Emoncms App dev suggestion

jamieg · 2019-01-22T19:18:38.149Z

Hi,
I’ve been using the Emoncms.org mainsite & the app for sometime, they are both very powerful and useful. I have though thought of a possible mod that could improve the mobile app further. The app at present is focussed on power and electric generation where multiple screens of power can be created. One powerful feature on the main site is the ability to create your own public dashboards with URL link. Just wondered if it was possible to create a list of public dashboard url’s from within the Emoncms app. Any URL links when selected would simply launch your prefered browser and should only have a small loading on the existing app.

mattjgalloway · 2019-01-23T22:03:10.299Z

Hey @jamieg. Are you using the iOS or Android app? Or both? I develop the iOS app, so I’m definitely interested in your suggestions.

I like that idea and I’ll have a look at what I can do there. It wouldn’t even have to be just the public dashboards but also your own dashboards that are private as well - as we have the read key.

mattjgalloway · 2019-01-23T22:15:16.734Z

Ah, I’ve looked and listing the dashboards requires the write key, annoyingly. Inputs are the same. We could change that though. But at least the iOS app currently only asks for the read key, which makes sense, and I don’t want to expose asking for the write key unless we really need it.

jamieg · 2019-01-23T22:29:48.600Z

Hi Matt, many thanks for your reply, it looks like we share a common goal.
Unfortunately I’m using the Android platform but maybe if you make some progress on iOS some the other Android developers will stir into action. I initially only thought about linking to public dashboards, they launch fine via the browser without any keys. I think it would benefit the Emoncms app to have your dashboard links available from within the app. I dont have any app dev experience but would gladly test any Android offering.

pb66 · 2019-01-23T22:58:42.376Z

Another possible consideration is the graphs. The graphs produced and saved by the graph module are now accessible using the graph name and readkey.

I just took a peek at the dashboard module and it would be a trivial change to make the dashboard/list.json api available via the read apikey.

I wish we did have a more full featured android app. Or at least set up emoncms as a “Progressive Web App” (I hope I coined the right terminology there!)

mattjgalloway · 2019-01-23T23:01:26.298Z

pb66:

I just took a peek at the dashboard module and it would be a trivial change to make the dashboard/list.json api available via the read apikey.

Definitely trivial. Same for inputs. The thing that makes me a bit cautious is that it won’t help for people who don’t update emoncms. And the app would have to handle that. But - I’ll get to it one day :-).

mattjgalloway · 2019-01-23T23:02:39.537Z

pb66:

Or at least set up emoncms as a “Progressive Web App”

“Responsive” is the modern term for this ;-). Agreed - that’d be very nice. I think there’s value in having a native app, but a responsive web app would fill a huge gap. Would be a massive overhaul though!

pb66 · 2019-01-23T23:12:22.195Z

mattjgalloway:

The thing that makes me a bit cautious is that it won’t help for people who don’t update emoncms.

Perhaps we should get those changes in sooner rather than later to reduce the likelyhood of that, it seems daft to have “read” access requiring a write apikey which ever way you look at it.

mattjgalloway:

I think there’s value in having a native app,

Agreed, I wasn’t suggesting it as a alternative. But having said that, a responsive app would serve a wider audience rather than dividing dev efforts into Iphone, android and PC users, 3x the work. but yes dedicated apps could undoubtedly out perform a web app. unfortunately the Android side is not progressing.

mattjgalloway · 2019-01-24T08:32:00.345Z

pb66:

Perhaps we should get those changes in sooner rather than later

Yep. Let’s do it. In fact the input list api is already fixed thanks to @TrystanLea! I’ll go ahead and put up a PR for dashboards too. Unless someone beats me to it.

pb66:

Agreed, I wasn’t suggesting it as a alternative. But having said that, a responsive app would serve a wider audience rather than dividing dev efforts into Iphone, android and PC users

Oh absolutely. When I started on the iOS app I almost did it in React Native, which would have made it cross platform easily. However I decided against it purely selfishly as I didn’t want to learn about that, but wanted to learn about RxSwift which I make use of extensively. I like using my apps I work on to learn new things!

Probably the best approach is responsive website to be honest though, alongside native apps. That’s the best long term solution IMO.

mattjgalloway · 2019-01-25T08:28:10.920Z

So I added dashboards to the iOS app last night, however I still need to do the change to the dashboards API to make it only require read access.

In the app, for both inputs and dashboards, I show a message if you don’t have an updated emoncms.

jamieg · 2019-01-25T11:15:27.040Z

Many thanks @mattjgalloway for your prompt work on this. Hopefully your work will eventually pave the way to make this feature available in the Android app.

pb66 · 2019-02-09T10:48:25.596Z

3 posts were split to a new topic: Accessing graphs by name and by apikey (direct and embeded)

kumarmohan7 · 2019-02-09T04:53:35.972Z

Hi,
In Mobile Dashboard is not auto arrange ratio,
I see dashboard in Mobile dashboard in zoomed.
how to correct this issue…

pb66 · 2019-02-09T11:44:07.146Z

Are you referring to the dashboards viewed via the iOS app?

kumarmohan7 · 2019-02-10T11:32:27.938Z

Hi Paul,

Thank you for reply.
No I referring Android App,
In Emoncms Android App is only available My Electric like that App only,
If you add Dashboard in Android App means its very useful.

Thank You