Symphony.

Hey Guys, I’m working with a programmer on developing an iPhone App for my company. I would like to recommend Symphony as the “backend” to the iPhone App so that I can develop a desktop-based web interface in tandem with the App.

I know that I can for sure give him the XML he needs for most of the information contained in the App. But I’m wondering if he would be able to save/edit information within Symphony from the App, and if he’ll be able to handle login details within it as well.

I know there is a difference between an iPhone webapp and a normal app. This would be a normal app. I know that the webapp would probably just use normal html forms just styled to look like the iPhone interface, but I have no idea how normal apps work.

Any thoughts?

TheJester12,

I find some information that may help you with your question. http://getsymphony.com/community/discussions/30222/

@TheJester12, yes, he will be able to do everything you’ve outline - assuming he has the skills to do so - it’s certainly not beyond the ability of the Cocoa frameworks to interact with a website in the way you seem to want.

HOWEVER: depending what the purpose of the web app is, you might have better luck with something pre built like http://iphoneonrails.com/.

Personally, I’m itching to build an native iPhone front end to Symphony, but I just never seem to have the time.

Just checking in with this after I talked to the programmer I’m working with today.

Are filling out web forms the only way to submit information back to Symphony from the “outside”?

Is it possible to do anything like http://thesite.com/page/?fieldname=thecontent

Or… I dunno? Are there other options?

“filling out forms” is just another way of saying “using POST”. “?fieldname=thecontent” is just another way of saying “using GET”.

I am pretty sure the iPhone App SDK provides a way to do both…

Just make a mobile-formatted web backend, that way you’re not locked in to a single mobile handset.

True, but our App will have some specific video functionality that only applies to the iPhone and (probably) can only be used by being an actual Cocoa App.

Video functionality? :-)

So by using Symphony as a CMS can I provide an XML feed to the iphone app for use as a data source? i.e page type = XML?

absolutely. remember, though, you'll still need to use xsl on the page to format the xml to your desired schema, unless you just end up doing something silly like <xsl:copy-of select="/" />

So the url doesn't need a .xml extension for the iphone app to pick it up no? I've got as far as collecting the data-source and am starting to structure the xml with the desired schema.. just checking that it doesn't need a static xml file extension on the page to be parsed by the APP? something silly is bound to happen here :)

i don't believe it needs an xml extension. it should be recognized by the xml declaration. you will, however, want to adjust your xsl:output to something like the following:

<xsl:output method="xml" omit-xml-declaration="no" encoding="UTF-8" indent="yes" />

however, i admit, i'm shooting from the hip here, but i don't see any reason the iphone app would require an .xml extension over the xml declaration

Cool, thanks for the heads up.. will delve in this weekend. Declaration already in place as noted cheers :)

let us know how it goes!