OpenPetra in the browser

pokorra

Hello,
I have a new demo up and running: please visit demo.solidcharity.com/!

OpenPetra.js is a branch off OpenPetra, with the emphasis to provide a client running inside the web browser, independant of Operating System or device.

The recent version has improvements for mobile devices, by moving the navigation menu out of the way, and sliding it to the users view from the side when he needs it.

working functionality:
*The navigation is done from the unmodified UINavigation.yml that is used for the fat client as well.
*Partner Find finds partners and lists them, editing does not work yet.

We have implemented the html design of a number of screens, Haeder was a great help in this.
Not sure yet how we can make it look nicer. Still working on that.
Next step is to connect more of the data to the screens.

See the plan: github.com/tpokorra/openpetra.js/wiki/Plan

The source code is currently at github.com/tpokorra/openpetra.js
Installation packages for CentOS 6 are available at software.opensuse.org/download.h ... enpetra-js
I have not tested the packages for other distributions yet, eg. Debian/Ubuntu.

All the best,
Timotheus

christiankatict

Hi Timo,

Thanks for making this demo available!

This seems to be a good approach, especially for mobile devices, and here again especially the navigation.

Just a quick observation on the navigation: It might be better not to open a new Tab for each Sub-Module (e.g. Partners, Extracts, Reports, Setup) as one quite quickly clutters a [mobile phones'] screen just with the Menu Tabs on the top. Having a Tab for a Module and loading the Sub-Modules into that might be better.

Are the HTML forms 'hand-painted' or is a Forms Generator behind it, utilising scaffolding?

Thanks,

ChristianK

pokorra

Hello Christian,

I will consider your suggestion for one tab per module, that might make sense.

The HTML forms are manually written HTML at the moment.
I was thinking about generating it, but on the other hand HTML is already markup.
Of course, when more events are programmed, we might need to look into generating some javascript code.
Also including sub controls will be useful, eg for the reports.

Another thought from reading my iX magazine: haml.info/ short hand html code, similar to yml. Nesting of html code by Indentation. That looks interesting.
This might also be useful when we look into translation, because we have a parser for yaml already.

Still work in progress.

Timo

joejoe2010

Hey,

I pretty much like it.

Not sure yet how we can make it look nicer. Still working on that.

I searched a bit and found the following sites regarding design:
http://www.jqueryui.com/themeroller
http://www.jqueryfordesigners.com
http://www.t3n.de/news/jquery-14-plugins-flexible-378150

Another interesting thing might be http://www.vsnomad.com. With this tool you can
"Develop, test and deploy your iOS and Android mobile apps with HTML5 and JavaScript in Visual Studio".

Greetings
Joejoe

danebalia

I am considering contributing to OpenPetra and was interested in one of the tasks being OpenPetra Browser Client (a low priority task I believe).

Is OpenPetra still actively being used? I see only contributions by one person and no discussions since 2015?

Thanks and apologies if this ended up in the wrong place/category.....I found it hard to navigate

Dane

pokorra

Hello Dane,

Welcome to the OpenPetra Forum!

danebalia, post:5, topic:308 wrote
I am considering contributing to OpenPetra and was interested in one of the tasks being OpenPetra Browser Client (a low priority task I believe).

That sounds interesting! Let me know if you have any questions in your evaluation of OpenPetra.
The OpenPetra Browser Client is probably the next step in making OpenPetra relevant to a range of charities. At the moment, it can only be used on Windows, and Mac and Linux Users cannot use the OpenPetra Client. Mono with Winforms does work in theory on Mac and Linux, but in practice it would require supporting old technology.
I did not continue my experiments with OpenPetra in the browser, because there was no interest of cooperation shown by anyone else, and I was busy with other things.

danebalia, post:5, topic:308 wrote
Is OpenPetra still actively being used? I see only contributions by one person and no discussions since 2015?

We did have a "friendly fork" in December 2014. For more details, see the post: https://www.openpetra.org/update-december-2014-work-of-past-months-and-friendly-fork
The situation is still the same.
In recent weeks I have been working on merging code from the OM fork into the Open Source fork. So there are still people working fulltime on OpenPetra, they are just not participating in any sort of open source community. They are online in IRC, during UK/German working hours, though. That is where most communication now happens between them and me, but not much of discussion: https://www.openpetra.org/en/community-irc

The problem with the OpenPetra project at the moment is, that we are still in a beta stage. I am using it for a small charity in production, but that only works because I know how to tweak the software if there are any problems. OM have reached a milestone to deploy their fork of OpenPetra to the first office in December 2015, and have now the huge task to deploy it around the world to about 100 offices.

One step would be to define what is necessary for an OpenPetra stable release. The other steps would involve documentation and tutorials.

