WebCenter Suite Real Time Chat – Mobile (Android, RIM, iOS, Windows)

As our continued drive to improve the WebCenter Suite I’m happy to announce that Fishbowl Solutions WebCenter Mobile Real Time Chat integration is soon to be released supporting Android, RIM, iOS and Windows Mobile Devices.

No true tablet application support yet but this is on the roadmap (you can use the mobile app on the tablets today or if your site has been optimised for tablets access chat via the integrated browser solution).

If your not familiar with our WebCenter Messging and Presence integration here is a quick rundown of it’s features.

Supports browser messaging integration with the WebCenter Suite – Portal, Sites & Content. There are no requirements to have a messaging XMPP server ie MS Lync setup; however if you do our solution can integrate with a number of messaging solutions ie – MS Lync, gTalk, etc.

For a preview of our browser integration check out these earlier posts

Addon:: WebCenter Portal Spaces Real Time Chat Instant Messaging and Presence Integration Video.

WebCenter Portal Spaces – Real Time Messaging & Presence Solution.

WebCenter Oracle Social Network Challenge – Fishbowls Mobile GeoTagging Solution.

Last week I entered the Oracle Social Network Challenge that was held at Oracle Open World. Unfortunately I couldn’t attend the event this year but that didn’t stop me from entering.

The goal of the Challenge was to build something that solves a business problem using Oracle Social Network; its Public API and another service or application.

Fishbowls Mobile GeoTagging Solution.

My proposed solution was to design and simplify GeoLocation mapping, and automate updates for users and teams on the move; who don’t have access to a laptop or want to take their ipads out – but allow them to make quick updates to OSN and upload photos taken from their mobile device – there and then.

As part of this; the plan was to include a rules engine that could be configured by the user to allow the device to automatically update and post messages when they arrived at a set location(s). Inspiration for this came from on{x} – automate your life.

For more info on how I built the app plus access to the viewlet and more screenshots read on..

Introducing WebCenter Portal Spaces HTML5 Template Support

When designing and coding sites, I like to keep ahead with latest coding standards and best practises whilst still maintaining support for older browsers that don’t yet have support for new tags or functionality that are available today in the latest browser releases. I’m not talking about nightly release support but browsers that have been fully tested and have been an official releases for at least 6 months.

As we know ADF is putting in HTML5 support into it’s latest PatchSets just take a look at DVT graphing for example that uses the HTML 5 <Canvas> tag.
Now; how does that work with Internet Explorer? Well they use a fallback to Flash as a lot of html5 tags aren’t supported by IE.

This is great!.. I can create my own TagLib to detect the browser and put in fallback support.

But what if you are a webdesigner with no knowledge of how to create your own tagLib and develop a html based template for WebCenter Portal or Spaces, that incorporates new functionality new tags unsupported by older browsers??

There is a Solution!
First “HTML5 Shim” also know more popularly as “HTML5 Shiv” coined by the jQuery Guru John Resig  .

Whats the difference..
Answer: nothing, one has an m and one has a v – that’s it.

So what do they.. … … it.. … Do?
They are really a polyfill for browsers that do not support HTML5 tags.
I’ll come back to Polyfills later..

So essentially it’s a script that applies support for tags like <header>, <nav>, <figure> etc that make up html5 incorporating the correct styling and functionality.

Now when I create simple html5 based templates I incorportate Modernizr.
Modenizr includes html5 shiv/m but also provides detection on the browser for CSS3 and HTML5 elements handled all within Javascript..
This allows me to write CSS or Javascript files that can easily provide support or clean degredation for incompatible features.

Also you can choose to include the yepNope.js conditional loader that will load in polyfils to supply support for functionality not currently within a browser like localStorage..

Ok, but what is a polyfill?..

Simply a JS Library that integrates support for older browsers that don’t support the latest and greatest additions that are available in todays browsers.
Click here to check a list of polyfills that are available today!

One thing to note.. Although <canvas> makes up html5 it is not supported by html5 shiv/m and therefor requires a pollyfill fallback to something like flashCanvas or excanvas.

If your interested in the history of HTML Shiv/Shim Modernizr check out another Gurus Blog Paul Irish know for his HTML 5 Boilerplate.

