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#realJSOP wrote: If they can use their phone, the internet is available
Have you worked with farmers in rural areas? Until 5G becomes pervasive, there are lots of fields and farmhouses out in the country where the Internet is not available (even on corporate farms), and no service or unstable service for the wireless network. Working offline is a real use case for the scenario presented.
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Once again (and for the 3rd time), if the internet is not available, write a desktop app that will sync up when you're able to. It doesn't have to be a phone/tablet app, and probably even shouldn't be. A windows destop app is appropriate. When you're gonna go out (literally) in the field, synch up pricing onto the laptop before you begin travel (just in case uinternet isn't available), and use the laptop to do the sales stuff (using your phone/tablet as a WAP).
It ain't rocket science, and I can't believe I have to f*ckin spell this out.
".45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly" - JSOP, 2010
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You can never have too much ammo - unless you're swimming, or on fire. - JSOP, 2010
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When you pry the gun from my cold dead hands, be careful - the barrel will be very hot. - JSOP, 2013
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You are missing the point. In the field, a tablet or smartphone is easier to manage than carrying along a Windows laptop. Your idea works OK if the person is carrying a Surface tablet that can run a desktop app. But if you want to give the field staff the versatility to use a tablet or smartphone, or even a laptop, then a Xamarin Forms app is the best approach. Xamarin Forms apps are, in essence, a desktop app that runs on iOS, Android, or Windows.
No need to get your panties in a wad and be snarky because you do not get the problem domain.
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They may be "easier to manage", but getting an app onto those devices requires going through the appropriate play store. Getting software onto a laptop requires no such restriction, PLUS most laptops rn Windows, so you only have one latform to support.
But whatever...
".45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly" - JSOP, 2010
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You can never have too much ammo - unless you're swimming, or on fire. - JSOP, 2010
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When you pry the gun from my cold dead hands, be careful - the barrel will be very hot. - JSOP, 2013
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#realJSOP wrote: but getting an app onto those devices requires going through the appropriate play store
Not true. They can be deployed privately.
Further, supporting multiple platforms with Xamarin Forms is easy, since there is really just one virtualized platform.
If the use case is an app for use only within your organization, where you have 100% control over what is used in the field, then your approach makes the most sense - a thin client WinForms or WPF or UWP. Take your pick.
However, if the use case is for users outside your organization (company-to-company, for example; or for a marketable app to other organizations), then the Xamarin Forms route makes the most sense.
Even in an organization, field staff may have their equipment determined by the field office, especially if it is a franchise.
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surprised no one mentioned excel
columns to put product (even lookup product on another worksheet), qty, comments
protected cells so they don't mess up the lookups etc
well it's a step above notepad/written notes
- they should get the right info in the right place most of the time
- and easier to check when fed back into server at the office.
basically like notepad but forcing some common format/structure (even if manually keyed in later)
and at the end of the day how much more can a portable app do that excel cant?
(in fact apps tend to be too smart rigid, not much fun for folks out in the polder)
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I'm actually looking to replace an Excel sheet at another customer.
Lots of manual copy/pasting from another application, lots of business rules hidden in lots of complicated formulas, and the occasional error in data...
Only one person knows how it works and it's only necessary to get anything shipped on time.
When he's on vacation he works ahead, during his vacation some tasks are just not done at all, and when he gets back everyone has two weeks of work to catch up to 
Yeah, let's not go there.
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Sander Rossel wrote: during his vacation some many tasks are just not done at all, and when he gets back everyone has two weeks of work to catch up to
well that describes most [in particular chinese] small, family run businesses.
that's my every day here.
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I'm talking about a company with 100's of employees, multiple locations and millions in revenue
Well, to be fair, each location has their own Excel sheet (or whatever the other locations use)
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u could develop a offline app for an android phone or tablet which as 3g/4g modem which are cheaper to give to sales personnel to do field work , if there is no connection later it will synch the data with the cloud server or aws/azure cloud db ....
Caveat Emptor.
"Progress doesn't come from early risers – progress is made by lazy men looking for easier ways to do things." Lazarus Long
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I agree with JSOP. Write it as a web app and run it on any device.
I was tempted to do an iOS app a few years ago for a new customer who elected to use iPads. I tried Xamarin with mixed results, and ultimately decided it wasn't worth the effort or the cost (you have to buy a developer license) for a single customer.
Instead, I just wrote up a document explaining how to create homescreen shortcuts to the two apps they needed. (which were already azure web apps anyway...on windows, they run in a browser container (to get the workstation name), for iPads, the shortcut contains a unique id for each iPad.) This has worked really well.
