Offline use with multiple laptops

[cmleaver]

You will need explore hardware that is specifically designed to share a single hotspot as well as print server of some sort.  If you do your team's IT you should be able to set up the needed hardware.  Here is a post that gives some ideas:
http://www.radishworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=14.msg32#msg32
http://www.radishworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=132.msg482#msg482

As you are new, you may not have had time to browse this message forum, "just get cell service" is not the only suggestions.  Here are some other posts you might want to look into:
http://www.radishworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=129.msg818;topicseen#msg818
http://www.radishworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=498.msg2138;topicseen#msg2138
http://www.radishworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=4.msg5#msg5

While I did some searching, apparently I need to refine my search with this forum software.  I wasn't finding pertinent information.  Thank you.

I would also beg to differ with your assessment of how MM is used.  While the name "Mission" Manager implies that "missions" are what MM is mostly used for.  As a First Responder, you know that 98% of what happens is not related to extreme "emergencies/disasters".  The team related functionality of MM gets far more use than the "mission" part.   When it comes to "missions" the vast majority are NOT ones that bring down the cellular networks.  This is not to say that MM isn't used for those extreme "emergencies/disasters", it is - there are very few major events in the US that MM isn't usually involved in some way.

I didn't word that as well as I could have.  What I meant was by extension if used in everyday events such as training it would also be used in emergencies.  At training events we have no issues - we use the wireless Internet provided by our host.  Obviously, this works fine.

This has been investigated very seriously.  MM is a big, very complex application.  The current "offline" code is a totally different code stream that duplicates what happens online.  Adding a 3rd version of code that duplicates offline custom server, is no small project.

I am confused by this statement.  We reasoned out that the offline mode of the web-based application would not synch across multiple computers even if they were networked together.  Therefore, we have not used the offline mode, yet.  Where I am confused is I saw mentioned elsewhere that there is a different version of the application altogether that is a "fat client" in that it installs on a local machine.  Is this what you are referring to above?  So, if I am following you, you are telling me that the fat client works off of its own local database, but that database is unique to each machine and cannot be shared across multiple machines.  Is this correct?

Mission Manager is provided as a public service to all the teams that use it, as has been said many times donations do not even cover server costs much less development expenses.  Given this, we need to pick feature development that gives the most bang for the (lack of) buck.  This is not to say there will never be more support for a local network, but its not the highest priority right now.  We are not ignoring that some teams want a local network, the reality of a free service is we can't support every request.

Completely understood.

Again, I would disagree that during "any sort of emergency" cell service goes down.  You would be surprised how quickly cell networks were operating in the extreme event of the Haiti Earthquake.   There has been many emergency's where MM was used and the cell networks worked just fine.  There is always that satellite internet option, if all satellite connections fail, we all have a much bigger problem on our hands.

Upon what data do you base your disagreement?  My coordinator has responded to Haiti, Joplin, and the Illinois tornadoes.  He's never had cell service in the affected areas.  Katrina saw massive outages.  Even blizzards sometimes see outages due to the saturation of the networks from calls.

Regarding your reference to satellite service - I can only think it is a joke and not meant seriously.  Satellite phones are way beyond the means of a simple CERT team.

[cmleaver]

While you may disagree, the fundamental is and has been the database not so much the client code. Yes I'm simplifying it, but that's the toughest part.  How to you take a cloud based database, likely residing in MySQL, PostrgreSQL, MS Sql Server, etc, and make it "portable"?  That's the key.  Setting computers up to share resources like printers, simple.  Sharing a database residing on a computer, pretty simple depending on the platform, but ultimately relies on the database engine residing on the "host" machine.

I've got almost 20 years in IT as well.  So what?  We can pound our chests all day for what?  Do we sit here and whine about what cannot be done, or do we instead find a way to make it happen?  I'd rather be part of the solution than part of the problem.

Outside of installing a database engine to house the data from a software deployment solution I know nothing about them.  I do know, though, that it wouldn't be terribly difficult to allow an export from the cloud-based storage to a local database of similar design.  That database could then be accessed by multiple clients on a local network.  This is the fundamental design that we would like to see for "proper" offline usage.

