Ship of Fools: Are there plans to port the Faverolle chatroom client to Android?

Thread: Are there plans to port the Faverolle chatroom client to Android? Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.

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Posted by Alex Cockell (# 7487) on :

... and for a client to be rolled out for iOS as well?

Just that there are a LOT of cheap Android devices out there now (for instance the Tesco Hudl and other tablets)..

And tablets are a faster element of the market - would be useful to consider adding that as well as the Java SE client currently running...

Just a thought,..

Posted by Alex Cockell (# 7487) on :

Here's a link to some dev info in case this project is taken up.

http://www.dreamincode.net/forums/topic/259547-is-there-a-way-to-port-java-se-jars-to-android/

Posted by RooK (# 1852) on :

It's exciting to think about putting hydrofoils on the ship's dingy, even while we're contemplating upgrading it from sail to steam power. I hope our technical staff consider your suggestion.

Posted by comet (# 10353) on :

I'm still just trying not to get tangled in the rigging.

Posted by PeteC (# 10422) on :

I don't mend what ain't broke. And not everyone has a tablet or an iPad, nor wants one.

Posted by JFH (# 14794) on :

quote:
Originally posted by PeteC:
I don't mend what ain't broke. And not everyone has a tablet or an iPad, nor wants one.

I personally wouldn't quite call adding functionality mending. I would love to be able to access the cafe from my Android device - I haven't been hanging out there a lot of late, but that would probably change if it was available from my smartphone. Like Rook, I hope the developers keep it in mind, but I am aware that there may be other things that are in need of more urgent attention.

Posted by Pigwidgeon (# 10192) on :

quote:
Originally posted by PeteC:
I don't mend what ain't broke. And not everyone has a tablet or an iPad, nor wants one.

Posted by Sioni Sais (# 5713) on :

quote:
Originally posted by JFH:

quote:
Originally posted by PeteC:
I don't mend what ain't broke. And not everyone has a tablet or an iPad, nor wants one.
I personally wouldn't quite call adding functionality mending.

Very true, but when things require mending there's a chance it will be fixed for free. Additional functionality comes along when a) it suits the supplier or b) the customer stumps up.

Posted by Sandemaniac (# 12829) on :

quote:
Originally posted by comet:
I'm still just trying not to get tangled in the rigging.

So long as that's all you're up to in the rigging! [Snigger]

Posted by Doublethink (# 1984) on :

People who use the cafe regularly have previously offered to either help with coding or possibly costs. What is usually frustrating about these offers is they are rarely even acknowledged.

The issue is not that - at this point in time - no one is prepared to pay, or give their time. It is that no-one is communicating about any plans there may, or may not, be about addressing either the doorbell functionality issue or the access issue.

If someone said - if you can raise £xxx then we will be able to do thing a, thing b and thing c - then we would be in a position to see if there is the will and money to do it.

Posted by RooK (# 1852) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Doublethink:
What is usually frustrating about these offers is they are rarely even acknowledged.

Speaking as one of the kids hanging out on Old Man Simon's boat for free, I cannot comment on his opinions about these generous and helpful offers.

If it were me, though, I would have grave concerns about even the most earnest offers of assistance from mostly-unknown entities to fundamentally modify my private property. Even if it were private property falling into disrepair; even if it were private property I was allowing free public access to. And if I was busy with other things, I might not bother arguing about it.

That being said, here's hoping that we all get what we want.

Posted by Alex Cockell (# 7487) on :

Except what is being suggested in the addition of more client types - not modifications to the server components.

Or try recompiling the Faverolle client source under Android ICEs to see how much work might be needed.

Posted by Doublethink (# 1984) on :

I appreciate that, but, I feel it is unhelpful that when anyone raises these questions; the first shippies who post tend to respond with the assumption is that the people asking couldn't be bothered to either fund or help.

Crosspost in reply to Rook.

[ 10. October 2013, 19:34: Message edited by: Doublethink ]

Posted by Alex Cockell (# 7487) on :

I'm not a programmer - but as I'm tossing up whether to buy a 7in Android tablet (a Tesco Hudl), I'd be willing to act as a tester if a client WAS developed...

Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on :

Is the café getting much use now? Last few times I've been in there it's been empty.

Are there many shippies who would use the café more if it was on Android? How many more? How much use?

With the ongoing Java security issues (I know the latest update is currently OK-ish) downloading Java apps at the moment is very much at your own risk, and not necessarily recommended on a machine which also runs much personal data.

Is it sensible to ask for a very little used facility to be upgraded on an app for Android, that would exclude iPhone, Windows and Blackberry phones, when the coding environment it is based on has ongoing security issues which are also reducing use of the café for some people.

Posted by Late Paul (# 37) on :

Android uses Java as a programming language but not a runtime. Most if not all of the Java security issues are to do with the runtime. Which is not to say there aren't security issues with Android, there are, but they are its own not inherited from Java.

But there's another reason this is relevant. Because it has its own runtime Android gets to implement its own libraries according to its own design preferences. These are the building blocks if you like. Many of the basic ones are the same but many are specific to Android. In particular the GUI system is completely different. Which means that porting a Java app to Android isn't just a question of recompiling. It means taking out the code used to display things and replacing it with the Android equivalent. And because the two GUI systems differ quite a bit that's not a simple translate the function calls job, it's a rewrite of those pieces of code.

Too Techie; Didn't Read - porting the Cafe is a lot of work. That's to Android. IOS or other platforms would be a complete rewrite. Even more work.

The big problem is that the Cafe is a bespoke piece of software and that the Ship doesn't own the copyright.

A couple of years ago when one of the regular "can't we improve the Cafe" threads was running, and I was a Cafe regular, Simon popped in to the Cafe. The handful of us there chatted about it and he said that whilst they'd had big plans for the Cafe that had never really materialised. He said that not enough people used it to justify spending the money on it. We talked about how much it cost and it was a large amount, not unreasonable in terms of a programmer's hourly rate to write something like that from scratch, but a lot considering there are and were existing software packages that do essentially the same that are cheap or even free. To be fair I think this is where the "big plans" comes in. I think that the Cafe was going to be this virtual church hall/worship space where lots of virtual events could take place and that that would justify the cost of tailoring it to the Ship's exact needs.

Anyway I asked Simon whether they owned the rights to the code because I was about to offer my time to make changes. He said they didn't. Which means they'd need to go back to the people who wrote it and either pay them to do the work or get their permission to use the code for someone else to*.

So it would cost a lot - either in terms of effort or money or both - to update the Cafe. To be honest I don't think it's really worth it even if you had the money. And for a site the size of the Ship I think if you were starting from nothing then you'd pick an off-the-shelf package and use that. But the Cafe exists and it costs nothing to use as it is. It has the advantage of being tied into the Boards' login process, which helps police sock-puppeting and other bad behaviour.

I think the most likely chance of a new Cafe is if/when the Boards software gets updated and the new software comes with a chat option built-in.

(*actually there is a 3rd option. What I'm calling "the Cafe" and what most people think of as such is just the client software that runs on your PC. It talks to the Cafe server which then acts as a middle-man passing on the messages. One could simply re-write the client part from scratch if one knew the format of the messages to and from the server. This avoids using any code that the Ship doesn't own. Of course that's at lot of work i.e. a lot of time/money. So not really a better option.)

Posted by fletcher christian (# 13919) on :

I can't access the cafe at all now, either on a Mac or on Windows. Just doesn't launch at all and I've tried all manner of things.

Posted by Taliesin (# 14017) on :

thanks, Late Paul, I feel I understand more about it.
I joined after the church of fools, and I had a feeling that the moment for something had passed.

might come again, especially as software and access is changing all the time.

I can't access the café anymore. I hope that when the energy for a move picks up speed, I'll be aware of it and ready to get on board.

Posted by Alex Cockell (# 7487) on :

And if a migration plan did come to fruition - then migrate to a solution that offered HTML5, Android and iOS clients out of the box?

