs it in, I suppose, a container. This works fine.

Also, if you enter the wrong credentials the app should say "Incorrect credentials" but you also get that error.

karelh

I am happy to do a Teamviewer session and show someone if they are interested...maybe I am missing something.

Jaymer

192.14.226.143 - - [06/Apr/2020:17:09:19 +0200] "POST /App/request.awmn HTTP/1.1" 200 85
192.14.226.143 - - [06/Apr/2020:17:09:26 +0200] "POST /App/request.awmn HTTP/1.1" 200 85
192.14.226.143 - - [06/Apr/2020:17:09:37 +0200] "POST /App/request.awmn HTTP/1.1" 200 85

From the dev instance where it works:
41.13.11.23 - - [06/Apr/2020:17:15:22 +0200] "POST /App/webif.awr HTTP/1.1" 200 1251

the phone is only getting 85 bytes sent back to it - this is when you are getting the error.
but when the login is valid, it send 1251 bytes.
this makes sense.

so I'm missing something in the last msg from you - if it logged in and authenticated and sent the dashboard, then those lines in the Tomcat log should look different than those above. My .awmn login sends back 4500 bytes

Jaymer

send me invite

karelh

Hey

You are right in saying that the 85 bytes is when it is wrong credentials but when I enter the correct credentials it still fails but then I get 5872 bytes back.

I will send you a zoom invite in 5.

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