Data synchronising between desktop and mobile

[jalz]

Hi Guys,
Im playing around with Live Code and want to create an database app the works both on the iPhone and Mac/Windows platform. My question is I want my application to synchronise the data between the desktop version and the mobile version. I want the user to only be able to synchronise when they have both machines next to them, so Im not looking for any 'fancy over the waves' kind of thing. Has anyone created something similar and what pitfalls did you encounter? I'm thinking about record conflicts and what the best way is to get the records across to both platforms? Im a long way from doing this as Im still planning my app, but just really interested in your thoughts

Thanks
Jalz

[FourthWorld]

I had a similar need and for my purposes I decided to do field-level comparison rather than the record as a whole, since it allowed more flexibility at a relatively small cost. For some fields (e.g., notes) differences are appended to retain data as much as possible, but for others I've had to resort to last-one-wins. My data store timestamps records, so at least I have the opportunity to know which record was modified more recently.

True, this does allow the possibility of data loss, but seems to contain most obvious forms of loss to a level I can live with for my app.

Good luck. Synch is a sticky issue, and it seems that no two apps handle it exactly the same, always something new to discover....

[kdjanz]

Would it be possible to just have a data stack that lives in the user Dropbox folder? I know you don't NEED cloud access, but if both apps worked off a common database and were not accessed simultaneously, it would do away with the whole sync issue. I do this manually with certain files, but don't know how I would do it in LC in a mobile app with the sandboxing.

Just a thought,

Kelly

[FourthWorld]

Would it be possible to just have a data stack that lives in the user Dropbox folder?

That's a very good idea.

And it just got easier this morning - Andre Garzia leaked a teaser about his forthcoming Dropbox library:
http://lists.runrev.com/pipermail/use-l ... 67518.html

[jalz]

Thanks for the insight guys. Really appreciate it, will give it some careful consideration when I create the module for the mobile version. Ive had some experience with record level synchronisation with a past project in FileMaker but to be honest it never really worked efficiently - might give the drop box idea a go or might even look into cloud solution

[BarrySumpter]

I've just had a friend ask me about drop box.
any news?

[lowland]

Richard how did you go about this (‘I decided to do field-level comparison rather than the record as a whole’) would you care to share.

Stephen