Discourse as Android Application

[purldator (mountain)]

@chapel

Unless you’re active on the site, have seen the notification and or read the post, you should get the mobile notification imo. It is a lighter thing and leads to more communication. Though it should be configurable.

Precisely! I use toast notifs on tweet deck for this exact reason. That way I know something is going on and what specifically is going on and if it warrants immediate attention for whatever reason. When I currently see Meta’s favicon count go up, I have that urge to stop everything and check. I only wish I could see a notif beforehand if I should check it out now or defer for later.

Emails are too heavy-handed for this. I don’t need receipts for this. Just feels like a case of ghetto fixing to me.

[alefattorini (Alessio Fattorini)]

@chapel

I think it could be even more active. Unless you’re active on the site, have seen the notification and or read the post, you should get the mobile notification imo. It is a lighter thing and leads to more communication. Though it should be configurable.

I quote everthing man. I’m thinking the same…

[erlend_sh (Erlend Sogge Heggen)]

@BCHK

I’m thinking that I’ll probably go fully Native Android - not WebView - which is more of a hassle technically since Discourse doesn’t really have a firm/fully documented and supported REST API.

Do you still stand by this?

I think the following is a very strong argument against:

@codinghorror

The problem is that the functionality will diverge as we build more features into the webapp that are not reflected in the forked native version.

What I don’t understand about this discussion - hence my decision to revive it - is: How come WebView has hardly been talked about here? Maybe I’m missing something, but it seems to me like with WebView you could easily get all of Discourse’s inherent mobile features for free, while being able to build handy native add-ons on top of that, like read-later queues and offline browsing.

Does anyone know how the Slack android app is built? They employ an equivalent of the WebView approach in both their Mac and Windows apps, so I’m curious to know if their Android application was built following that same strategy.

[geek (Lowell Heddings)]

The Slack mobile apps are native.

Collaboration Software

Slack is probably the most used app on my mobile devices. Top notch, just works.

The biggest thing is notifications that keep me in the loop when somebody pinged me. So important for a team environment.

It would be great if there was a notifications app for Discourse forums, where you could plug in the forums that you are a member of, and it would give you a notification for any responses or other updates. That could just open Safari to the URL, but it would be a big improvement.

[downey (Michael Downey)]

@erlend_sh

Does anyone know how the Slack android app is built?

FWIW, IRCcloud is a web service and native Android app basically identical to Slack (except it’s based on open standards!) and its Android app (with notifications) is open source, for whoever wants to review it to get ideas about how to implement similar notifications for Discourse: GitHub - irccloud/android: IRCCloud Android App

[BCHK (Bcguy)]

@erlend_sh

I’m thinking that I’ll probably go fully Native Android - not WebView - which is more of a hassle technically since Discourse doesn’t really have a firm/fully documented and supported REST API.

Do you still stand by this?

No - I’ll probably be forced to go webView in the shorter term just because of implementation costs. Longer term - you really want integrated notifications - so native would be HIGHLY desirable.

[mbs (Michele)]

I was just thinking about it today.

The reason some of my friends still keep mindlessly spamming Facebook rather than the community I’m attempting to build is that unlike me, they’re mostly on mobile.

While Discourse is great on mobile, it has no push notifications for private messages and posts, and not everybody constantly checks their e-mails (I do, but I know many who don’t).

I would say push notifications alone would be crucial for mobile, whereas there’s no need for a full mobile app as Discourse is just great as it is.

Just need to find a way for push notifications to be there.

[erlend_sh (Erlend Sogge Heggen)]

I think you can have integrated notifications with the WebView approach.

Android Push Notification with WebView?

If I understand that answer (+ comments) correctly, you sort of build a hybrid app; one part native for notifications, one part WebView for everything else.

[alefattorini (Alessio Fattorini)]

@mbs

Just need to find a way for push notifications to be there.

I definitely agree with you

[BCHK (Bcguy)]

@mbs

While Discourse is great on mobile, it has no push notifications for private messages and posts, and not everybody constantly checks their e-mails (I do, but I know many who don’t).

Yes - this is crucial for audiences of people between the ages of 15 and 25 - who rely much more on SMS/Texting and apps - vs. email.

[purldator (mountain)]

Pushbullet, folks.

We only need a plugin and then Discourse would be perfect for mobile without having to reinvent the wheel with a full native app or using other technologies from the ground up.

I agree fully that notifications are needed. Pushbullet works for Android, iOS, ChromeOS, ect, ect. This is a no-brainer. A much larger audience (read: everyone who connects, mobile or not) would benefit from a Pushbullet plugin.

Again, as I linked above, a Discourse competitor NodeBB already has a Pushbullet plugin that ships with core (similar to the tagger plugin for Discourse).

[thangngoc89 (Khoa Nguyen)]

@purldator I’m a fan of Pushbullet. But I think we should build hooks in the core first and Pushbullet notification plugin simply use these hooks. This should work for Android apps, iOS apps, Chrome Desktop Notification apps or whatever notification system.

[purldator (mountain)]

Agreed on all points.

[alefattorini (Alessio Fattorini)]

Well… We need a core developer right?

[Moter8]

Focusing on one Push platform/service is not the right way to handle this.

Look at znc-push, it supports like 10 of these services and works great too. Written in C++ and Python.

I think a “generic” solution is more important to create than a single-service focused one.

[purldator (mountain)]

If it goes to Pushbullet and others, then all the better. Good to cover more ground.

[mbs (Michele)]

I agree it’s most important to get this done with at least one, whichever works best.
If it can then be worked out with multiple services such as pushbullet and others, sure.

I believe it would be a life-changing addition towards increasing mobile Discourse usage, at least from what I’m seeing with my friends.

Not an android app, there’s no need. Just push notifications working someway, somehow.

I unfortunately have no experience with this so I have no idea how to make it work.

How can we proceed, assuming there’s a fair number of people interested?

[rumpelsepp]

@mbs

Just push notifications working someway, somehow.

I use email for that.

[Moter8]

@mbs

How can we proceed, assuming there’s a fair number of people interested?

We can start by creating some sort of features spec that the plugin should follow. Then some dev can try and hack it together. I’ll try writing up something the next days.

[mbs (Michele)]

@rumpelsepp

I use email for that.

So do I, but I cannot ask people who only check their e-mails once a month to check if they’ve been invited to a beta to change their wrong habits.

My priority would have to be to make it so it is a seamless experience for them just as it is for me.

@Moter8 Alright, sounds cool. I don’t think it has to be unnecessarily complicated