Develop Reference

Cordova Local Storage Sync with Server

I have a hybrid app where I use a backend server on the cloud using mongodb and nodejs. I feed my frontend web app and android app using http post and get request.
I was wondering if there is a best way to save the data (from server to android or vise versa) and sync them together. Much like how Trello does their android app.

As far as i know local Storage is not a safe storage, as it can be cleaned as needed by the phone.
I recommend using sqlite for the mobile side.
for quick communication with server, i recommend using sockets (i used it for my chat app)

Using Azure Mobile Service SDK instead of Volley

I am developing an android application using Asp.Net Web api as a backend service. Up to now, I made my whole requests from android client to web api service using Volley and built my framework according to this perspective. However, while reading some documents about Azure platform. I find out Azure Mobile Services and its own Android SDK like MobileClient and in document says that we can also use this SDK in our native android application and it brings in cloud sync, authentication, etc.
My system already works and changing my android application to Azure Mobile Service SDK causes lots of extra effort. It is worth it?, or does Azure Mobile Services SDK make my android application more scalable, secure, etc.

NodeJS Alternative For Android

I have visited many blogs and questions looking for a way to use android as a client and nodejs as a server for my app. I came up with a solution that is to use PhoneGap like frameworks so that it could act like native but is not in reality. I need to use native android sdk and connect with NodeJS server (using SocketIO) to create my app. Is there any way I could do this?
P.S I want to know that while I set up by GCM can I pass my IP and port that I have created in my socket.io file to the GCM?

Cordova (hence PhoneGap) allows you to use most of the hardware APIs. PhoneGap nowadays is just a build service of some sorts.
The Cordova website and plugin store explain all the details. But t WebSockets are just an upgraded protocol or feature of TCP. Any newer technology supports it without any dependencies, but in dependence of the network you're traveling in.
Without diving deep into the code here at socket.io-website, I reckon that the initial build of your Cordova app is a WebSocket implementation to the server. So you got everything bootstrapped already.
What this tutorial doesn't explain is how to connect to the server. But read it up here.
I have no prior experience but Google Cloud Messaging seems not to be in the scope of the problem of socket.io. Once you have a connection to the socket you can send to the client whatever payload you want and might or might not need GCM anymore. If you need to send stuff via GCM read up on the the GCM node module.
Passing IPs around shouldn't be much of a problem since you're are running a public service anyway. You'd need to secure it anyhow of course.

Local testing for Android App using Cloud Endpoints for Google App Engine

I am developing an Android app that uses Google Cloud Endpoints on Google App Engine (in Python) for its backend. The Android app authorizes the user using Google Play Services on the Android device, and it all works fantastically.
However, now that I have actual users, I'd like to be able to test this all locally before deploying any app engine API changes to production, and I haven't figured out how to have the Android app talk to my local development server anywhere. The testing recommendations suggest that I just do some manual tinkering with API Explorer, but as I'm using the Endpoints Proto Datastore for my API, which makes the Android development easy, it also makes the API Explorer basically useless, since the calls I need to make are far more complicated than what I can generate by hand.
One answer to this question suggests that there is a way to point the Android client at the local server, but while I can use the --host argument to have the dev_appserver's default server listen on something other than localhost, I can't seem to find a way to do the same for the API server. And even if I could do that, it might only be the first step to a full end-to-end local testing setup for my Android app.
Can someone post more details on how I might do this, or short of that, please enlighten me on the best practices for testing Android apps that use Google Cloud Endpoints on App Engine? Thanks in advance for any answers.

Alright, finally got it working, thanks for the tips, Dan! Here are the remaining details that would have saved me a few hours - hopefully this is helpful to someone else.
1) As I expected and mentioned earlier, dev_appserver.py needs to be run with --host=0.0.0.0 so that it can listen on the local network.
2) In order to properly parse the ID token to make the user authentication work, you need to have the PyCrypto library installed - it is not installed by default, so just having it in your app.yaml isn't enough. I found the binaries for Windows here.
3) Then, in my generated Tictactoe.java-equivalent class, I had to change the DEFAULT_ROOT_URL to be http://<my-local-machine>:8080/_ah/api/ (which is where my local machine is running), so that requests went to the local network. Alternatively (and perhaps less invasively), you can use builder.setRootUrl to the same address from wherever you initialize your builder. This way you don't muck with your generated classes.
4) I also had to make the change Dan mentioned described here.
After doing those four things, everything seems to be working now and I can test my app locally - hooray!

In the local environment, the dev_appserver is the API server. If you've configured it so that it's accessible from machines other than localhost (i.e. another machine/device on the network) API requests should be accessible as well.
However, there's currently an issue with the local server and gzipped requests. Until that's fixed you'll need to disable gzipping within the client library in your Android app (see this post).

Integrate Appcelerator Cloud Services to a custom website made with ASP.NET

I'm really new to mobile world, so I'd like to get some opinion from experienced people.
After several days searching over the internet, I'm wondering if it's possible
integrate Appcelerator Cloud Services to a custom website made with ASP.NET, for example.
Although my mobile application, built with Titanium, it's linked to ACS, and works fine, I don't know if
it's possible to manage data stored in ACS from a custom website. To clarify, in one point there is my mobile application
talks to a webserver (ACS, for example) and other point there is a website, to manage the data stored in ACS.
What do you think, someone achieved this?
Or is it preferable to write a webserver from the scratch, store my data in somewhere, and forget about ACS?
Thank you.

Appcelerator says
Appcelerator Cloud Services (ACS) is a Mobile Backend as a Service
(MBaaS), offering a fast and easy way to build connected mobile apps.
Choose from a library of services such as push notification, status
updates, photo storage, and social integration, or create your own
custom cloud services.
Here in this page - Getting Started: Using the Javascript SDK - you can see how we can use javascript SDK which lets you access the Appcelerator Cloud Services server through some simple to use JavaScript calls. You can use this to develop web-based app.

ACS has a REST API which you can access through anything that supports xhr (which .NET does). For instance, to create a new user in ACS, you use the following link:
https://api.cloud.appcelerator.com/v1/users/create.json?key=YOUR APP APP KEY?email=john.smith#company.com&role=teacher
There are other properties you can tag onto the querystring to create a new user from a REST call. They have a complete API using REST. It's all documented. You can even send push notifications to devices from your custom website using the REST API! It's pretty cool.
http://cloud.appcelerator.com/docs/api/v1/users/create#rest
Good luck!