In this session, we will explain how the Alfresco iOS Mobile Application was designed and developed. We’ll focus on the implementation details including the CMIS client, when the application talks directly to Alfresco API’s and some details, tips and tricks for Objective-C iOS development. You’ll learn the Open Source project hierarchy including how to modify, build and run the application. You’ll also learn about our future plans for the application and the project, and perhaps become a contributor yourself!

1. Alfresco iOS Mobile
Application Details and Design"
Mike Hatfield - Senior Engineer, Mobile Team"
Marc Dubresson - Director of Mobile Products"

2. Who are we?"
Marc Dubresson
• Mobile Product Management"
Gavin Cornwell
Mike Hatfield
• Alfresco Mobile Development Core Team"
Zia
• Outsourced Mobile Development Partner"
• Platinum Alfresco Professional Services & OEM Partner"

3. Agenda"
• Today s News
• Architecture Overview
• CMIS Refresher
• Demo
• Technical Walkthrough
• Open Source Project
• Roadmap
• Questions?

4. Alfresco Mobile 1.1"

5. Architecture Overview"
Mostly a CMIS application talking to Alfresco
Several features specific to Alfresco
CMIS
Alfresco
REST

6. CMIS Refresher"
CMIS Technical Committee Goals & Scope
• Content Management Interoperability Services"
• Enable applications to target different ECM repositories uniformly"
• Provide a set of basic services enabling richer ECM applications
and use cases"
• All for loose coupling of an ECM application on the underlying
repository"
• Use popular protocol bindings"
• REST / AtomPub"
• Web Services / SOAP"
• v1.1 - JSON (Browser Binding)"

7. Demo"
Alfresco Mobile in Action – A Few Features
• CMIS: "
• Login to Alfresco over HTTP or HTTPS"
• Browse, Search, Display Content and Edit Metadata, Upload Files"
• Create Folders"
• Alfresco"
• Activities"
• Like & Unlike"
• Comment on Documents"
• iOS"
• Local Downloads"
• Open In... support to/from other apps"

8. Design"
• Universal binary"
• Hierarchy of Table Views"
• Navigation based app for browsing CMIS repositories"
• Layered on Alfresco specific functionality"

9. Designed for the iPad"
• Navigation based app but with iPad-specific view controllers "
• Split View Controller"
• Still a universal binary"

10. CMIS AtomPub Binding (XML)"

11. Alfresco REST API (JSON)"

12. App Launch / Sites / Browse"
• iOS: Read user settings"
• CMIS: Retrieve AtomPub Service Document"
• Alfresco: Request Sites List"
• CMIS: Request folder children for the Root Collection"
• CMIS: Navigate into a folder or site"

13. Activities"
• Alfresco: Retrieve user s activity feed"
• User taps a document table cell"
• CMIS: Retrieve Document via
getObjectByID service"
• User taps the info icon "
• CMIS: Retrieve Document Metadata
using getTypeDefinition service"

14. Search"
Execute a CMIS Query
• Full-text search:"
• SELECT * FROM cmis:document WHERE
CONTAINS( keywords )!
• Search by cmis:name:"
• SELECT * FROM cmis:document WHERE
CONTAINS( ~cmis:name: *keywords* )!

15. Tools for iOS Development"
Mac with OS X Snow Leopard or Lion
XCode 4.2
• Integrated Development Environment"
• Integrated Build System"
• Debugger"
• Interface Builder"
• iOS Simulator
Instruments
• Performance and behaviour analysis"

16. Getting Started "
Create an iOS developer account (free)
Install the latest version of XCode 4.2 (free)
Clone the repository
• git clone https://ziadev@bitbucket.org/ziadev/alfresco-mobile.git"
Open the Project

17. Multiple Targets in the Project"
Two Targets: Alfresco & Fresh Docs

18. Build and Run"
Select a target and the
iOS Simulator to Use

19. How do I install it on my device?"
Sign up for a (paid) iOS Developer
Program Account
Configure profile:
Development certificate, App Id
Provision Device (UDID)
Configure & build the App for the device
See iOS Provisioning Portal Resources & How-To Guides

20. I Thought This Was A DevCon?"
AlfrescoAppDelegate.h

21. Calling an AtomPub Service"
CMIS
RESTful
Request
Alfresco
AtomPub
XML

22. Creating an HTTP Request"
• Using ASIHTTPRequest build the request
• The delegate handles events from that request

23. Parsing AtomPub XML"
Event-Driven XML Parsing (SAX)
• Parser sends messages (parsing events) to it s delegates
(callbacks)"
Use NSXMLParser & NSXMLParserDelegate
• Recommended by Apple"
• Native API"
• Objective-C based implementation"
Why not use the Tree-based API (DOM)?
• Apple does not provide the API for iOS"

24. NSXMLParser & NSXMLParserDelegate"
Setting up NSXMLParser
NSXMLParserDelegate methods
• – parser:didStartElement:namespaceURI:qualifiedName:attributes:"
• – parser:didEndElement:namespaceURI:qualifiedName:"
• – parser:foundCharacters:"

25. Calling Alfresco REST APIs"
RESTful
HTTP
Request
Alfresco
JSON

26. JSON data transport"
Simpler to consume than XML
Using SBJson
• Other libraries available, e.g. TouchJSON, JSONKit"
• iOS 5.0 supports JSON natively"
Parses into NSDictionary and NSArray objects
CMIS 1.1 will contain a Browser Binding

27. What do I need to know?"
• Objective-C
• cocoadevcentral.com/d/learn_objectivec"
• iOS App Programming
• developer.apple.com"
• Alfresco RESTful API
• wiki.alfresco.com"
• CMIS AtomPub Binding
• wiki.alfresco.com/wiki/CMIS"
• Git
• gitref.org"

28. Common Design Patterns"
Model-View-Controller
• A pattern to relate the user interface to an underlying data model."
Delegation
• A patten where an object, the delegator, delegates tasks to an
associated helper object, the delegate."
• The delegate is responsible for executing the task for the delegator."
Target-Action
• Target-action is a design pattern in which an object holds the
information necessary to send a message to another object when
an event occurs."

29. API s and Libraries Used"
Cocoa Touch Frameworks
• The API s Apple provides to build an iOS application"
ASIHTTPRequest
• Wrapper around Apple s CFNetwork API"
SBJson
• Fast, simple & clean JSON parser and generator"
ISO8601
• XML date parsing"
Flurry Analytics
• Remote logging for app crashes (uncaught exceptions)"

30. Open Source Availability"
Hosted on Bitbucket
bit.ly/alf-mobile
Search for “alfresco-mobile” at
bitbucket.org!
Released under the Mozilla Public License Version 1.1

31. How Do I Contribute?"
Step-by-step example for forking and sending a pull request:
http://bit.ly/pbIDRk (atlassian.com wiki)

32. Resources"
Apple iOS Developer Portal
• Sample Code, API Documentation, Design Guides,
Developer Videos, etc.!"
Books
• Beginning iPhone 4 Development (Apress Publishing)"
• Programming in Objective-C (Sam s Publishing)"
Many Developer Blogs
• http://icepla.net"
Also: Twitter, StackOverflow

33. Roadmap"
Next version
• Alfresco Cloud"
• Multiple Repositories"
• ...More"
Integration
• Leading productivity apps such as PDF Expert and QuickOffice"
Android"
Additional Alfresco Mobile Apps"
What else? > marc.dubresson@alfresco.com"

34. Q & A"