This can only happen if a community starts to exist around OpenPetra, but on the other hand a community only starts to exist if there is a usable product.

Since 2013 I am now working half time for another company, TBits.net, where I am involved in other open source projects, like Kolab. My goal is to learn how a community can be grown and maintained, and how the project can be moved forward by multiple parties with their own interests and goals. At TBits.net we want to get involved more with OpenPetra as well, so starting in the coming months I will be able to work for TBits.net on OpenPetra. But first I will become father for the first time, so I am not going fullspeed yet.

I hope this helps to understand a little bit of the situation.

I would be happy to hear what your needs and requirements for OpenPetra would be? Are you able to see how many changes would be needed to make OpenPetra fit the needs of your organisation? Are there any other projects that would offer something similar? I am very open to compare OpenPetra to other projects as well. At some point I thought it might be easier to add a donation module to Odoo. But then I am so deep into OpenPetra already... But for you that should be a valid consideration.

It is probably too early to think about how much time and effort you would be prepared to put into OpenPetra Client in the Browser. I guess, if there is real interest, I could be motivated to work on this project as well. It will be a huge task anyway.

By the way, which timezone are you in? Perhaps we can talk sometime on IRC or Skype.

Don't worry about where to post in this forum, it is good to have a discussion after all, no matter where :slight_smile:

have a nice weekend,
Timotheus

danebalia

Hi Timotheus

Wow thank you for the insight into the project and the detailed response.
First off, congratulations on the baby that is too come! How far long is your wife? Boy or Girl?
I myself am a father of 2, one of 3 and the other 1 and a half.

I am currently at a company called Hetzner building web/micro services for our SOA environment in Ruby. Prior to that I was developing in C# for about 10 years. The reasons I looking to be involved in OpenPetra is I want to give something back and glorify God through skills and talents He has given me (so I found OM and it led me here). So I don't have a need for OpenPetra directly, but getting familiar with it and using it sounds a reasonable next step.

I am in South Africa, UTC +2:00, and you? I will look at joining IRC and perhaps meeting you there.
Do you have a specific nick name in IRC etc?

Have a super week ahead
Dane

pokorra

Hello Dane,

I like your motivation :slight_smile: It is great to enjoy computer technology and use the skills for God as well!
It is good that you have experience with C#, that would help a lot!

I live in Germany, Plauen. We are in the same timezone, that is useful as well!
Hetzner have a data center in Falkenstein/Vogtland. That is 20 km / 10 miles from Plauen

My nick in IRC is usually timotheus or tpokorra.

The birth of our baby is due on the coming Sunday, but who knows when it will actually happen. I am glad God knows the best time :slight_smile:
We know the gender, but it is still a secret... ;)

I saw your photo with your family on your twitter account, you have a beautiful family!

It would be a privilege for me to work with you on OpenPetra in the browser!

My own motivation for that would be, that my mother who is entering the finances for a small charity that supports a childrens home in Kenia (http://www.nazareth-kinder.de) can do it directly in her browser. At the moment she has to do it via remote desktop from her Ubuntu laptop to a hosted Windows machine, where the OpenPetra client runs.

From experience, I would suggest you also find something that is important to you, that you want to achieve with OpenPetra. Perhaps doing the accounts for your church with OpenPetra, or your personal finances with OpenPetra. It will be a long road...

Just rough steps for the OpenPetra in the browser project:

establish a development environment setup. have a look at https://wiki.openpetra.org/index.php/Documentation_for_Developers#Development_Environment
if you prefer, I can give you remote access to a Fedora workstation, through x2go. https://wiki.openpetra.org/index.php/Hosted_development_workstation
have a look at the current demo: https://demo.solidcharity.com/ and make that run on your development machine
we should define what functionality should work in the webbrowser: eg. entering/importing donations and GL transactions, posting them, managing addresses of donors, printing reports. no setup screens for the moment.
Haeder, a friend of mine, has already done mock-ups in HTML for most of these screens, which you can see in the demo. I think the partner find screen already has real data on it.
the html mockup is not nice yet, I would be glad if you could come up with rules how we can use Bootstrap to create screens that use the space in a good way, and look good!
we should write a generator for the screens, similar to what we currently have for winforms (https://github.com/openpetra/openpetra/tree/master/csharp/ICT/BuildTools/GenerateWinForms). that way the screen is defined in yaml, and we can change the look in js and html for all screens at the same time. I guess I should do the start for that, and you could extend it?

I hope this makes sense, and please let me know if you have suggestions or doubts.
If you have any questions, please let me know.

I can also try to be online on IRC at night, I stopped doing that some years ago because nobody was around ... Or we can arrange one evening per week to be online and work on OpenPetra together? Not compulsory, family comes first, but as a goal?