Local or Server

[M123-dev]

In Issue #122 about sharing products, @stephanegigandet suggested that we could share saved lists via a url:

[...] you could get a URL to the OFF site that would show the same list.

on the other hand in #20 is a "local" point system is suggested.

Also a quarter in the navigation bar is occupied by the profile, at the time this page is more like a settings page. It will be difficult for us to fill this page. There isn't even a kind of profile picture.

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Now the question is, how is the development going on the server? I would like to see more possible/optional communication with the server.

I suggest a few more profile information, the score of the point system, I think that's especially important.
But also the possibility to share lists publicly and if that is not too hard for the server the possebility to sync the lists privat within a account. But this can be taken over by ICloud and Google Drive...

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Of course it should only be optional to have an account and everything should be done locally.

I know it is much easier to manage all things locally from development perspective, because of data protection guidelines and also because of the server workload.

That's why I opened this issue. I would appreciate to hear your opinion about what we should store on the server.

[monsieurtanuki]

@M123-dev Regarding the current smoothie home page, it obviously has to be heavily redesigned anyway. So I wouldn't put too much attention on the current design, which should not be considered as a constraint, but as a first draft.

What I had in mind is that anybody could easily reuse the lists on their blog, like "Hi there, my name is Bob and this week I'll show you my top 5 breakfast cereals", with a link like https://off.org/?barcodes=1234,23456,0983,1213
In that case there wouldn't even be a user profile:

• on smoothie, I see product
• I add some of them to a list
• I share this list as a link (https://off.org/... cf. above)
• this link opens either off website, or is a deep link that opens smoothie

We could even implement "javascript widgets" (I don't know the proper name), like in imdb.com

Beyond that I cannot picture how the server should be used for the moment. If it's just about syncing data, firebase could be a good choice I guess (ok for iOS too?).

[M123-dev]

I would say the most important things in my opinion are the points and the preferences.

At the moment I find the accounts in off very irrelevant. A lot of data is required for registration. But apart from adding products, you have no advantage.

I really like with the Javascript widget and I also like the principle behind "public" lists.
But these should work like let's say youtube playlists. That means it can only be viewed publicly if the user wants it that way and I would also say that publishing lists on the off servers is only possible with an account. Mainly because of security reasons.

[stephanegigandet]

We actually have a project about creating and sharing private and public lists of products (as well as adding custom tags etc.) that is about to start. And the first phase is going to be to think about all the possible use cases etc. The ones that both of you are mentioning are definitely very interesting.

A quick version of it can be something simpler as @monsieurtanuki describes. There's almost all the code already to support it server side (displaying a list of products using barcodes passed in the url).

[M123-dev]

Nice that this is already implemented server side.
Thanks for the clearity.