[Ken Case]

Originally Posted by dansays

The web interface continues to be completely broken on the iPhone. Disabling the certificate allows the page to be loaded, but the attempts to keep the context/inbox bar pegged to the bottom of the screen and yet still allow scrolling have failed.

This seems to be working fine for us, but you do have to scroll with two fingers rather than just one or it doesn't scroll at all. (No, we don't think that's intuitive or ideal, and we're still working with it.)

Originally Posted by dansays

Ultimately, if you're going to get clever with CSS and DHTML transitions, you need to test the app out on an actual phone. The tone of the related Message of the Day entries implies that Omni thinks the app is working, which means either they don't yet have an iPhone on which to test their app, or I'm doing something wrong.

Or it's still a work in progress and we haven't explained what we're doing very well. :) (If I hadn't heard about the two-finger scrolling trick from someone else here at Omni, I wouldn't have known to try it either.)

But yes, absolutely we agree that we have to test the app on actual iPhones. That's why we all (well, maybe half of us) spent Friday afternoon waiting in line (with books, chairs, umbrellas, and card games) at the Apple Store. (At least, that's what we tell ourselves!)

[sprocketjockey]

Well, I can see the web interface when I use firefox, but not when I use Safari (2)

When I access it from my iphone it says "Safari can't open the page because it could not connect to the server." ???

Any help would be appreciated....I'm assumming my ip address of https://0.0.0.0:3000/ is maybe incorrect?

[Ken Case]

Originally Posted by sprocketjockey

Well, I can see the web interface when I use firefox, but not when I use Safari (2)

Sorry, I guess it's currently incompatible with Safari 2. (Our target is the iPhone, but it also works with OmniWeb 5.6.)

Originally Posted by sprocketjockey

When I access it from my iphone it says "Safari can't open the page because it could not connect to the server." ???

Any help would be appreciated....I'm assumming my ip address of https://0.0.0.0:3000/ is maybe incorrect?

Sorry, yes, 0.0.0.0 refers to the local host, so that will only work from your desktop's web browser. To get to the server from your iPhone, you have to figure out the address of your desktop machine from the iPhone's point of view and connect to that. (Strangely, iPhone doesn't currently support Bonjour—so even on your LAN you can't just connect to "my-computer.local".)

And I haven't been able to get it to work unless I also turn off SSL (search for "USE_SSL" in earlier posts), although I think I've seen both Tim and James use it with SSL enabled. (Our speculation is that it might work based on your network setup, e.g. perhaps rails is picking one interface for its certificate but the iPhone is connecting from another? But we haven't tracked it down yet.)

We plan to offer the ability to turn off SSL—but then the password and data will be going across the wire in the clear. We can solve the password problem by using digest authentication, though we need to find a good (and non-GPL) implementation of HTTP digest authentication for rails. (Any suggestions, anyone?)

I'm not sure what to do about protecting the data from the wire, but perhaps folks using this are willing to take the risk of their data being observed by others. (I've certainly noticed that people are surprisingly willing to put their data on other people's servers!)

Even once we figure all those issues out, there is still the question of how to help people get to their desktop machine from their iPhone when their Desktop is probably behind a firewall and their iPhone is coming in from somewhere else on the Internet. At the moment, unfortunately, that's left as an exercise for the reader. Which returns us to the original question, which is that you first have to figure out what address your iPhone is going to use to get to your desktop machine, and somehow make that work...

[ucfgoofy]

Dansays -

Thanks for providing that quote. I've not seen anything from Apple that definitively says what version's on the phone, but notice that the text you referenced doesn't actually say, either.

"The first step in developing a web application for iPhone is to ensure it is fully compatible with Safari [no version number here]. Safari 3 Public Beta, [which is the only version that is] now available for Mac and Windows, provides you with the ideal environment for Safari on iPhone compatibility testing."

From the bracketed comments I inserted, it seems to me to be *just* vague enough.

My experience browsing pages on iPhone suggest it renders with the 2.x engine, not 3.x (for instance, try loading http://11mystics.com/demos/tabouli/ in iPhone, Safari 2, and Safari 3 -- the first two load it correctly; only Safari 3 does not). If Omni's goal is to write it for iPhone, Safari 2 is a better development check. Safari 3 is listed on Apple's site for developers because it's available for Windows, too.

