New updated version question

[tonyt]

Hi Brendan
Just a quick question, will the new local wifi sync require two devices open and tapforms loaded in order to work? I guess so! Also, will the new version continue to offer iCloud and, or, Dropbox sync?
Cheers
tonyt

[Brendan]

Hi Tony,

Yes, the WiFi sync will require that the same database be open on both devices at the same time, otherwise there’s no way for the devices to talk to each other in realtime in order to sync.

The answer to your second question is no.

[tonyt]

Real sorry to hear no cloud sync support in the new version. I have five devices and having to get them all up and running to sync is going to ba a pain, but I guess I’ll get used to it. STILL A FANTASTIC PRODUCT!!

[Brendan]

I never said no cloud sync support. I just said no Dropbox nor iCloud. There’s still a cloud sync service to choose from or direct device to device sync over WiFi.

[tonyt]

Sorry Brendan, which cloud service will it be? Will it be free?
Cheers
Tony

[Brendan]

Hi Tony,

Currently I’m using IBM Cloudant (https://cloudant.com/sign-up)

It’s free for the first $50 USD / month of usage. I’m not affiliated with them and I don’t earn any money from their fees. So far I don’t believe any of my beta testers have gone over that amount. In fact, my largest month of usage so far has been $11.00 USD which I never was charged for because it was less than $50 USD.

[Brendan]

But one of the beautiful things of Couchbase Lite is it’s compatible with any CouchDB sync service. That means as new services come online I can provide support for them. I also intend on integrating with Couchbase Sync Gateway which would let you run your own sync service. So for example, if you had a small workgroup, you could have a Mac sitting there running Couchbase Server and Sync Gateway and have it act as its own cloud sync server for just your own co-workers. I haven’t yet written support for Sync Gateway though since it was so easy to integrate with IBM Cloudant, I chose to do that first.

[jolinwarren]

I completely understand why you dropped support for iCloud Sync – it was slow on its good days, completely non-functional on most days. :-/ I don’t want to think about the amount of time I have lost to resetting sync and fiddling about with TF on my Mac and iPod/iPhone to get them in sync. Good riddance!

But I also have some of the concerns/issues others have noted regarding signing up for and trusting my data to yet another cloud provider, and generally managing another account. So I would absolutely love to see support for running my own CloudDB server on my MacBook Air. That way, I can have Tap Forms on all my devices sync with it, and it means I don’t have to have Tap Forms open on my Mac for my iPhone to have the latest copy of my data.

This is what I do for my contacts sync: I run the Baïkal CardDAV server on my MBA, and everything syncs to that.

[Brendan]

@jolin, I definitely want to provide this ability. You can download Couchbase Server and Couchbase Sync Gateway for free from http://www.couchbase.com but I haven’t built support for it just yet. Strange that it was easier to write sync with IBM Cloudant than to use Couchbase’s own Sync Gateway system. The strange problem with Couchbase Sync Gateway is they don’t have any kind of admin tools available for user management. That has to be built on top of their database with a web app or some other app that runs on the server.

On the Cloud sync settings screen you can see there’s a disabled popup button. I plan on enabling that and letting you choose “Couchbase Sync Gateway” as an option. Then you would get to type in your server address instead of it being auto-generated for you.

There’s one other issue that I haven’t worked out just yet is the way Couchbase Server stores the records is all in one big database. If you notice with IBM Cloudant, each Tap Forms document has its own associated database in Cloudant. But with Couchbase Sync Gateway you have to use something called “channels” to separate the data between Tap Forms documents. It’s just a complication that I still have to work out before I can write support for that.

[jolinwarren]

Hi Brendan, it’s so great to hear you’re actively working on this. It is strange they make it easier to sync with a third party service than their own Sync Gateway. I’m happy to get by with the local network sync (thanks for that!) until some future date when we can run our own Couchbase Server. :-) Thanks for all your great work on Tap Forms. I’m loving v5 – definitely worth the upgrade on both iOS and Mac!!

[Brendan]

Well I wouldn’t say actively working on it, but it’s definitely in the plans. I am actively working on CloudKit integration though. But that’s still in the experimental stages. I don’t even know if it’s going to work, but I’m giving it a shot.

[jolinwarren]

Wow, great! Glad to hear you’re looking into CloudKit even if it might not pan out. I’m not worried, as you always improve Tap Forms using what’s available, and I”m sure the sync options will evolve as and when they can.

[Mitchell Rose]

I very much hope the CloudKit options works out. I haven’t used Tap Forms 5 since downloading it and have been waiting/hoping for iCloud integration.

[Author]

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