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Working on the mobile consoles

The OpenRemote mobile consoles load the web applications using a web view and provide bridging of native device functionality to provide a native app experience. Make sure you've pulled the latest code of the repository.

Android Console​

Download and install Android Studio, then open the console/android project.

TODO: There is actually nothing to build right now, you have to create a custom project and a dependency on our Android console project from your own Android app.

iOS Console​

Developing for iOS is only possible on macOS.​

Download and install Xcode

Open Xcode and create a new project. In the generals part, click on the plus symbol to add a new target. Select Notification Service Extension. Close the project.

Install cocoapods through a terminal window.

sudo gem install cocoapods

Navigate to your project directory and create a pod file.

pod init

Open up the Podfile with a text editor. Add the ORLib pod to both of the targets

workspace '<your_project>'
platform :ios, '11.2'

use_frameworks!

def shared_pods
  pod 'Firebase/Core', '~> 4.6.0'
  pod 'Firebase/Messaging', '~> 4.6.0'
  pod 'Fabric', '~> 1.10.2'
  pod 'Crashlytics', '~> 3.13.4'
end


target '<your_project>' do
  project '<your_project>'
  shared_pods
end

target 'NotificationService' do
  project '<your_project>'
  shared_pods
end

target 'ORLib' do
  project 'path_to/console-ios/ORLib/ORLib'
  shared_pods
end

Save and close the Podfile. In the terminal enter the following command

pod install

A xcworkspace file is created after installing the pod. Open this file and Xcode will start.

Click on the Pods icon in the project tree and then on ORLib in the targets pane. Search for Require Only App-Extension-Safe API and set it to No. A warning will appear which can be ignored.

Open AppDelegate in your project and make it inherit from ORAppDelegate. Remove all the code and override applicationDidFinishLaunchingWithOptions. Set the right project values.

override func application(_ application: UIApplication, didFinishLaunchingWithOptions launchOptions: [UIApplicationLaunchOptionsKey: Any]?) -> Bool {

        ORServer.hostURL = "example.com"
        ORServer.realm = "example"

        ORAppGroup.entitlement = "group.io.openremote.example"
        
        return super.application(application, didFinishLaunchingWithOptions: launchOptions)
    }

In the Main.storyboard add a second ViewController. The initial viewcontroller should be of class ORLoginViewController. The other ViewController should be of class ORViewController.

In the Notification Service Extension target, open NotificationViewController and make it inherit from ORNotificationService. Remove all the code inside.

When using Firebase, download the GoogleService-Info.plist and add it through Xcode. It shuld be placed in the root of the project. Make sure that copy when needed is checked when adding.

Now your iOS app is setup to work with your OpenRemote project!

.

Push Notifications / FCM setup​

Our consoles are able to receive push notifications that are sent by the OpenRemote Manager.
Through Firebase, together with the use of FCM tokens, you can set this up for your own project using your own account.
(steps are unverified)

Setup Firebase and client​

  1. Create a new Firebase Project at https://console.firebase.google.com using either a free or paid plan.
  2. When on the 'Project Overview' page, create a new app for your preferred platform; such as Android and iOS.
  3. Fill in the correct details for your app, and follow the steps respectively. These should be no different than any other Android/iOS app.

After your config files are placed in the correct folder, (normally google-services.json and GoogleService-info.plist)
and the Firebase Gradle dependencies have been added to your project, you are good to go!

Configure Manager to send push notifications​

To complete the setup process, you should configure the manager to send push notifications to the correct address on Firebase.

Be sure that the OR_FIREBASE_CONFIG_FILE environment variable is set to the correct path.
Forks of OpenRemote should be correctly configured, but custom projects might need additional attention.
We normally use /deployment/manager/fcm.json.

  1. Go to your Firebase project at https://console.firebase.google.com
  2. Using the gear icon on the left menu, you can open the 'Project settings'. Open it and go to the 'Service accounts' tab.
  3. Generate a new private key for your preferred account; the button will prompt a JSON file download. Store this safely.
  4. In your project repository, place the JSON file inside the /deployment/manager folder, and rename it to fcm.json.

Now you should be set up to send notifications!
You can send these programmatically, or by using the Rules feature in the OpenRemote Manager.

For most projects, you want to keep Firebase related files secret for security reasons.
We have built-in gradle scripts to help you with this;

  1. Open to the build.gradle file in the root of your repository.
  2. Add/replace the paths specified in the gradleFileEncrypt task with the files you want to encrypt.
    Normally this is your fcm.json file, but also the files related to the consoles like google-services.json.
  3. Double check whether these files you want to encrypt are present in your .gitignore files. This is required.
  4. Generate/specify a password to encrypt the files with, by using the GFE_PASSWORD environment variable. Save this somewhere safe.
  5. Run the ./gradlew encryptFiles task

You are now set up!

To decrypt the files again, you can use the ./gradlew decryptFiles command.