OX6:OX Mobile Web Interface

Information and Installation of Open-Xchange Mobile App (Beta)

Description

Later this year, Open-Xchange will release Open-Xchange Mobile App, which lets you access data from Open-Xchange Server 6 with your smartphone running a webkit based browser like the iPhone or Android devices. Open-Xchange Mobile App offers online and offline access to appointments, contacts and mails on the road using your smartphone. Optimized for low bandwiths Open-Xchange Mobile App offers instant and fast over the air access to your data, which are at the same time safely stored on Open-Xchange Server. The following modules are supported:

• E-Mail
• Calendar
• Contacts

Moreover the app offers seamless integration to use your phones basic functions like phone calls and location based information. You can easily start calls from your Open-Xchange contacts on your smartphone or directly send E-Mails.

Features and Functions

Mail Module

• Access to all Open-Xchange standard folder: Inbox, Sent, Trash, Spam and Drafts
• Creation of new e-mails
• Answer, forward and delete e-mails

Contact Module

• Access to all Open-Xchange contact folder and contacts with details
• Creation of e-mail directly from contact module
• Start call directly from contact module

Calendar Module

• Access to all Open-Xchange calendar folder and appointments with details
• Accept/Decline of appointments
• Participants and resources list from all appointments
• Planned: Additional notes for Accept/Decline function, creation of new appointments

Persistence of the Mobile App

• Offline capability
• All contacts are available offline
• All appointments are available offline
• All mail header are available offline
• All mails which are opened once are available offline

Configuration

• Number of e-mails retrieved (25,50,75,100)
• Number of days which will be checked for appointments (5,10,20,30)
• Animation for iOS devices (on/off)
• Subscription of contact folders
• Autologin

Themeability, branding and i18n

• i18n for DE and EN, other languages can be added.
• Branding options: App name (via HTML edit) and app icon
• Themeability by CSS

Supported devices

The OX Mobile App should work on devices running a Webkit based browser. These are mainly the devices running iOS, Android and newest generation of BlackBerrys. For devices running Symbian we recommend to use Opera Mobile Browser.

Device Support
Apple iPhone	yes (iPhone running iOS 2.0, 2.1, 3.0, 4.0, 4.2.1)	Official Supported by OX: 2G, 3G, 3GS, 4 and iPod-Touch 3.1.3
Android	yes	Official Supported by OX: Google Nexus One (Android Froyo 2.2), HTC Desire (Sense Android 2.1)
Nokia/Symbian S60 5th Edition	via Opera Mobile	(Although there is a built-in Webkit browser running on this device a Symbian bug in the cookie-handling which prevents login to the OX-Server)
Windows Mobile running Internet Explorer	no
Windows Phone 7	no

Technical overview

• Based on HTML5, CSS, Javascript, Frameworks jQuery and jQTouch
• Optimized for Webkit browsers (iPhone, Android, no optimized version for iPad yet)
• Complete offline capability

Requirements

• Open-Xchange Server >= v.6.20
• 1GB RAM

Download

Please note that everything from this page and beyond is in Beta: This means nothing is final, changes will be made before final release, stability is not guaranteed and nothing from this site should be used in production.

Follow this link to download the installation package and the Release Notes.

The access data are:

• Username: oxmobileapp
• Password: first$cut

Installation and configuration on the Open-Xchange Server

Installation on the Apache or another webserver:

1. After the download of the package, you can start the installation via your favorite package manager. On Debian you can use "dpkg -i" or on rpm based systems you would use the "rpm -Uvh" command.
2. After installation locate the installed files in your webroot directory, i.e. /var/www/gui-mobile-v2/ on Debian
3. Edit the file "cache.manifest" in directory gui-mobile-v2
4. On the bottom of the file locate the placeholder "yourserver" in the nework directive
5. Change placeholder to your OX server address, i.e. "https://myoxserver.com/ajax". Note: We strongly recommend the usage of https, otherwise data will be transmitted unencrypted via client and server
6. You also need to add a new mimetype to your webserver configuration to make sure the caching (offline mode) works.
   1. On Apache servers you can add the mimetype either global or via ".htaccess" file.
   2. For global configuration edit the file mime.conf under /etc/apache2/mods-enabled/
   3. Add the line "AddType text/cache-manifest .manifest" to the file, save and restart apache
   4. For configuration via .htaccess file just add a .htaccess file to the install directory. This should include the line "AddType text/cache-manifest .manifest'". Note: Either the global configuration or the .htaccess file should be used. (.htaccess files will only work if your Apache settings contain AllowOverride. For further information on mime types, please refer to your webservers user manual)

• For more details and README see the systems documentation directory (/usr/share/doc).

Running the OX Mobile App on your smartphone

After installation of the App on your webserver, a client can easily access the app via his phone's browser. We recommend to add a new subdomain to your web address to make access for clients easy. A short subdomain like https://m.yourserver.com which points to your installation will save users from entering a long URL on their devices.

Like mentioned before, the OX Mobile App is a pure web application. Due to this fact there is no installation or download needed to use this app on a smartphone. Just add a bookmark in your browser to access the app again later.

Especially on iOS devices there's a seamless integration within the native apps installed via the AppStore®. Just add a new bookmark to the OX Mobile App and choose "Add to homescreen". After this, the OX Mobile App will place a new app icon on the homescreen.

Using the offline mode

During the first run, the app is stored localy on your smartphone. These caching mechanism makes a later access to the app very fast and gives you the possibility to run the app even if there's no internet connection available.

The OX Mobile App detects on startup whether there's an internet connection available or not. If not, the App will start in offline mode. In this case a plane icon is shown in the upper left corner of the main menu. In offline mode you can access all your subscribed contacts and all of your appointments. Also all your mail headlines are available. Furthermore each email which was opened earlier is available in offline mode.

Note: At the moment the OX Mobile App will not detect if internet connection reappears during a run in offline mode. To re-enter online mode just restart the app.

Deployment as native app

The OX Mobile App can also be deployed as a native smartphone app. This option is available for Android Systems and later for iOS, too. As Android allows installation of apps from every location you can place an *.apk file on a webserver or in your own Android App-Store. The OX Mobile App will act like any other app on the device and offers the same functionality as the web hosted variant.

Deploying a native iOS App can only be done via the Apple AppStore®. To do so you need to submit your special branded version of the app to Apple. Only Apple decides if the app will be listed in the AppStore or not. These option will not be available for the Beta version of the app.

For more information on native app deployment please contact us directly.

Branding options

Application name

The OX Mobile App comes with the standard name set "OX Mobile App". This title will be set live during start up. To change the title of the app to your needs you will have to edit the provided language files.

1. Locate your installstion directory (i.e. /var/www/ox6-mobile-v2)
2. Change to "lang" folder
3. The folder contains all available language files (*.po)
4. Open one of the files and locate the lines containing msgid "OX Mobile App" and msgid "OX Mobile"
5. Change the corresponding msgstr to your title of the app, i.e. "My App".

• Note: Do not change the msgid, this must be "OX Mobile App" and "OX Mobile". Only change the msgstr value.

1. Do this for all language files

Reporting

Open-Xchange is interested in learning about bugs, specifically in your runtime environment. If you experience any misbehaviors, please report bugs via our public bugzilla: Open-Xchange Bugzilla
Product: OX Mobile App

Please note

There may be some issues with checkboxes on Android devices. Sometimes checkboxes and listboxes do not respond to tap actions. If so, please rotate your phone to landscape mode and back. Then, the checkboxes should response again

Please read the SDB article to inform you about the reasons and solution.