PLEASE understand that I'm not trying to pick a point. I'm trying to help clarify how iPhone works, to see if the great folks at Omni can be more successful in pinning down the oddities of getting the web interface up and running for iPhone.

Thanks!

[ucfgoofy]

Another odd thought, regarding how to allow access to users' home machines:

Not sure if an SDK is (or even will be) out for this, but one of the features of Leopard mentioned in the WWDC Keynote was the .Mac-enabled service of "Back to My Mac", which suggests to my some form of dynamic DNS tracking/registration on a .Mac server. (I recall DNS services via .Mac being part of the Developer Preview of Tiger, too.) Would it be possible/benficial for Omni to try and take advantage of that usability for this particular application? If Apple's .Mac servers have a way of punching file sharing through whatever firewalls a user has, could it be possible to allow iPhone-to-webserver access with OF?

Again, just a thought. I suspect another solution would be better.

BTW, Ken - I genuinely do not care who sees my task list, so long as they can't edit it. If the whole world finds out that I need to buy a crap-ton of vodka and pancake syrup next time I'm out, so be it. But if they can remove Tylenol from my list, that's another story. :-) Privacy of my task list isn't a priority, at least for me. (My 2¢.)

Chris

[schop@pinelake.org]

As just an average user, i'd ilke to request two things:
-if "back to my mac"ultimately works for this...very cool

- if not, what about .mac? Is there any wau for OF to suncto our idisk and that be used?

-last, i'd be happu to pay a small fee if omni will just host the data. I cant imagine my IT guy going for opening my computer thru the firewall at the office. Not to mention, all my data is on my laptop which does not stay on all the time.

[sprocketjockey]

what if we already had our own hosting ability?... i too have a laptop so its not always on.

[wreising]

The Web interface is great. Except for the two finger scrolling thing. I don't like that.

I I have two problems though. Some contexts that I know have tasks in them don't display anything.

Also, Context folders show up in the list, but have no contents.

This looks like it will be great and will fill the huge hole left by a lack of any to-do app on the iPhone.

Thanks for putting this together.

Bill

[Mindflayer]

A way to export for external hosting would be nice. I just started playing with this, and it's all Ruby On Rails, yes?

[dansays]

Originally Posted by Ken Case

This seems to be working fine for us, but you do have to scroll with two fingers rather than just one or it doesn't scroll at all. (No, we don't think that's intuitive or ideal, and we're still working with it.)

Wow, I never would have stumbled upon the two-finger scroll. Where'd you pick up on this? Is it a bug in iPhone's implementation of Safari?

Originally Posted by Ken Case

We plan to offer the ability to turn off SSL—but then the password and data will be going across the wire in the clear. We can solve the password problem by using digest authentication, though we need to find a good (and non-GPL) implementation of HTTP digest authentication for rails. (Any suggestions, anyone?)

Since iPhone doesn't (at present) support anything like Keychain, HTTP-AUTH requires the entry of an account/password each time I want to use OF over the web. Kind of a pain.

I'm far from the world's leading crypto expert, but might you be able to do some sort of initial cookie-based "pairing" with the iPhone on the LAN? Have OF check the IP of the request, and if it's on the same subnet, give it a token. Whenever the client subsequently tries to request a page outside the local subnet, hash the token against the current time, pass it back to OmniFocus, who in turn verifies the validity of the token. (Like I said, I'm not a crypto guy, so apologies if some of the terminology is confusing.)

Originally Posted by Ken Case

I'm not sure what to do about protecting the data from the wire, but perhaps folks using this are willing to take the risk of their data being observed by others. (I've certainly noticed that people are surprisingly willing to put their data on other people's servers!)

Even once we figure all those issues out, there is still the question of how to help people get to their desktop machine from their iPhone when their Desktop is probably behind a firewall and their iPhone is coming in from somewhere else on the Internet. At the moment, unfortunately, that's left as an exercise for the reader. Which returns us to the original question, which is that you first have to figure out what address your iPhone is going to use to get to your desktop machine, and somehow make that work...

Depending on how Leopard plays out, the "Back to my Mac" feature might take care of all of this for you. Failing that, could you somehow automate port-forwarding on AirPort-based wireless networks?