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Mobile Shopping Assistant - sample

Mobile Shopping Assistant demonstrates how to build a mobile backend that will power Android and iOS native applications and expose an API using Google Cloud Endpoints.

A tutorial is available on the Google Cloud Platform documentation.

Author

Google Cloud Developers Relations.

Disclaimer

This sample application is not an official Google product.

Google App Engine backend and Android client

Project setup, installation, and configuration

This sample application is designed to work with Android Studio. It was tested with Android Studio 1.1.0, the Google App Engine SDK 1.9.18 and Android SDK 21.

For styling purposes, it uses the CheckStyle-IDEA plugin. To install it, go to Preferences > Plugins > Browse Repositories > search for "CheckStyle-IDEA" and "install plugin".

Open the project in Android Studio (select the root folder MobileAssistantAndroidAppEngine for the location of the project, as the android client and the backend are combined in one single project). The first time you open it, Android Studio will try to resolve all dependencies using Gradle. When the status bar is no longer indicating Gradle work, verify that both the Android and the Backend configurations are ready.

If the Android application configuration is missing, choose Run > Edit Configurations > Click on the + sign > Select Android Application. In the editor, give the configuration a name and associate it with the module "app". If the Backend configuration is missing, choose Run > Edit Configurations > Click on the + sign > Select App Engine DevAppServer. In the editor, give the configuration a name, associate it with the module "backend" and check "synchronize with build.gradle configuration".

First, run the backend configuration. This will launch a local dev server on your computer, and also generate all the Google App Engine Endpoints client libraries that will be used by the Android application. Once the backend is running, you can run the Android application in the Emulator.

When the application starts, you can notice two things:

  1. No store appears. This is normal, we have not inserted any data in the datastore yet.
  2. The debug console will throw 401 Unauthorized errors. This is because the local devserver does not support authentication, and some backend methods do require it.

Now follow the instructions in MobileAssistantAndroidAppEngine/backend/MobileAssistant-Data/README.md to insert dummy data (Place, Offer and Recommendation objects) inside the local datastore. Once done, access the page at http://localhost:8080/admin/buildsearchindex to build the places index. Now if you hit the "Refresh Store List" button inside the application, the stores should display. Click on them to access the offers and recommendations.

Deploying

To deploy on App Engine, you need to create a new project in the Google Cloud Console, and then configure a few credentials in the backend and the Android application.

  1. Create the new project.
  2. Follow Android documentation to obtain a GCM_API_KEY (Note: In the 'Enabling the GCM Service' step choose 'Google Cloud Messaging for Android') and follow the Cloud Endpoints documentation to obtain the 3 Client IDs ANDROID_CLIENT_ID, IOS_CLIENT_ID, WEB_CLIENT_ID. For the Android Client ID the package name is 'com.google.sample.mobileassistant' and for the iOS Client ID the bundle is 'com.google.sample.MobileAssistantIOS'.
  3. Open MobileAssistantAndroidAppEngine/backend/src/main/webapp/WEB-INF/appengine-web.xml and enter your APPLICATION_ID within the application XML element and the GCM_API_KEY in the property "gcm.api.key" XML element.
  4. Open MobileAssistantAndroidAppEngine/backend/src/main/java/com/google/sample/mobileassistantbackend/Constants.java and insert the API keys and IDs required.
  5. Open MobileAssistantAndroidAppEngine/android/config.gradle and insert SENDER_ID, WEB_CLIENT_ID, the URL to your deployed application, which is https://YOUR-APPLICATION-ID.appspot.com/_ah/api/, and turn SIGN_IN_REQUIRED to "true".
  6. Build the backend, then select Build > Deploy module to App Engine and follow the instructions. You will need to login from Android Studio into the Google account used in the first step.
  7. Insert data into the backend by following instructions in MobileAssistantAndroidAppEngine/backend/MobileAssistant-Data/README.md, using the URL of the deployed backend and the right Google credentials to login.
  8. Run the Android application.

iOS client

The Mobile Shopping Assistant iOS Client demonstrates how to build an iOS client that mirrors the functionality of the Android client by leveraging the same Google App Engine backend with the help of Google APIs Client Library for Objective-C.

Project setup, installation, and configuration

This sample source code and project is designed to work with Xcode 6.2. The application was tested on iOS 8.2.

Prerequisites

Follow the instructions for Google App Engine backend and Android client and deploy the backend to Google App Engine. Note that the Bundle ID for this iOS client is com.google.sample .MobileAssistantIOS.

Make sure you have correctly imported sample data to the deployed backend following MobileAssistantAndroidAppEngine/backend/MobileAssistant-Data/README.md.

Set up Mobile Assistant iOS Client Xcode Project

Open MobileAssistantIOS project in Xcode

Open a new Finder window and navigate to the directory you have extracted the Mobile Assistant iOS Client. Double click on the MobileAssistantIOS.xcodeproj file. It will open the project in Xcode automatically.

Configure Mobile Assistant Backend to Recognize the iOS Client App

  1. The Mobile Assistant Backend was configured to use a particular IOS_CLIENT_ID in step 2 of the Prerequisites.

  2. Look up the client secret, that corresponds to the IOS_CLIENT_ID in the backend, from Google API Console, update the following constants in the ShopsTableViewController.m file in the MobileAssistantIOS project:

  • kKeyClientID (in line 35)
  • kKeyClientSecret (in line 36)

  1. In the MobileAssistantIOS/API/GTLServiceShoppingAssistant.m file, replace the string "{{{YOUR APP ID}}}" with the Application ID of where the Mobile Assistant Backend was deployed.

  2. Follow the steps at https://cloud.google.com/appengine/docs/java/endpoints/consume_ios, part Adding required files to your iOS project first item If you are not using the Google+ iOS SDK.

Build and Execute the MobileAssistantIOS Project

  1. Follow the steps to set the simulator location to San Francisco, CA.

  2. On the top left corner of the toolbar in Xcode, select `MobileAssistantIos

iPhone 8.2 Simulator. Click the Run` button to execute the app.

  1. Switch to the iOS Simulator application from Xcode. You can now interact with the MobileAssistantIOS Client App.
  • Since this application is location-sensitive, to work with existing data in the Mobile Assistant Backend, set the location to {Latitude: 37.2222, Longtitude: -122.1111} via the menu Debug > Location > Custom Location…
  • If prompted, click "OK" to allow MobileAssitantIOS app to access your current location.
  • The application may ask for your Google Account information. Sign in and consent to allow the application to view your email address and know who you are on Google.
  • On the first screen, click any store location. On the next screen, the application will display different recommendations and offers based on different store location.

Take a Closer Look at MobileAssistantIOS Client App

In ShopsTableViewController.m file, set breakpoints to the following methods:

  • fetchAllShops
  • fetchOffersForPlaceID
  • fetchRecommendationsForPlaceID

These methods are responsible for making the requests to the Mobile Assistant Backend via the Google APIs Client Library for Objective-C.

Optional Reference

  1. Click here to learn more about generating iOS client library for Google Cloud Endpoint.

Contributing changes

Licensing