Processwire as backend for Android

[pwired]

Hi,

I have to write a program in Android which basically contacts an online database,

fetch updated data and shows it in a list on an android smartphone screen.

So this made me thinking. Instead of learning all of Android what is needed to set this up,

would it be possible to use Processwire as a backend that will communicate with the database

and then only use some simple Android code for a front ?

The advantage would be that I can stick to Processwire api that I already am learning.

Maybe using the Processwire api could become a universal way of backend ?

Native code on Android will usually be faster instead of using a backend, so where will I have

to put Processwire as a backend in this case ?

[pwired]

Bumping this thread:

https://processwire.com/about/news/introducing-processwire-2.3/
 

ProcessWire is designed for the needs of today and not limited by the past.
It is equally at home powering small-to-large scale standards-friendly websites,
mobile websites, JSON/XML web services, Flash applications, AJAX-driven content,
iPhone/Android applications, and more. This output agnosticism drives ProcessWire's
simplicity and makes it support, rather than interfere with your work.

 
Please put me in the right direction for Android applications.
Thanks

Edited August 20, 2015 by LostKobrakai
Added real bbcode quote

[LostKobrakai]

I'm not sure if there are any specifics out there. The quote either way stands right as you've the ability to render whatever content you need in your templates. I'm not sure for mobile apps, but my half-knowledge would suggest that apps nowadays use json/rest endpoints, but you could also use xml to transfer your data. It really depends on the usecase. 

[gebeer]

I am currently working on a project where Android apps connect to a PW DB to put and get data. For data exchange I decided to create a REStful service with PW. There is a REST helper class for PW from clsource which is working great.

The Android apps also display HTML that is rendered by PW and sent as JSON to the Android app. I am not in charge of the JAVA part so I can't tell you what is needed on the Android side to render that JSON.

There is the Ionic framework that helps in developing android apps based on web technologies without using JAVA. 

[pwired]

Just came back from morning work and read your posts. Thanks for the replies I can make my self a better picture now where to go with this. Personally it would be better for me to use processwire as a backend as I would learn more from it. But in this case it looks I really have to go with android studio and use processwire as a backend for my next project.

[adrian]

There is the Ionic framework that helps in developing android apps based on web technologies without using JAVA. 

Ionic is great and can work very nicely with ajax calls to a PW db and allows for iOS and Android development together with cordova.

If you don't like angularjs (integral to ionic), take a look at famo.us or React Native.

[Philipp]

Can also confirm that ProcessWire works well as a JSON-Backend-Service for Ionic-Apps. (The german Ionnic page is built with PW)

But in General, using ProcessWire as a backend is possible with native Android apllications. Mostly you fetch JSON from a REST-API and PW can deliver that. As an alternative, you could for example look at Parse.com

[jacmaes]

Another confirmation from me that PW works well as a JSON backend for an Android app. The Android app developer was able to successfully pull the JSON output from Ryan's Pages Web Service module and from Christian's WebServiceTemplate (https://processwire.com/talk/topic/7369-webservicetemplate/).