iOS native client app for website - iphone

I am running a site in drupal and one in Joomla. I would like to create two native iOS client apps for the users of these websites. I would like to know one basic thing. Should the apps connect straight to the sites database? or is there any other way to do that (xml or other way)?
thank you in advance.
(the sites run in mysql)

You should look at using the provided RESTful interfaces for each platform (drupal / joomla).

Related

What is the difference between web servers (apache,ignix etc) and web frameworks(flask,rails etc)?

Aren't both necessarily the same thing? While frameworks seem to have extra features to help ease development?
A web server is a program that takes a request to your website from a user and does some processing on it. Then, it might give the request to your Rails app.
An app server is the thing that actually runs your Rails app.
See more in http://www.justinweiss.com/articles/a-web-server-vs-an-app-server/

Lotus Native Application on iPhone

How can i make a lotus application an iPhone native apps?
For e.g: eLeave.
The submit or approve action button in the form was created using lotusscript. So how can it work in iOS ? I have no idea how can i extend my lotus application to an iPhone Native Apps. Someone had suggested to use either SOAP or REST via HTTP to communicate between iOS and domino. But i don't even know what can i do with SOAP in my apps.
Pls help.
The suggestions along the lines of SOAP or other HTTP-based access to the data are correct. Since you can't just port a Notes app to the iPhone (for a variety of reasons) or use the Notes Java API classes (since the iPhone doesn't have Java), some form of HTTP access is your best bet. Either traditional Domino web access via forms or XPages are most likely the best way to go, since then you can write your UI in Designer. If you don't want to or can't do that for whatever reason, you're on the hook for writing the UI for your iOS app separately and then connecting to Domino via Web Services or REST functionality.
SOAP Web Services are probably what you want. They have the advantage of being supported directly in Designer - you can create a Web Service Provider in LotusScript or Java in much the same way you would write an Agent or Script Library. You would have to write methods to access and update the data you want, but it would also mean you have full control over what happens. You could re-implement your form-submission code as a web service call that takes the changed data as parameters and then does whatever manipulation you want and creates/saves the document.
It does depend on the version of Lotus/Domino you are running. This could be a start XPages Mobile Controls I am not sure about the "native"here. This is XPages, web based.
Based on your comment, I know of one native application TSAzr. This application uses XPages as web-services on the domino server. A bit more info can be found here dominoGuru
Your follow-up suggests that a mobile-optimised web application will not cut it, and that you want a native application. This means writing a new iOS application, end of story. There are different ways to go about this of course—e.g. you could build a web app and then wrapper it using something like Appcelerator Titanium, or PhoneGap—but ultimately, you need to write something.
As #Jesse Gallagher has already stated, Notes applications can't be ported directly to an iOS device. Apart from anything else, a Lotus Notes client application is a proprietary data store (NSF) sitting within a C and C++-based client built and compiled for the relevant underlying platform (Win or OS X). There is no direct analogue for iOS other than re-coding your app (of course, you could re-use the existing Lotusscript business logic via web service calls, as detailed in earlier answers).

Rails3 and Devise working with Iphone/Android/Wp7 applications

I searched arround for solutions and didn't find anything of really pertinent on the subject.
This is why, I ask you guys your help :-)
Assuming I have an application running with Rails 3 using Devise to authenticate the users.
I need to create mobile applications for Iphone/Android and WP7.
The mobiles applications should communicate/login/create/list, do whatever the website can do.
The mobile Applications could commuicate by parsing the XML .... but maybe there are already lib/frameworks or something more sexy ?
What would be the best way to communicate between my mobile applications and my Rails website ?
I'd use the xml or json output to share data back and forth; For authentication you can set (in initializers/devise.rb)
config.http_authenticatable = true
That enables you to send basic HTTP Auth headers with every request which devise will handle for you.
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For creating a webapplication that is also possible to view in a mobile version for the website i'd recommend to check out this railscast: http://railscasts.com/episodes/199-mobile-devices
It sounds like, if the mobile app is just an interface to the web app, that you would likely be best served by creating a mobile HTML5 "style" within your web app, that gets served automatically when a mobile phone accesses your website. All of your code can be in Rails, which it sounds like you're already familiar with, and you've also got the advantage of keeping your codebase all together in one place - if you want to add functionality later, you just update your web app, and don't worry about updating 2 different mobile phone apps as well.

iPhone apps and state aware web connections

I'm working on an interface for an existing web application that will allow iPhone and other mobile clients.
I have started implement a JSON API and I need to give some detailed specificaitions for the App to an iPhone developer.
What I am curious about is whether other developers are using session data in their JSON / mobile client communications.
Do the common url grabbing libraries of iPhones (and other mobile devices) mimic a browser's cookie handling?
Can someone suggest what libraries might be used to achieve this? Are there any online tutorials or blog entries that outline state based web connectivity in an iPhone app?
I've used ASIHTTP (http://allseeing-i.com/ASIHTTPRequest/) and JSONFramework (http://code.google.com/p/json-framework/) to achieve this.
Both very good libraries that are easy to work with.

Wordpress database access in mobile applications

I am new to wordpress and I want to create an interface for being able to access my database hosted on wordpress in my mobile applications - particularly iPhone and Android.
As these do not directly access SQL databases and would need routines on the server-side for being able to do so, what would be the best way for me to go about writing these routines/web-service calls?
Are there any wordpress plugins available for this? If not, what language should I use - php or something else?
I need some lead.
Perhaps you do not need to access the database directly?
Wordpress supports the XML-RPC standard interface so applications can communicate with WP across the internet, without needing access to WP's database. http://codex.wordpress.org/XML-RPC_Support
If you choose to implement your apps' using XML-RPC, all your communication will be reduced to simple HTTP calls.
To get started I suggest checking out the source code of Wordpress' own iPhone application, which utilizes XML-RPC http://iphone.wordpress.org/
Also, note that Wordpress has published an extension to the XML-RPC API that includes WP specific functions: http://codex.wordpress.org/XML-RPC_wp
I would suggest creating a webapp (iPhone style) for the phone application and calling everything with AJAX to a PHP (Due to Wordpress running PHP) backend to validate and execute the queries. iPhone webapps dev link I haven't found any solid tutorial/resource for developing BlackBerry webapps (Please post back if you find one)
Instead of creating a new app, or trying to port the database, check out WP Touch, which is a Wordpress plugin/theme which will turn your wordpress install into an iPhone friendly site on iPhones.