Posted by dewolfe001 on January 8, 2008 at 5:46pm
I saw this great piece from John VanDyk : http://www.sysarchitects.com/node/64
We've been having problems with our staff and their connectivity to the server. That is a separate track of what we are running down. But this got me thinking: could I write a desktop application?
- A standalone application that can reside on the desktop
- Negotiate login to the site
- Get a CCK content-type schema and produce a form
- Open up a form with ActiveX controls
- Post to the site via an API call (or something like a PHP cURL submission)
- Also, save a copy locally so that you could work offline.
- Keep a local copy-- and check to see if the local copy and remote copy match
Then our content people can work offline. Because the desktop app is self-contained it would bypass the question of browser issues.
Thoughts? Dumb idea? Has it been done already? Could this become a SoC project? Would it be practical?
All the best,
Mike
Comments
Services
What you're looking for is the Services module. I just hosted a Drupal Dojo lesson last week about getting Drupal to communicate with the desktop, which would've been right down your alley. There should be a screencast up about it sometime soon.
Or XUL?
Whatever you do, please stay away from ActiveX. Not only is it MS IE only (and hence Windows), but it is also an invitation to being hacked.
You can consider XUL Runner which allows a rich desktop application, while being cross platform. You can also consider a Java applet or application too.
Drupal performance tuning, development, customization and consulting: 2bits.com, Inc..
Personal blog: Baheyeldin.com.
Drupal performance tuning, development, customization and consulting: 2bits.com, Inc..
Personal blog: Baheyeldin.com.
I remember that there was
I remember that there was some work done on a XUL-powered Dekstop-like managment application for Drupal. I think it was a project in 2006's SoC. Did never get out of a unusable pre-alpha-stage, though, but might be a good starting point. See http://drupal.org/project/drupman.
Oh, and ActiveX? Shudder. Who should use that?
couple other ideas
1)
Flash
Drupal dojo talks about using flash with drupal. I haven't watched the video, but my thought is that you could use Flash for the desktop part, and interface it to drupal. The tricky part would be offline mode and syncing to the server. Adobe AIR is supposed to be good at that, but I haven't worked with it yet.
2)
Someone who has already been down that same road is DevelopmentSeed. They created a fully self-contained, independently running Drupal install on a USB stick. Cool, no? And they have it set up doing just what you described. Distributed people are offline making their updates, and when they get online, the updates are synced to a central system. At least that's the way I understand it. Here's their writeup about it.
I've had the same thoughts
Here are my notes, from last August, online for the first time:
http://agaricdesign.com/note/unuplugged-drupal-offline-synchronization-m...
benjamin, Agaric Design Collective
benjamin, agaric
Adobe AIR
Adobe AIR works across Mac OS X, Windows 2000/XP/Vista, and popular Linux desktops. Check out the Adobe Technologies group on GDO for info/links I've shared.
Chris Charlton, Author & Drupal Community Leader, Enterprise Level Consultant
I teach you how to build Drupal Themes http://tinyurl.com/theme-drupal and provide add-on software at http://xtnd.us