Recently, I was going through my old threads, closing a bunch of projects, when I saw one that I started about Windows 8 Apps. The thread didn't really go the way I planned, but it got me thinking when I saw it again.

Since I'm beginning to develop on Android, I came up with the idea to make an actual app for Cemetech. It would be Cemetech, except all the themes would already be stored on your device so you could save data. Also, this way you can continue to get PMs and (if you want) SAX updates when you aren't actually on the site.

Before I go any further than this, though - would anybody actually use this? And second, do any of you admins have a problem with this? I think I might actually be able to finish a project for once in my life if I do this, but I don't want to waste time or do this if any of the admins have a problem (since you are, after all, the guys that run this site).

Browsers already do this (caching). To do any better would require some kind of API which we don't have.

I wouldn't use it, but that at least sounds mildly useful.

We've had some discussion of making jsTIfied into a proper mobile web app with cache manifests to support offline use. Doing something like that for the whole site would require a ton of work, but a version that only worked while connected online wouldn't be terrible (since we wouldn't have to buffer posts / etc).

What I'm thinking of is this.

If you guys had an API to support the app, there would be a way to only pull certain things from the site to display, which would save mobile data. Basically, it would be like returning the racecar-version of the web page - no CSS, no Images, no nothing.

However, I'm assuming you guys don't have this.

Another way to make the app would be for the app to request either the mobile or desktop site, and parse that for the data it needs to display the site. The user menus and app settings stuff would be constant on the sidebar, and the actual forum posts (or archives) would be displayed in the middle content area.

Of course for convenience the app would hold on to your login.

In all respect, ever since we redid the layout of the site there are considerably less images in the template. We have CSS3, ASCII Characters and, even a spite sheet. The top and bottom bars that went around content divs are no longer images, the nav text background is no longer an image, quote button and family are no longer images, etc etc. You could probably use the mobile app to strip out our CSS and implement your own. But I would encourage some form of CSS, the only advantage here is that your CSS would be kept locally on the device. Unless you compared the cache breaker at the end of the site CSS to what you have stored and only download the remote CSS when that number has changed.

But you are correct, we do not have an API. The closest thing we have is that SAX now uses the XMPP protocol so you could log in to the chat room over a client that supports Jabber/XMPP, in other words IRC is no longer required. I've done it when we were beta testing the new SAX. But I believe the details on how to connect are going to be released at a later date, if at all.

I could see the mobile app loading the web site, disabling SAX, and then the logging into the XMPP room. Tabs on the bottom (or top) would allow the user to switch between the two.

Letting my imagination run wild, if you're able, expand that tab bar to include the forum, archives and news while stripping out the site nav. Users can click each tab and see that page and click back to another tab and resume where they left off. But that might require multiple open connections to Cemetech, one for each tab. Each tab would only be able to display that section. So, you wouldn't be able to have two pages of the archives open.

I'm totally digging the spite sheet.

This is a (painfully bad) mockup of what I had in mind.



Pressing the hamburger menu at the top slides out the "slide out menu", which has the cemetech logo, your profile picture, username and status, and the navigation. In the finished version, the navigation buttons would have their own icons, and the profile picture would probably be in a frame.

Pardon the awfulness, I made it on MS Paint. In like two minutes. And it's so big because I formatted the page to match mu phone's dimensions.

Actually I would say it is a bit useless... apps like this you can make with appgenerators...what you should do is implement the irc... Sry about my spellingmistakes but i typed it on my phone....

True, but an app generator is limited. Plus, in some of the later versions if I can figure out how I'm going to try to add some sort of TI-Connect type functionality (ie, connect your calculator with a USB-OTG cable and automatically install packages from the Archives). Also a few other things, once I learn the skills. Can't do stuff like that with a generator. And you definitely can't do stuff that uses root.

The IRC is definitely going to be implemented.

Anyway, once I get a Google Play Developer account, I'll post a link here so anyone interested can test the betas.

Interesting idea. But there is one little Problem: not everyone is rooting his or her phone.and to use the usb cable or manage a System that is extern you will need to get the Android superuser rights. ist like Managing the sd-Card. You cant make that with 3rd-Party applications. But hey nice idea and if you wanna some Support in obtaining rights just ask me. i can programm the Android devices a little bit.



Ps: sorry about my spelling but i have a small Problem with the autocoecture and the t9 ;D

Alright. Sounds cool.

This is what I'm thinking:

The app will be set up a bit like the Google Play Store. The Home page has the site news and statistics.
There will be a slide out menu, with the different sections as shown above.
The forum will be arranged into tabs - each main forum gets a tab, and then the subforums and threads get pages.
The software center will be where you can download stuff. By default, the Cemetech Archives are included, but I'm thinking about having an option to include TICalc sources as well. If the same item is in the TICalc and Cemetech libraries, the Cemetech one will be used. The only part that would require root is the linking part. That's where downloaded packages can automatically be installed.