Thats it.
Have fun incorporating and playing with Modernizr and Polyfills..
A Word of warning:: although I know Modernizr plays well with ADF I cannot guarentee that some of the polyfill addons will work..

Addon:: WebCenter Portal Spaces Real Time Chat Instant Messaging and Presence Integration Video.

For those interested in Fishbowls WebCenter Real Time Chat – Instant Messaging and Presence Integration;
I’ve created a quick preview viewlet so you can see it in action.

If your looking for that GTalk or Facebook chat styled integration with Spaces then here it is:

For an overview on how it works check out my previous post –
http://cfour.fishbowlsolutions.com/2012/08/21/webcenter-portal-spaces-real-time-messaging-presence-solution/

WebCenter Portal Spaces – Real Time Messaging & Presence Solution.

With more social platforms enabling better forms of presence chat integration within browsers like gTalk, facebook chat etc.

I feel It’s about time WebCenter Portal:: Spaces had an improved presence and chat integration; here are some of the current solutions available from Oracle:

– Oracle Social Network (OSN) although not yet released will sit on the Oracle cloud which may not be ideal for your organisation.
OSN to me is very much like Google Wave using the AJAX/comet protocol to handle its messaging service; targeting and integrating with many Oracle Solutions.

– Oracle Instant Messaging and Presence (IMP) Provides an integrated solution that displays users online presence with the ability to chat to users online however you do need the client application installed to chat. Works with Microsoft LCS, OCS and Lync – and can be configured to work with other services like yahoo messenger and ICQ.

As a side note Beehive integration is no longer support, but if you know what your doing can get this to work is PS5. Personally I dont recommend this solution although brings you basic http/ajax chat to spaces.

– Oracle CX (OCX) I haven’t spent much time with Oracle RightNow CX but there are quite a few interesting solutions one is the Chat Cloud services providing an easy and effective way to engage a customer in the purchase process or when they need assistance solving an issue.

With that said last year I began developing my own Social Chat service for WebCenter Portal Spaces that can be used for more than just a browser chat client..

Here is a quick breakdown of features:
– Does not require beehive, presence or XMMP servers for chat – just an authorised spaces connection
– Authenticates against webcenter and lists your webcenter Connections
– Show User online status
– Can link upto multiple XMPP Servers like the Pidgin Client but within a web browser
– Private Messaging support
– Can create a chat room and collaborate with other users
– Can add users within a private chat room to connect in WebCenter (if they are not using XMPP connection)
– Can be used to pass message update notifications ie Workflow notifications from UCM direct to the user.
– I could also create a desktop application using Adobe AIR as a desktop client tool to also manage these connections.
– Mobile supported messaging as websockets are fully supported on mobile devices
– Chat application does not need to sit on spaces and can be on WebCenter Sites or Site Studio
– Notify users of application updates on WebCenter, CRM, BPM
– Send SMS Text messages to users from BPM

For those interested here is a quick overview of how I put the solution together.
I’m using the websockets protocol for messaging this allows for low latency fast connectivity with a fallback to flashsockets and comet if flash is not supported. Whats good WebSockets are part of HTML5 and are supported by all mobile browsers and the latest desktop browsers. (Currently I support IE6+ and the other main browsers as you can take this solution and integrate it with Sitestudio or Sites)

Kaazing has great articles and posts on WebSockets if you want to find out more
Why you need WebSockets in your life and not commet long polling

Sessions are set via the browser session header and stored against the active user GUID.

I use the REST API to grab the users connections list storing and doing a lookup on a noSQL database against the active GUIDs to setup online presence. The server then notifies the active connections that a connection has come online.

Messaging is handled by compressed Binary Script Object Notation (BiSON) adds that extra bit of compression over JSON and way above XML.

BiSON

At the moment messaging is to the server but plans are in place to support RTC communication when it gets released and integrated to the latest browsers this means browser to browser communication helping to save on bandwidth and improving server load.

You can read more on the RTC draft here at W3C
W3C RTC Doc

I have run some tests against Ericsson custom browser implimentation you can read and try out here if your interested in RTC for future application development.
Ericsson labs RTC custom implimentation

Fishbowls Addon: WebCenter Portal Spaces Real Time Chat – Instant Messaging and Presence – Preview

A screenshot and video preview can be seen in one of the later posts here.