The current pandemic has greatly enhanced the need to keep in touch with all in the Congregation, often in ways unforeseen just a few weeks ago. Doubtless you have been trying to meet these greater needs as best you can and may be appreciative of non-theocratically-based Internet services even the Organization has referred to, such as Zoom. Perhaps JwContacts can also help you stay in touch!
As my January update indicated, I have set aside further Xamarin work, including the nearly-ready first iOS release, temporarily in favor of a possibility that just opened up this year: A true Desktop app that can run on both Microsoft and many other platforms. See that update for an explanation.
What has been done to this point? 80 – 90% of the Xamarin-based code has been transformed into that for the new JwContactsUD (Universal Desktop, JwcUd) app. All the 80 or so visible screens have been recreated with work-alike WPF controls, and much bug-fixing done.
Still lacking are barcode reading (for territories) and cloud storage services support. Haven’t really worked yet on using whatever phone capabilities the platform has. The state with Gmail and GDrive is same as currently with the Xamarin versions: the code is there but I still have to get Google to sign off on my use. Will do when I can.
New already included (to an extent):
- Supports use of an Internet service to divide group texts into individually-transmitted copies. I really hate receiving group mails with multitudes of recipients, many of whom cannot resist the urge to simply (and unnecessarily) acknowledge receipt, causing every other recipient to see they have! There is nothing about this new code special to JwcUd, so it will be included also in next Xamarin releases. I’ve already used this ability many, many times in the last few days.
- Near full Word and Excel visual replacements. You will be able to do any Jwc-related work in Word or Excel files right within the app. Will probably support inherent group email composition and transmission. Inherent conversion of either to PDF should be easy to pull off.
I can generate an installer at any time for current project state. Currently the only success has been a Windows installer which generates a folder containing every single dependent file. However, once the folder is copied onto a Windows machine, all one has to do to start is click on the JwContacts.exe file. (A virus checker like Avast may need to check it out on first run, or you can simply add it in advance to the checker’s list of files known to be Ok.) It doesn’t matter where you put the folder and there are no Registry entries created. The only other consideration is the Windows used must have already-installed Microsoft’s .Net Core 3.1, which made this entire multi-platform concept possible.
As I get more experience with the new installer technology I should be able to create a single runnable file. A few attempts have generated error messages I’ll troubleshoot once out of the early development stage. It is even possible then to fold .Net Core 3.1 into that single file, but I’d rather not as it bloats a machine that already has .Net Core 3.1.
For now, to get it running in Windows, I’ve used a very limited number of Windows system files that may prove unusable in Mac and Linux. These relate to voice (to read instructions on the opening screen) and image technologies. Once I have a stable Windows version I’ll explore what may be required to support the other platforms.
