Mobile app colab

[tamadeu]

I'm thinking of starting building an Ionic project for Espo and, if the Espo team allow it, I would like to make it available as a free and open project, with recurrent updates and make it available to both Android and iPhone.

Anyone interested in joining?

Remember, this will be an open source project with no money involved. I myself already have a regular job, so I would be working on it after working hours.

Anyways, if you're interested in joining me contact me here in the forum or join this Telegram: https://t.me/+McPu6cyB3yAyMzNh

[migrator]

Iconic/Vue?

[esforim]

Hi tamadeu! Welcome and that is an exciting first post. I can only hope you are not some (1) spammer (2) disappear after the initial stage or (3) gave up!

Anyway this topic is something I tend to keep an eye on.

Currently there is 2 mobile app but not very active.
There is on behind the door Mobile App that may or may not be worked on due to interest and it being considered Finance/Money.

One is my own personal project which I have on and off test trial but never full working version. I create it by using a Mobile APP drag and drop UI system.

Anyway I wait for your response and 2nd post before getting my hope up!

PS: You don't need the Developer permission to create the App.

[tamadeu]

migrator my experience is with Angular, but why not?

esforim my intention is to keep this one active and ongoing. That's why I'm looking for people to get involved in as an open source project, this way more people can continue the project.

[esforim]

Love to contribute, do noted that I have no (or very little) coding experience, but it if boring task that is workable with a Guide and can be copy paste I will contribute where I can.

Let me know how I can join or if there is an development channel somewhere already.

[Firyo]

Hi there,

So you want to create a mobile application that will be connected to an espocrm?
If so, do you want to create a "reproduction" of the back-office or an extranet or something like that?

[migrator]

tamadeu most of my experience is with Vue ( pretty extensive ) and if you used Vue I would be willing to explore Iconic versus Quasar which was my past choice.

If you ( and esforim too? Nice! ) are going this direction, I am also: and to me Firyo it would be a re-write of the front-end, but use the same API.

Mobile support is not horrible, but certainly not something at the level needed to be able to use this as an FSM or full-scale ERP, etc. To me the flexibility of the underlying system makes it worth it to keep and trust that part, but then recreate the interface as mobile-first or even AI-first and mobile-second, versus mobile-last as it is right now.

The weakest area, I believe, the system has, is the front-end application, and that is not the fault of yuri ( love you man ) but the fact that the entire approach to mobile development changed between 2010-2015 and 2020. The right decisions were made in Espo, but for a prior era. Plus, the back-end is so complex itself that being both a front-end application and a back-end application seems to be too much to attempt long-term. There is too much weight to carry on the mobile side, especially in the FSM case.

[migrator]

Another two examples are Kiosk terminals, and Portals.

The Portal implementation has potential on its own; and mobile-ready terminals for limited positions, again in the FSM scenario for example, creates huge opportunities for end-to-end enterprise management and personnel automation. But right now the mobile implementation being a 2010-2015 style front-end application limits both those cases.

Trying to answer Firyo better, and help define a scope there.

[migrator]

I think that down this road, EspoCRM becomes a reference implementation, then there would be more than one front-end, but it would need to keep in lockstep with the reference implementation. Then eventually, if the front-end surpasses the reference implementation and starts to drive API feature requests and push the reference implementation, maybe it would become the default front-end. But that is a 1-3 year outlook.

The API, the front-end, and the system administration pieces ( i.e. data management, docker implementation, server configurations, documentation, etc. ) those ought to be three separate areas, especially with the inrush of AI which might create another area, or touch existing.

[tamadeu]

Hi Firyo! It will be a mobile frontend with the api's being called

[tamadeu]

To anyone interested you can join this Telegram chat: https://t.me/+McPu6cyB3yAyMzNh

[migrator]

Not going to use Telegram; will stay on forum or GitHub to keep everything in the open to move forward this community and the work already going on.

[esforim]

I would concur with some sort of Git system, Telegram can be use for chat though. but I don't chat often anyway so it might be quite quiet, at least it will be from me.

Also I don't have telegram!

In my opinion, don't need fanciness that, just get a demo working for the very bare basic then get the ball rolling from there. But not everyone will agree with this.

[migrator]

Been thinking a lot about this, and feeling like that story of two countries wanting to write on paper in zero gravity.

One invested millions in a pen that could write in space, and the other used a pencil.

I keep wondering if the "pencil" here is maybe just switching the CSS framework and not the JS framework at all.

A significant section of my mind wants to just migrate to Tailwind and not do another application per se.

Then if people use that, also convert to Vue.js if merit supports that. But the standard mobile experience is really only just ugly, not unusable.

I bet I could get a field service team using Espo if it were only migrated to Tailwind CSS rather than a huge hassle of rewriting the UX entirely.