briansalvattore/bestmix

Boilerplate to develop both iOS/Android app and Rails-based backend integrated with each other

Bestmix

Bestmix is a boilerplate code of iOS app, Android app and Rails-based backend. You can use it as a basic structure to build your own mobile app and backend web API integrated with each other. They are connected with JSON REST API supporting CRUD, pagination, caching, OAuth2 and Facebook integration.

The sample app is a simple blog engine.

Architecture

Screenshots

• Web App Screenshots
• Web Admin Screenshots
• iOS App Screenshots

Features

Server-Side

• Generating JSON from DB records
• HTTP caching
• Basic authentication with Email and passwrod
• Facebook login
• Call Facebook API using authorized token
• OAuth2 authorization for web API
• API versioning
• Admin UI

iOS App

• JSON REST web API integration
• Getting OAuth2 token and refreshing it behind the scenes
• Storing authorized token in Keychain
• Parsing JSON response
• Importing JSON objects into Core Data as local cache
• Pagination and incremental loading
• HTTP caching
• Checking reachability and display object cache if it is offline

Android App

Android app is still under early development.

• JSON REST web API integration using IntentService
• Getting OAuth2 token and refreshing it behind the scenes

These features are implemented using libraries listed below.

Libraries

Server-Side

• Ruby on Rails - Web Framework
• Devise - Authentication
• RABL - JSON Formatter
• Doorkeeper - OAuth2 Provider
• omniauth-facebook - Facebook Login
• Koala - Facebook Library for Ruby
• versionist - API Versioning
• Active Admin - Admin Interface

See Gemfile for more details

iOS App

• CocoaPods - Library Management
• AFNetworking - Networking Framework
• Reachability - Network Reachability
• SDURLCache - HTTP Caching
• MagicalRecord - Active Record for Core Data
• mogenerator - Core Data Code Generation

See Podfile for more details.

Android App

• Gson - Java Objects -> JSON Converter
• Scribe - OAuth Library

Requirements

Server-Side

• Ruby >= 1.9
• MySQL (you can use another DB server by editing Gemfile)

iOS App

• iOS >= 5.0
  • requries ARC and Storyboard

Android App

• Android >= 4.0

Setup

Server-Side

1. Install Ruby on Rails and RVM if you don't have them.
2. Copy server/config/database.yml.example to server/config/database.yml and modify it.
3. Copy server/config/initializers/devise.rb.example to server/config/initializers/devise.rb and modify it (See Devise for details).
   • Set config.mailer_sender.
   • If you use Facebook login, enable the setting at the bottom and modify APP_ID and APP_SECRET.
4. cd server; bundle; rake db:setup; rake db:migrate
5. rails s # (or setup your web server such as Apache, nginx, etc.)
6. Open URL http://localhost:3000/ to see the web app.
7. Open URL http://localhost:3000/admin to see the admin page.
   • Email: admin@example.com
   • password: password
   • See Active Admin for more information.

Register iOS App to Web API

Open admin page: http://localhost:3000/admin and click "Applications".

Click "New Application" at the bottom of the applications page, and input app information in the form:

• Name: <your iOS app name>
• Redirect url bestmix://auth

If you develop your own app instead of just running the sample app, change the URL schema (bestmix) of the above redirect URL.

When you submit the form, app ID and secret will be published as below. They are used in the iOS app's config file.

iOS App

1. Install mogenerator and make it executable from Xcode (e.g. ln -s /opt/brew/bin/mogenerator /usr/bin/mogenerator)
2. Install CocoaPods
3. Copy ios/Bestmix/Config.h.example to ios/Bestmix/Config.h and modify it.
   • Set WebApiUrl (e.g. http://localhost:3000/api/v1/)
   • Set AuthBaseURL (e.g. http://localhost:3000/)
   • Set ClientID, ClientSecret and RedirectURL same as you saw in the app registration page.
4. cd ios; pod install
5. Open Bestmix.xcworkspace and build the app

Develop Your Own App

Server-Side

When you register an app to the web API, use your own custom URL schema for the callback URL in the application registration form (e.g. myapp://auth).

iOS App

Create a new Xcode project with copying Bestmix.xcodeproj.

% cd ios
% cp -r Bestmix.xcodeproj MyApp.xcodeproj
% find MyApp.xcodeproj -type f | xargs perl -pi -e "s|Bestmix|MyApp|g"
% cp -r Bestmix MyApp
% mv MyApp/Bestmix-Info.plist MyApp/MyApp-Info.plist
% mv MyApp/Bestmix-Prefix.pch MyApp/MyApp-Prefix.pch

Modify the top line of Podfile to use the new Xcode project.

xcodeproj 'MyApp.xcodeproj'

Run pod install and open MyApp.xcworkspace.

Open target summary tab and set bundle identifier.

Open target info tab and set URL type identifier and URL schema.

Then build and run your app.

License

Bestmix itself is provided under MIT License and it uses many other libraries. See Gemfile and Podfile.

Future Plan

• Android app features equivalent to iOS app
• Image uploading
• Push notification
• Twitter integration
• Testing ...current test codes are not enough.

Contributing to Bestmix

Send me pull requests.

Using Pull Requests · github:help