What are the costs involved?  I don't know.  What is the time involved?  Beats me.  I do know that it raises one big question for me.  Is all of the development done in-house, by the owner of the software?  Or are they willing to accept volunteers to come in and work on parts of the code to make bigger items like this possible?  Something like crowd-sourcing - only code instead of funding.  I bet there are a ton of eager developers who would love to get their hands on a project like this in order to add to their portfolio.  I'm not saying it is THE answer, but it is an answer.  Which is better than sitting here and just saying "it's not reasonable."

[Radishworks]

I've got almost 20 years in IT as well.  So what?  We can pound our chests all day for what?  Do we sit here and whine about what cannot be done, or do we instead find a way to make it happen?  I'd rather be part of the solution than part of the problem.

cmleaver, hold on there, please tone it down a notch.  TARSAR isn't pounding his chest, he is merely pointing out that he has a lot more experience with databases and networks than you do.  He was politely pointing out that it is not as easy you want to make is sound.  You are bringing up things that have been addressed in earlier posts.

I do know, though, that it wouldn't be terribly difficult to allow an export from the cloud-based storage to a local database of similar design.

You are WAY over simplifying this.  Without even getting into the technical issues with syncing data, you are not taking into account things like security, not to mention all the support questions this would cause for us.

We reasoned out that the offline mode of the web-based application would not synch across multiple computers even if they were networked together.  Therefore, we have not used the offline mode, yet.

You might want to give the existing offline capabilities a try.  MM offline has a lot to offer when there is no cellular internet available.

So, if I am following you, you are telling me that the fat client works off of its own local database, but that database is unique to each machine and cannot be shared across multiple machines.  Is this correct?

Yes, this is correct.  Its not a "database" its called browser "local storage".  If you look back in this thread you will see more about this.  Browsers do not allow the sharing of this local storage across a local network.  If you want to change that, here's the link to Google's Chrome support forum: https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!forum/chrome

Upon what data do you base your disagreement?  My coordinator has responded to Haiti, Joplin, and the Illinois tornadoes.  He's never had cell service in the affected areas...

I never said that cell service never went down.  I was responding to your comment: "Very low to zero - they are instantly overloaded or down during any sort of emergency.  That's just fact."  Cell service is not always affected in any emergency, as you said, there are plenty of emergency's where cell service remains unaffected. That's just a fact.  Firetrucks don't float in floods, that doesn't mean we toss them out for everything else.  Experienced first responders adapt to the tools available for the given situation, MM is one of those "tools" your team needs to use when appropriate and adapt when it is not.

Regarding your reference to satellite service - I can only think it is a joke and not meant seriously.  Satellite phones are way beyond the means of a simple CERT team.

No it was not a "joke".  Setting up a local network, servers, and computers like you are asking for will most likely cost more than a satellite phone.  You might look into crowd-sourcing or trying to find a company sponsor who will donate one to your team. 

[cmleaver]

cmleaver, hold on there, please tone it down a notch.  TARSAR isn't pounding his chest, he is merely pointing out that he has a lot more experience with databases and networks than you do.  He was politely pointing out that it is not as easy you want to make is sound.  You are bringing up things that have been addressed in earlier posts.

I believe you misunderstood the point I was trying to make.  He wants to strut out his experience.  Fine, I can strut out mine.  To what avail?  It's the equivalent of apes beating their chests.  Are we such a rudimentary "civilization" that we establish a pecking order thusly?  I hope not.  Further, he's done nothing to establish he has more IT experience than I.  Years don't mean anything if you're not constantly stretching yourself.  Given his focus on what cannot be done, I'm not convinced he is more experienced than I.  But the point is we should not be nay-saying things.  We should be finding ways to make them happen, or remain silent.

You are WAY over simplifying this.  Without even getting into the technical issues with syncing data, you are not taking into account things like security, not to mention all the support questions this would cause for us.

In the model I proposed security is not a huge concern.  Local security accounts can be created on the host machine with various levels of access.  When one connects to the host machine, one uses the access level necessary to get the job done.  It's not fundamentally different than AD security.

You might want to give the existing offline capabilities a try.  MM offline has a lot to offer when there is no cellular internet available.

I had gathered from other discussion that it wasn't a good idea.  Since you suggested  it, we will.

So, if I am following you, you are telling me that the fat client works off of its own local database, but that database is unique to each machine and cannot be shared across multiple machines.  Is this correct?