Posted by Alex Cockell (# 7487) on :

What I WILL say is - a lot more non-techies are buying tablets rather than computers now... so might be an idea to be there... just noticing the trend..

Posted by gazzaw (# 17863) on :

Hi Im just saying hi for the first time
\

Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :

Welcome Gazza.

You'll find a Welcome Aboard thread on the All Saints board where, if you wish, you can tell us a bit about yourself and be welcomed by some of the old hands.

Alan

Posted by Thyme (# 12360) on :

The posts here by Late Paul and RooK seem to sum up the situation regarding any future development for the existing cafe and I seem to remember that these points have been made regularly in similar past discussions.

It seems very clear that Simon does not have the time or inclination to manage any further development of the existing cafe. This is unlikely to change in the foreseeable future, and that is very understandable.

So I have finally cracked and posted on the topic because I don't understand why the cafe people don't just set up their own chat room. With all the offers of help to fund and develop the existing one it shouldn't be too problematic.

There is free/low cost software available, Parachat and Addon which I think will have all the functionality people want, albeit without the graphics and the integration with the ships member list. Although I think either or both Parachat and Addon can be extensively personalised if you have the techie skill.

Keeping people's ship names should be possible with a pre-approval registration system which could be managed by PM without much trouble. It wouldn't be formally part of the ship, but surely the ptb would be happy for a link or info how to register to go on a thread? Then you could have all the functionality and reliability you want until such time as the Ship does upgrade the Board software and includes a chat room with that process.

FWIW, with a group of friends I have been using the very basic free version of parachat for some years now with no trouble. The latest free version has some extra features but we don't need them so we haven't upgraded. If we wanted a paid for version we could easily arrange that between us. We are internet friends living in different countries. Some of us have met, some haven't. We met on an internet site. Very similar to the ship situation.

We are a very small group but a friend who is webmistress for a larger site and has been using an Addon chat room facility with several rooms for several years says "although they have a facility for automatically closing and opening the chatroom, it doesn't work and they have no intention of fixing it, so we currently have to manually open and close the chatroom for every event. If you don't need to close it that isn't an issue, and the rest is pretty good." She has designed the rooms so it fits seamlessly into the rest of the site design wise.

Regarding Parachat she comments they "don't have a functioning modification that would allow us to use the phpBB database for people to log into the chatroom" but "Parachat offer users the option of logging on with Flash or Java"

I am considering adding a chat room to a forum I am an admin for and I will recommend we go with Addon or Parachat. We certainly won't be going down the bespoke route.

Posted by Alex Cockell (# 7487) on :

The problem is - they both require a full Java SE stack- which you won't get outside full desktop OSs... if you want to support Android, iOS etc - they need clients...
Parachat is also a bit of an awkward sod with OpenJRE 7 as well - which screws up Linux..

Posted by Alex Cockell (# 7487) on :

Whoops - just looked- they look like paid addons..

Posted by Drifting Star (# 12799) on :

Parachat does have an 'HTML / Mobile Device User Interface' and a 'Free iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch App' on even their free chatrooms. https://www.parachat.com/personal/

[Crossposted with Alex, but quite relevantly!]

[ 20. October 2013, 17:58: Message edited by: Drifting Star ]

Posted by Doublethink (# 1984) on :

Some of us did use a parachaty room while the ship's one was down - i hosted one a blog site for a while. But I don't think Simon wants stuff run in sof's name that is not the site's control - which is fair enough.

Without the link to sof, then the idea of real time chat linked to sof is a bit of a non-starter.

Posted by Thyme (# 12360) on :

I take your points Doublethink.

As there are people who want a cafe and have stayed loyal to the present one, despite its difficulties, would Simon be dead against putting the present one into mothballs and putting up a link to an off the shelf version? At least it would work and probably have more features.

I read about people wanting a doorbell for instance and I scratch my head and think, "we've got a doorbell and each user can choose from a variety of different noises for their doorbell. And we are not techie people and we don't pay a bean"

He could maintain control by being the 'owner' or chief admin of the site but delegate all day to day functions and responsibility to others just as he does with the Ship. So he would keep control and could shut it down at any time.

