I need to develop an Android app which is basically a geolocator, allowing people to reach each other via Google maps. All being said, I don't know how do I accomplish such thing since I don't know how it does work and if I need a server or database on the way. I'd be grateful if anyone could shed some light on this topic.
As you said you will need Android application and Server through which Android clients will communicate.
Android Application
will be getting data of other Android devices from server and then showing those data on the screen
will be periodically sending own location to the server
Server
is responsible for storing geolocation of Android clients, data can be stored in some database or memory of the server, depends on the use case, how long you need to have those data, how important they are, etc.
is responsible for sending stored geolocation data to Android clients
you have various options, you can write your own server in whatever technology you wish - it can be PHP server, NodeJS server, Java server... or you will use some serverless solution. Check for example
https://firebase.google.com
has to be hosted somewhere, you have many options:
there are "traditional" hosting providers, where you are usually limited by technologies you can use, for example you can just use PHP or you will use products from Heroku or Amazon AWS.. there is more, Microsoft has Microsoft Azure or Redhat has Openshift.. There are differences in prices, services, etc., it is up to you to look and decide what is the best for you.
I for sure missed lot of things. It is not in my power to describe every possible corner case because the question is too broad but rather provide you with higher overview of the problem and possibly point you where to go next. I suggest to you to read more about problematic and then get back with more specific issues to solve.
Related
I am taking a drive into GTFS (and only a couple months into learning Android coding). I signed up as a Developer for my transit system and received a key for their GTFS data download.
However, they require that you download the GTFS data to your own servers rather than pointing your Android App directly to their servers to get the feed. Basically, I need to accomplish the below.
Their Servers ---Data---> My Server ---Data---> My App
My app will have all the tools to read/manipulate the data so the My Server part should do nothing to change the data.
I've looked into services like Amazon Web Services which has a free tier but not sure if that is what I need. Also, if it is what I need, then unsure of how to tell it to get/store the data from the transit system's servers.
Appreciate any help!
One of the easiest ways to get started, if you want to host your own server, is to use node-gtfs. However it is not the only way.
The shortest learning curve would be to use one of the two services that host transit data and provide APIs that you can use to build your own app:
Transitland
TransitFeeds.com
There are also a number of other libraries/tools/servers in other programming languages (depending on what you are comfortable with and what your goals are). OneBusAway is probably the most robust but unlikely to run on the AWS free tier. A good list of the others can be found here.
I am developing a voting application based on Android. This app will be used to create user accounts, receive notifications and caste vote.
I want to develop a back-end server for this application which will also have an Administrator interface to create new voting events. I want to know what all options I have to implement this project.
The server must maintain user account records in a secure manner, send out one-time-passwords from email, have sessions implemented for users logging in from the Android App, send out notifications about upcoming events to the app.
What back-end technology, database, parsing(for communication between server and android application), encryption(for secure communication) should I use to make this possible?
I also want to know how would I be able to host this server, both on a local virtual machine as well as on an online hosting.
The scope of your project is far too large if you're wanting sessions, administration views, E-mail integration, encryption, etc., without even knowing how it would all interact, or even what language to use.
As for what languages / services you would need, it varies for each task:
For administration views, you're probably looking at either ASP.NET or PHP with a CMS.
In terms of security, you'd want either MySQLi, or preferably, PDO. Make sure to read up on how to prevent things like LFI, RFI, SQLi, and XSS if you want semi-decent security.
Both ASP.NET and PHP can handle sessions, and they're fairly easy to understand in either language, so that wouldn't be too much of a concern.
While you can send out E-mails directly using scripts like PHP's mail() function, you probably want a system that can easily monitor things like how often users click on certain links, where the people who click the links are located, what campaigns are most effective, etc. For that, you'd want a service like MailChimp, Marketo, or Pardot.
As for how to have the back-end interact with the front-end, you're working with Android, so you're probably working with Java. That means you would be limited to functions like HttpMethod. Having said that, you can create plain HTML applications, or use a service like PhoneGap. In either of those situations, you have AJAX at your disposal, which will make things a lot easier.
For hosting, simply do a Google search for 'web hosting service'. There's literally thousands of decent hosts. Some have better pricing than others, but some have better features. I can't really recommend any brilliant ones, as they all meet different needs. To host locally, you'll want either IIS, or WAMP / LAMP depending on whether you are running Windows or Linux.
If you're not familiar with almost every term that I've mentioned, then the scope of your project is too large, and you'll definitely want to scale back.
I don't mean to scare you off, just making sure you're aware of just how difficult it would be to put all of that together :)
I am trying to create an android application in which an user will pretty save some data in database-like user data, photos and also be able to retrieve.
But I am clueless how to set up a server, connect to some database etc.
Can somebody help me point to right resources for end-to-end installation of server, database, and its interaction with the android application
Just set up a basic server that works over HTTP, and use HTTP libraries for android to make requests and handle results in the device. There are plenty of technologies with which you could make the server, just google building REST API with PHP/.net/java (whichever language you are comfortable with).
If you are mobile app developer and want to create server-client app then better use any back-end service rather than implementing new by own. Some most advanced and simple to use services are Parse and Firebase , BaasBox also there are many more.
And the plus point is this services free of cost until you have very large users.
I have already an location based app which functionality i want to expand:
A user can login to this App via Facebook and also other users are logged on their own Mobilephone. Both can see the location of the other.
So basically an location aware meet people APP :-)
How can I do this? Backend with PHP and mysql database?
Are there already existing solutions I can use?
Tutorials available describing this?!
the infrastructure you need is achievable in many many programming languages and many types of databases.
In the end what you need is a server running that can store the location data sent from the users. Ideally i would tell you to use webservices in order to achieve this.
Next, you will need to implement a location service app that works on the user smartphone and uses the web services to send information and get information to and from the server.
Programming languagens you can achieve this are so many. For example, in the back end you can use a mysql database with a tomcat server. if u need a front-end for the server you can use java server pages, php, whatever u feel more confortable with.
for the mobile phone there are hybrid application for different OSs. for android specifically you will use java. if u want to save some info in the phones you can use a SQLite database. this is important if you want to send data only when internet connections are available.
Those are the kind of things you have to deal with. Hope i helped you.
Good luck.
We are planning on developing a cloud service where any mobile application that requires to synchronize data into a server is available out-of-box on a public hosting. This will be done using a NoSQL database and hence any data can be saved easily and only requires a HTTP/JSON communication.
Are there any out-of-box solutions already available in this space which majority of the mobile developers use?
We want to get your opinion on whether this is something that can help mobile developers?
For iOS there is something called RestKit that automatically gets response, parses it and gives you a dynamic object. It works with all kinds of servers and response types. Hope this helps a bit, for server side configuration you can use Apigee which does something similar. I have worked on both so thought it would be useful for you.