Yes, this is correct.  Its not a "database" its called browser "local storage".  If you look back in this thread you will see more about this.  Browsers do not allow the sharing of this local storage across a local network.  If you want to change that, here's the link to Google's Chrome support forum: https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!forum/chrome

No, no, no.  You misunderstood the question.  I was talking about a fat client - a local installation of an application like MS Office or Adobe Acrobat - not the web-based version.  If still not following please go back and re-read the original post which I will edit my quote problem here in a second.

I never said that cell service never went down.  I was responding to your comment: "Very low to zero - they are instantly overloaded or down during any sort of emergency.  That's just fact."  Cell service is not always affected in any emergency, as you said, there are plenty of emergency's where cell service remains unaffected. That's just a fact.  Firetrucks don't float in floods, that doesn't mean we toss them out for everything else.  Experienced first responders adapt to the tools available for the given situation, MM is one of those "tools" your team needs to use when appropriate and adapt when it is not.

Sure we can go to pen and paper, but who wants to?  It's much simpler to use a sign-in sheet for a training.  We'd rather use Mission Manager, though, as it's one less piece of paper to lose as well as it saves on having to manually enter time keeping data later.  Why have redundant work?

Now we get to an actual emergency.  That last thing we have time for is to do things twice.  That's why we would love it if MM worked offline.

I have to work in the scenarios that are reality for me.  The reality is that our two most likely disasters are a tornado or a nuclear incident.  Both, in our estimation, have a high probability of causing disruptions to cell service.  That's our reality.

No it was not a "joke".  Setting up a local network, servers, and computers like you are asking for will most likely cost more than a satellite phone.  You might look into crowd-sourcing or trying to find a company sponsor who will donate one to your team.

Again, this doesn't match our reality.  I was able to get 6 laptops and 6 desktops donated by my employer.  They were going to send them off for electronics disposal simply because they came from a merger and weren't to our specs.  TechSoup means we got all of our software needs for ~ $400.  A couple of new laptops batteries and we are up and running.  (That doesn't count my labor, but who ever counts that anyway?)  If a local client/server version of MM were made available, I would simply re-purpose one of the desktops as a server.  I'd go back to TechSoup for a Server license and CALs on the skinny and be all set in a heartbeat.  Or maybe I would just donate some of mine.

Maybe the real problem here is that we're over-generalizing in order to make our points?

Edit:  Just so we are clear, my original statement about cell service was that reliable service would be low to zero.  We have not used MM to a great extent, but I have a feeling that information updates would not be timely with sporadic cell service.

[cmleaver]

You know what?  Just forget what I have tried to say.  I'm new here and not familiar with the culture.  Apparently the way I see things and express them isn't in harmony with said culture.  So I'll refrain from suggesting new things and make sure to just search for things and add a simple "yes please" vote to ones that already exist.

[TARSAR]

Oddly I don't really recall strutting my experience so much as mentioning it as a point of reference for my comments.  I have no reason to attempt to impress people with any technical savvy, it makes no difference to most and doesn't serve much purpose.  Most of my participation in this forum is to ask the rare question, but also help where I can.  If you perceive that it's posturing then you've misunderstood my intent or my intent was not clearly stated by me.

I'm definitely not a whiner, but I am a realist.  Could a small cert team setup a network with a database engine capable of running MM?  Sure they can.  It would be fairly easy with simple hardware and a freely available Linux OS to run the server and the workstations.  The issue was and still is a matter of the database sync to the source.  I'll assume you know the potential complications with syncing data between two DB servers, especially during those times that solid connectivity can't be counted on.  It can be done but it can be tricky.

Anyway, not here to argue, just here to help where I can.

[cmleaver]

Oddly I don't really recall strutting my experience so much as mentioning it as a point of reference for my comments.  I have no reason to attempt to impress people with any technical savvy, it makes no difference to most and doesn't serve much purpose.  Most of my participation in this forum is to ask the rare question, but also help where I can.  If you perceive that it's posturing then you've misunderstood my intent or my intent was not clearly stated by me.

Thank you for clarifying that you didn't mean anything negative.  I guess this is my experience coming out.  I find that in general, people who need to quote their experience to back their claims aren't as knowledgeable as they claim to be.  As I pointed out to the Admin, "years of experience" doesn't necessarily mean much to me.  If someone isn't constantly growing and expanding, then they really don't have those years of experience they claim.  I'm not saying that is the case with you, just that this is my overall impression of people who feel the need to quote their experience to back their reasoning.