Any necessary additional finance for paid features would have to be raised by the users and sent to Simon in the normal way of donations, just earmarked for the cafe. No money, no extras just the basic free version. No up front cost to Simon.

Does it need to be an all singing/all dancing thing which is linked to the Ship's registration process as long as someone he trusts manages the cafe membership?

Posted by Doublethink (# 1984) on :

Its been suggested before - I am not certain why they don't want to do it.

Posted by Tubbs (# 440) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Doublethink:
Its been suggested before - I am not certain why they don't want to do it.

I suspect it’s because that any café upgrade would be part and parcel of a wider upgrade to the main site and the boards. This is being looked at, but I’m not sure where it’s at. I’ll make enquiries and see if I can come up with a better answer.

Tubbs

Posted by Doublethink (# 1984) on :

I think this is what I find so frustrating - a link to a free chatroom (or even one at $5 a month that we contribute to) does not require an entire a site rebuild. And could sit there until such time as a site rebuild happens.

Or alternatively - the magazine could make a sustained effort to actually use the cafe for events. This solves the issues with the lack of functionality for casual chat - whilst still using the branded resource.

Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :

We used to have a chat room that was functionally dis-connected from the rest of the Ship. There was a group of moderators who kept order, as far as possible, when they were there. We could pull the logs and look at what had happened in the event of a complaint, but beyond that the admins and Ship editors had no control over the room.

Which would have been OK if the facility was no abused. We shifted to linking to the board database so that we would know who was there (ie: people banned from the Ship couldn't get on, people couldn't log in using the screen name of another Shipmate etc). To step back to the dis-connected chat room model would open the potential for a repeat of those sorts of abuses. Maybe everyone has grown up, and won't behave like children. But, I wouldn't bet on it.

Posted by Doublethink (# 1984) on :

Unless someone is regularly checking the cafe logs, you'd still only know if someone complained - I suppose it solves the banned returnees tho, but I don't recall that ever being a massive problem ( there was one person I recall coming back - if there were others I was unaware of those.

Posted by Thyme (# 12360) on :

quote:
We shifted to linking to the board database so that we would know who was there (ie: people banned from the Ship couldn't get on, people couldn't log in using the screen name of another Shipmate etc). To step back to the dis-connected chat room model would open the potential for a repeat of those sorts of abuses. Maybe everyone has grown up, and won't behave like children. But, I wouldn't bet on it. [/QB]

I have been looking at these sorts of issues for the chat room for my forum which is members only and we may want to use an existing database. I've not got into a lot of detail yet but I think you can make it both a restricted members only site and also connect to your existing membership database.

See here for the parachat info. Click on database options on the left hand menu.

Even if the Ship's software doesn't allow this integration you can still have a registration process and they would have to use their ship log in and screen names and email to register. And this info is available to the chat room admin(s)So the email address used for the chat room could be verified against the ships record in case of any query.

I think Addon has similar facilities.

I don't think the security issues are insurmountable given the will to do it and if there are people available to host/admin it. If the latter aren't available then that means it is probably not viable. I don't mean hosting in the room 24/7 like the Ship, just keeping the wheels turning and sorting out any problems.

[ 21. October 2013, 20:55: Message edited by: Thyme ]

Posted by luvanddaisies (# 5761) on :

quote:
Originally posted by fletcher christian:
I can't access the cafe at all now, either on a Mac or on Windows. Just doesn't launch at all and I've tried all manner of things.

I assumed the Cafe had been unplugged a few months ago. I've not been able to access it on my Mac, on my [Android] phone or on my [Android] tablet. I used to be able to access it on my Mac, and I tried all sorts of things, then came to the conclusion it must've been closed during the four months or so I'd been away at sea.

Posted by no prophet (# 15560) on :

The cafe works. I'm there all alone right now.

