Assignment 2 — Mobile client/server application
Due date: 11:50 pm AEST, Friday Week 10 ASSIGNMENT
Weighting: 30%
Length: Less than 50 MB 2

Objectives
This assessment item relates to the learning outcome 1, 2, 3 and 4. More specifically to design and implement a complex mobile application.
The objective of this assignment is for students to:
Develop, test and maintain a mobile internet application using an integrated suite of mobile software development tools. More specifically on the client side jQuery Mobile, JavaScript and HTML5 and CSS are used. On the server side we use JavaScript and the node server with various node packages. The Mongo database is used as a data store and that data is also stored locally on the mobile device. Using JavaScript store data in a mongdb database in a MLab cloud server using node express middleware.
Introduction
You are assigned the task of creating a data logger to capture package location data in a mobile application that stores the data in a local database. The app has fields to record data for each of five cities were the app is employed. If a city is selected, a page (fragment) is shown to record data values for that city. An entry consists of city data. When the Save Log Entry button is pressed this data is saved locally in the application in a SQLDatabase. When the Show Log Entries button is pressed a related page (fragment) is shown that list all the date/time and data entries made for that city.
We will refer to our app as CityLogs. More details of these pages will be given in the sections below. You should also consult the weekly lecture/tutorials on the Moodle website for help and more information on completing the assignment. The tutorials contain step-by-step procedures for working through the assignment as well as some tips and extra help. Please read the lecture/tutorials on the Moodle website.
This app is to be tested using the Safari, FireFox or Chrome browser and tested on an Android or iPhone mobile device.
Client Side HTML / CSS / JavaScript Mobile Application
You are to implement this app using HTML5, CSS, JQuery Mobile and Cordova Phonegap.
The app is used by a delivery company to record driver logs for package delivery by the company. Packages are delivered to a number of cities.
Images for the page/views required to implement the assignment were given in assignment 1 and are further refined in the following figures. Please note that the illustrations are for reference only, and your actual pages will be based on the CSS style-guide in use on your actual mobile device.
Home page view
The home page view is the same as in assignment 1.
City view
The pages for entering the city data are all the same as in assignment 1 and so are not discussed further.
City logs view
The City logs page is similar to that in assignment 1. The updated city logs page is shown in Fig. 1. Note the view now has a Get … button on the left of the header bar. Also note the button in the footer is now a Back button. Pressing this should take the user back to the previous page (city data entry view).
Fig. 1: City logs page.
Send button
When the Send… button is tapped all the city logs for that city are sent to the local server (and saved in the file logs/logs.dat. The city data is also saved to the cloud mLab mongdb database set up for this purpose. You should provide a success or failure alert. In the success alert, show the data that has been sent. When a response is received another alert should indicate success or failure. When city logs have been sent the local city logs should be cleared from localStorage so that the city page will now not show any logs.
If the Yes button is pressed the Send logs dialog shown in Fig. 2 is presented and we return to the city view. If the No button is pressed we just return to the city view.
Fig. 2: Logs sent confirmation.
Get logs button
The Get logs button is used to search the mLab mongdb database for all database entries that match the city (Perth in the figure). The entries returned are shown on a new page as shown in Figure 3. The entries are to be shown below the Cloud city log entries: label as shown in the figure 3. Appropriate alerts need to be made when the request is sent and when a response is received. The Back button takes the user to the previous page and Home takes the user to the home page.
Fig. 3: Cloud Logs entries page.
Server Side: node+packages and JavaScript server script
Our user data scheme has the following fields:
• city – one of {Perth, Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide}
• time – the time log was recorded
• latitude –the latitude of the log
• longitude –the longitude of the log
• contact – contact details of the log
• invoice – invoice number of the log
• destination – parcel destination city ?
This data is to be stored in the mLab mongdb database in a city_logs collection. Entries are also to be echoed (written) to a file in the ./logs directory of the local server in a file called logs.dat.?
The server will have the following URL that provides requested services. The URL is based on http://your.IP.address/city/.
Your web service API will support these actions:
search/:query– searches for users in the mLabs database and returns all logs with that :query value. :query will be one of the city names{Perth, Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne or Adelaide} to search for. So valid URLs would look like http://your.IP.address/city/search/Perth or http://your.IP.address/city/search/Adelaide.
:city/log – appends the city entry to the local server file ./logs/logs.dat and to the mLabs city_log mongdb databases logs collection. For example valid URL's using this scheme are http://your.IP.address/city/Perth/log and http://your.IP.address/city/Sydney/log.
Fig 4. Message flow from App to local disk storage and Cloud database
Fig. 4 shows the message streams in the application. Ideally the mobile device POST’s requests to the WWW and receives responses from the WWW. The node server listens for requests on a port. The requests data will be routed to the local mongdb database at mLabs. Requests for the information in the mongdb database would be returned to the node server for POST’ing back to the mobile device. The server should produce meaningful output each time a request is received or sent.
Your node server code will consist of a number of files; server.js will contain your business logic, common.js and config.js contains common utility functions and network configuration information. The server.js file will use express middleware to create a server and router to route the web service API to the handler code that writes the JASON data to your mongdb mLabs database, and returns data from this database to the mobile device. A sample of the kind of responses the server should produce is given in fig. 5
Fig. 5 Sample server screen feedback
See the weekly lecture/workshops for weeks 8, 9 and 10 for more information on this assignment.
Required Documentation
You are also to prepare a Word document. Your word document should include an appropriate title page. Your word document should have sections that address the commentary, hardware and software requirements and the financial analysis given below
Plan for a Testing Strategy for your Mobile App
Your document should:
• Discuss the selection of mobile browser models, mobile OS's and device manufacturers for your testing process
• Discuss whether testing is required on actual devices and what part emulators/simulators can play in this process
• Document functional and UI testing of the app.
Financial Case & Commentary of Application Features
Your document should:
• List the features you successfully implemented and those you were unable to successfully implement; you should describe the problem in a few sentences and also briefly describe anything you attempted to do to get it to work. Your approach to identifying and attempting to fix these bugs may gain you some partial credit for those features you were unable to implement.
• A description of any additional functionality you believe would be useful to add to this app should be included. Explain what the features are and how they would help to improve the app.
• Are there any ethical considerations in making this kind of service available?
• Discuss the economic/financial case for the proposed system.
Assume this simple exercise leads you to consider developing a fully-fledged CityLogs application (that is generalised to handle any kind of log data) with increased functionality. Assume you model 3 cases; one with 10 users, one with 1,000 users and one with 10,000 users.
- Assume staff development time is costed at $100/hour. Given how long it has taken you to develop this exercise what do you estimate technical development costs to be in hours? What are the development costs for the 3 models, assuming development time increase by 50% for each of the scenarios?
- Database storage costs. If you use the mongdb mLabs service to store CityLogs entries, how much would this cost for your proposed user base, assuming 10 entries per month per user?
- Discuss your marketing campaign for each of the three cases and estimate a cost for each of these.
- Then estimate you break even point (revenue costs) in the 3 scenarios? Comment on the results of this analysis.
Submission
You are required to submit your assignment electronically via the Moodle course website. The deliverable is a rar or zipped directory containing all the code and resources needed for testing. You must tar, rar or zip together:
• The directory containing all the files, folders, images required to test your mobile application
• Your Word document
The resulting gzip, rar or zip file should be submitted on the course website. Please note that you should use your student number as the name for your gzip, rar or zip file when uploading to Moodle so that all students work can be linked back to the author.
Assessment criteria
Lecturer’s Signature Date: