Working Group Meeting Notes - 03032011

Attendees: Jennifer Bourey, Gary Thompson, Jeff Cross

Technology

Agreed to use Titanium Appcelerator as the development framework.

http://www.appcelerator.com/

• Refer to Titanium Appcelerator
• Write single-source JavaScript which is compiled into various individual platform formats (i.e., write it once, Appcelerator transforms into multiple outputs specific to mobile platforms - iOS, Android, etc.).
• It has an open-source version that appears to be actively supported.
• Any development done by the project team or the community would require using this framework.
  

Agreed to use jQuery Mobile (jQM) as the main JavaScript and CSS framework.

• Refer to jQuery Mobile and uPortal
• Provides a clean, baseline theme.
• Simplified scripting and shortcuts to mobile device events and methods.
• Decided not to use the jQM theme color swatches as it was determined to be a rather odd and somewhat confusing way to handle color; will allow the classes (a,b,c,d,e) to be output to the markup, but will remove the corresponding CSS declarations from the jQM theme and use uPortal portlet CSS to style instead.
  

Agreed to use jQuery UI for the Calendar (datepicker) widget.

• The calendar (month-view) widget requires styling from jQueryUI.
• Will probably copy just those CSS declaration from jQueryUI into a custom stylesheet rather than include all of jQueryUI.
  

Agreed to use uPortal's portlet CSS to extend jQM and keep portlet view markup/styling standardized.

• Keeps consistency in the markup and CSS for portlets.
• Leverages work that has already been done.
  

Will need to be able to apply light branding to native applications.

• Believe this can be done, need to discover options and effort.
  

Fluid Infusion will be necessary.

• Needed to power at least the Renderer and Pager, maybe other components.
• mFSS will not be used, refer to jQuery Mobile and uPortal
  

Functionality and Interface

Home page list will be a combination of native apps and web view of uPortal layout.

• Desire to make this view a native app (it's easier to go from native app to native app, harder to go from web view to native app).
• A native app would require uPortal to be able to output post-DLM layout in XML/JSON.
• Conceptually a grid of large icons.
  

Portlet view navigation must be within the portlet.

• However, the portlet name will be coming from the portal theme. Dual navigation bars (one from the portal theme/return home button, another for the portlet view/back button) needs to be solved.
  

Initially, 6 portlets will be included.

• Announcements (already has a mobile view)
• Calendar (already has a mobile view)
• LMS/Course List
• Campus Map
• Search (Campus/Directory)
• News Reader
  

Intra-portlet/app communication is not in scope.

• There are very interesting interactions that could happen with communication between portlets, however this is not in scope for the first phase.
• As an example, if an instructor cancelled class, that would show up as an announcement to the student, remove the calendar event from the calendar (or mark it as cancelled), and post the status to the Course List and Campus Map view of the student's courses.
• These ideas will be explored in the future.
  

No user layout customization.

• Since uPortal currently has only one layout per user, no layout customization will be available to the mobile user.
  

Takeaway Tasks

• Jennifer Bourey is going to investigate having uPortal produce the user layout in XML/JSON for consumption by a native app.
• Gary Thompson is going to investigate combining jQM with uPortal portlet CSS and the necessary jQueryUI CSS.
• Jeff Cross is going to investigate the options and effort in skinning native app wrappers and controls.