It is a java program. http://www.java.com/en/download/faq/java_mobile.xml states "Some PDAs (Blackberry, Palm), tablets (iPad, Android), smart phones (iPhone, Android), gaming consoles (Nintendo Wii), MP3/MP4 players (iPod), and other personal mobile devices do not support the Java plugin. See your device manufacturer's website to determine if Java is available for your specific device."

So the problem is at the level of the operating system. I don't actually run java myself, I run an open source version called IcedTea in Linux. But the problem is worse than that. Android is a specific Linux implementation, this page indicates that java on Android does not run the same way as it does on other operating systems. It looks like someone would have to port over the cafe to the Dalvik implementation of java - which in fact isn't even java, if this is possible, so as to run on Android.

If you search wikipedia for Dalvik you get this quote (can't link to it because the article title has parentheses):

quote:
Programs are commonly written in Java and compiled to bytecode. They are then converted from Java Virtual Machine-compatible .class files to Dalvik-compatible .dex (Dalvik Executable) files before installation on a device.

So the question actually to ask is "can someone please convert the cafe's java implementation that runs in a java virtual machine to an Android compatible Dalvik program". Question #2 might be to ask if we have any Android app developers staffing the orlop.

So someone would have to rewrite the java program for the cafe as an Android app.

Posted by Tubbs (# 440) on :

quote:
Originally posted by no prophet:
The cafe works. I'm there all alone right now.

It is a java program. http://www.java.com/en/download/faq/java_mobile.xml states "Some PDAs (Blackberry, Palm), tablets (iPad, Android), smart phones (iPhone, Android), gaming consoles (Nintendo Wii), MP3/MP4 players (iPod), and other personal mobile devices do not support the Java plugin. See your device manufacturer's website to determine if Java is available for your specific device."

So the problem is at the level of the operating system. I don't actually run java myself, I run an open source version called IcedTea in Linux. But the problem is worse than that. Android is a specific Linux implementation, this page indicates that java on Android does not run the same way as it does on other operating systems. It looks like someone would have to port over the cafe to the Dalvik implementation of java - which in fact isn't even java, if this is possible, so as to run on Android.

If you search wikipedia for Dalvik you get this quote (can't link to it because the article title has parentheses):

quote:
Programs are commonly written in Java and compiled to bytecode. They are then converted from Java Virtual Machine-compatible .class files to Dalvik-compatible .dex (Dalvik Executable) files before installation on a device.
So the question actually to ask is "can someone please convert the cafe's java implementation that runs in a java virtual machine to an Android compatible Dalvik program". Question #2 might be to ask if we have any Android app developers staffing the orlop.

So someone would have to rewrite the java program for the cafe as an Android app.

Late Paul’s fantastically detailed post addressed why the Ship can’t just convert the café from one version of java to one that’s compatible with Android / iOS etc. But, as you seem to have missed it, here’s the summary version:

The Ship does not own the rights to the bespoke café software it is currently using. To make any changes, we have to go back to the original programmers and get them to rewrite it OR get their permission for someone else to do it. This costs a lot in terms of both time and money. Which then gets you into the vicious circle of “more people would use the café if it worked better” v ”how much resource do you dedicate to something that isn’t used much, but highly valued by those that do”.

It doesn’t make any difference to how you phrase the question, the answer is, sadly, no. At the moment, there are no plans to invest any more of the Ship’s limited resources into the café software. Or do anything with it than make it available for Shipmates to use.

The Admins totally understand the very real frustration of the café community that the virtual worship space that was designed for St Pixels isn’t really suited to the kind of casual chat that Shipmates want. And we are extremely grateful for the enthusiasm and commitment of the café members who’ve been very generous with offers of help to make things work better.

Simon is looking at a site upgrade and I believe there will be an opportunities to suggest improvements and features during that process. Café software more suited to the needs of the Ship is one of the top things on my list! (And I’m not even a café user!)

Tubbs

Posted by Alex Cockell (# 7487) on :

Also the case that St P's has ultimately managed to get a better ecosystem for their curated services by moving to Facebook.. also meant that they got their iOS and Android support.

We'll need to do different - but I suspect with the way the trends are going...

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