Is there an app that (offline) displays transit feeds nicely for users?
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There's a nice Android app called GTFSOffline that I like. It allows people to know when the next bus (or train or whatever) is expected to come, without having to unnecessarily use data for an online search. Does Ubuntu Touch have anything similar?
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@MarkG_108 I don't know anything like that.
Bit this seems like a community app that can locally store those informations... I doubt it would be efficient in our community.Imho an offline solution is not very interesting and I prefer getting accurate and recent data.
UT community is small and you can easily create a webapp to access your local transportation service....
But a centralized offline solution seems a bit overkill and hard to achieve. -
My phone plan doesn't have data, so I don't think a web app would be useful to me. GTFSOffline is described as,
"This is a small application that allows you to view bus stops and schedules in a general way. It is virtually* permissionless, flexible enough to handle most* GTFS feeds, and designed for power-users to have the control they want. "
That doesn't strike me as "overkill". It's an app that reads a database.
The source code is here.
I tried running this with Anbox, and while I successfully got it installed and running, it did not work properly.
Is there a way to convert Android apps into Ubuntu Touch apps? Is there a conversion script (IE, like alien, which converts RPM packages into APT packages) for converting Android apps into Ubuntu Touch apps? Or is there a site that gives programming help on converting an Android app to an Ubuntu Touch app?
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@MarkG_108 said in Is there an app that (offline) displays transit feeds nicely for users?:
Is there a way to convert Android apps into Ubuntu Touch apps? Is there a conversion script (IE, like alien, which converts RPM packages into APT packages) for converting Android apps into Ubuntu Touch apps? Or is there a site that gives programming help on converting an Android app to an Ubuntu Touch app?
There is no such script or guidance. The comparison between RPMs and DEBs is invalid because those are just two different packaging systems. The software that gets installed would be the same in either case.
Android apps are written in Java (or Kotlin) while Ubuntu Touch apps are written in QML/JavaScript / C++ /Go/ Python. So the app would actually have to be rewritten, and not simply repackaged, for it to work on Ubuntu Touch. -
@MarkG_108 With the information you provided yes this is doable.
I don't have all the skills required, but GTFSOffline seems to be based on databases that the user should provide.
This was the hard point I had in mind.
Then I don't have any idea of the GUI provided it can be fast and easy but don't know yet.Porting the app from android to UT is not something easy because as @arubislander wrote, it requires the app to be rewritten.
Then one detail that is bothering me is that I understand that the databases can be found on the web, but how can they be compatible between USA, Canada, Australia, Spain, France, UK, Russia, ... providers?
Is this app limited to one country/city?If someday I have enough time maybe I'll dig into this project with your help.
Or if someone has the skills to understand the android's version and is able to create a UT app
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@AppLee Hello. Thanks for getting back to me. The transit feed database is limited to a specific transit company. In my case, that would be the Toronto Transit Commission (aka TTC). Their feed can be found here. Other feeds can be found by searching the listings here: https://transitfeeds.com/feeds
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Recently, I installed Eclipse on my computer (running Debian 10). And I installed a plugin that converts Java into C++ (the plugin, j2c, is experimental, and thus not totally reliable). So, I used this to convert the source Java files of the GTFSOffline app into C++. Does anyone know how I would go about attempting to compile this into an Ubuntu Touch app? And note, in asking that, I realize that it likely would not work, but it may give me some clues as to how to proceed in creating such an app for Ubuntu Touch.
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@MarkG_108 As you wrote yourself, the database already exists.
Nice effort with your plugin, but accessing the database is not the same in android environment and with UT.
Wrapping the database with QML to create a simple app is not that hard.
It just need some time to look into it. Eventually someone can reuse the SQL requests, but nothing complex here.I looked into transitfeeds.com, that's an interesting project.
If I have some available time someday, I might try to create an app to fill your need.
But right now, I can't, I just changed my job and I also have other projects on the side. -
@AppLee said in Is there an app that (offline) displays transit feeds nicely for users?:
Wrapping the database with QML to create a simple app is not that hard.
Is there a template or tutorial somewhere on the web for doing this that you're aware of? If so, that would be great. So far I've done various tutorials on Clickable that give the basics for setting up an app ("Hello World!") but one that focuses on displaying a database file I've yet to find.
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@MarkG_108
I have this link that may help : https://mimecar.gitbooks.io/ubuntu-touch-programming-course/content/en/chapter-05-s01.htmlAnd on a larger scale I always start here : https://docs.ubports.com/en/latest/appdev/index.html#
If you want to try making the app I can help you, but I don't have time yet to do it myself.
The first step is to familiarize yourself with QML language. Once you're comfortable with it, try to connect to a database following the tutorial.Then it will be adjustments... Which is no smal part ^^