Now for a funny story. Back in 2002, our con man salesman promised a few clients that if they bought X today, we could give them a very deep discount (free) on our new web-based POS system when it came out the next year. Well, they bought, and I got started from scratch on our new web-based POS.
There were a few real challenges:
0: unreliability of the internet at the time meant that there had to be an off-line mode
1: responsiveness was a priority...long pauses caused by slow connections were not acceptable
2: integration with other local resources/systems (such as barcode/scanner input, imports/exports, images, etc.)
Based on those challenges, decided that the customers would need to host their own databases and webserver. They could host for their 80+ locations. The first 6 months were spent using classic asp and throwing together enough screens to test basic functionality. While it worked, the responsiveness issue (or lack thereof) was a deal breaker. Remember, this was almost 20 years ago and hardware/networks/browsers were much slower. 
With 6 months until training, I separated the application into around a dozen modules which became ActiveX controls which were placed on a common webpage for all 80 something locations. 
Not only was it web-based, it was auto-updating, it was available offline, and it connected to local resources. Most of all, it was responsive. Overall, it was a good application and I learned a lot doing it, but it was one of the first to be phased out (not resold) as it was not a market we (I) wanted to be in anyway. I still have it on a disk somewhere.
So, there's that example of a windows app masquerading as a web app but I have also done the reverse...running a web app in a browser control of a windows app. Sometimes, hybrid is the answer.
"Go forth into the source" - Neal Morse
modified 24-Oct-19 14:54pm.
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0 - I have not used any of the following in real world, but hopefully helpful pointers to look at.
1 - what is your language preference/strongest
If wanting to stick with c#/.net side of things, look toward Xamarin. Build one logic core, apply platform specifics for android/ios where needed.
But will need apple machine to build the ios version.
2 - Web App with offline functionality Quote: clearing your browser history or cookies will mess them up good
Is this a real concern or over thinking?
I would expect offline data to be stored in the local storage api and not as cookies. Yes this can be cleared, but I would check what the default settings are for clearing.
If want to give the "feel" of an app, then maybe look at wrapping it in electronjs
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maze3 wrote: Is this a real concern or over thinking?
I'm not sure.
I know someone who clears everything by default.
I know she's an exception, but it still worries me.
Xamarin looks like it could be a valid option.
Or maybe a web app with offline functionality, because it'll be cheaper for the client 
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You don’t “need” a Mac. You can use a hackintosh running under VMware. If your dev machine has enough memory, you can run the hackintosh on same machine as VS.
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Try Xojo. It allows you to write native code for all popular platforms. That is something that not even MS or Java can do.
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Looks like low-code and the code you have to write is VB.NET.
I'm a bit allergic to low-code since my last experience with it (no source control, the code you have to write becomes a lot more difficult to write because you need to know the framework, the drag'n'drop "code" takes ages to click together, the database had no query language...).
I'll put it on my long-list though.
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SeasonedGuru wrote: That is something that not even MS ... can do.
What "popular platform" does Xamarin not support?
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Uno Platform is what you want. It supports all phone and desktop platforms from a single codebase.
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Interesting, bookmarked. Thanks 
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Google's Firebase real-time database is designed for exactly this particular scenario.
You don't have to do this, but if you combined it with something like Flutter, you've got a platform for building xplat mobile apps, and (coming soon) web apps on top of it too.
https://endpointsystems.com
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Looks very cool!
It's on top of my long-list now
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Yes. Xamarin Forms using Visual Studio 2019 on Windows, with a Mac Mini or other Mac on the network that you can connect to from VS2019 and if needed, VNC into. The single Xamarin Forms solution creates iOS, Android, and UWP (for Windows) projects. The UI code is written once (though you can include native UI code if and when necessary, which is rare or non-existent), and shared between the OS-specific projects. The time-to-delivery is better than other development platforms when one considers equally skilled developers in each platform.
I use that setup and it works like a charm. The caveat, which is true in about any development environment, is to use the tool as it was designed to be used. Native mobile apps (stateful) are a wholly different architecture than web apps (stateless). In fact, they are more like WinForms apps than like web apps.
You can build the WebAPI code in the same project, so if there is an Internet connection, the data uploads. If the connection is not there, you can save the data locally, and automatically upload when connected.
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Couchdb builtin offline ability and can sync when you get a connection.
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I've been using Ionic (ionicframework.com) for several years. It works well if you want to target Apple, Android and web all with one code base. It also supports Progressive Web Apps (offline web applications). I've had clients that did not want to pay for an iOS developer, an Android developer and a web developer but wanted it on all 3 platforms. Obviously, having one code base also makes it easier to maintain.
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