I'm definitely not a whiner, but I am a realist.  Could a small cert team setup a network with a database engine capable of running MM?  Sure they can.  It would be fairly easy with simple hardware and a freely available Linux OS to run the server and the workstations.  The issue was and still is a matter of the database sync to the source.  I'll assume you know the potential complications with syncing data between two DB servers, especially during those times that solid connectivity can't be counted on.  It can be done but it can be tricky.

Anyway, not here to argue, just here to help where I can.

You and I don't know each other at all.  So we have no basis, other than what is said, to base our experience upon.  I've worked in multiple AD corporate environments across several different industries.  I understand security in that environment.  I also do small-business consulting.  So I set up security in work group environments as well.  My home network is set up this way, and that includes shared resources and applications from a central server.

Based upon what you said above, I'm not sure that you are following my proposed solution.  My proposed solution for an offline database has one machine hosting the database in a multi-access format such as MySQL.  Other computers access this data from the host machine across a local network.  This simulates how MM is set up now, just moving the database location from the cloud to a local machine.  This is rather straightforward and not uber-complex to set up.  It would require some sort of guide, though, to ensure setups were uniform.  IMO, the biggest challenge in this setup would be support for those who tried it but were not experienced enough.

My proposed solution places the data permanently offline.  An awesome next step would be to make a method to synch from the local database (offline) to the cloud database (online).  This increase the complexity is exponential over just keeping a separation between offline and online.  The only possibility that comes to mind is some sort of massive CSV export/import, but that is over my head in knowing how it would work.  Don't get me wrong, it's a pipe dream.  But it would certainly be the absolute best possible scenario because in essence you would have a cloud backup of your offline data should you lose it.

Oh.  In re-reading your post before submitting, I think your concern is about the second half of what I talked about - synching from local to cloud.  In proposing my offline solution, I was completely discounting this as an option, initially.  I figured start to finish the offline solution would be used.  So all data would be built out in the offline/local database.  Does that make sense?

[Radishworks]

My proposed solution for an offline database has one machine hosting the database in a multi-access format such as MySQL.  Other computers access this data from the host machine across a local network.  This simulates how MM is set up now, just moving the database location from the cloud to a local machine.  This is rather straightforward and not uber-complex to set up.

cmleaver, While I appreciate your enthusiasm in wanting to make your point, you are still WAY over simplifying this.  In a final effort to close this thread I will point out just a few things that you are not taking into consideration:

• Just having a MySQL database on a server isn't enough, the server would also need to be running and Apache HTTP Server.  Clients cannot directly access databases without the sever running some sort of code like PHP.  Now you are talking about 2 different applications that need to be administered on a server, not to mention all the IP and network configurations.  As you correctly pointed out "It would require some sort of guide, though, to ensure setups were uniform.", This would be a different "guide" for every different version of Windows, iOS, or Linux, even if you picked Windows only support you would run into differences unless all the machines were the same version.  Administrating a network, server with MySQL and Apache is not just point and click like sharing a drive or a print server.
  
  
• MM is a Web based application for a reason, as pointed out several times, the most popular and useful features are the "Team" features: Members information, Messaging, Time Keeping, etc.  These features ONLY make sense if they are Web based.  Each of your team members being able to login from anywhere to update their contact information, sending messages to your team, these features all require the Internet and would not function on a local network.  All this Member information, messaging, calendars, time keeping, etc. are integrated into missions.   Just making all "mission data" local and keeping all the other information in the cloud becomes a VERY complex issue.  The whole point of MM is when it comes to running a mission you always have the most up-to-date member information, your proposal completely breaks this fundamental design. 
  
  
• You are totally ignoring the fact the MM continues to improve and change.  This includes changes to the database design and server code.  How would you expect a local server to "update" to the latest version of MM?  A manual process would require a server administrator (who know how to do such things) to update not only the MM code, but possibly the MySQL and Apache servers.  Do you know how to do that?  What happens when someone is running a local server or database format that's out of date with the current version of MM in the cloud, would you expect MM to still work?
  
  
• What about server backup? Would you expect MM to create an automated process you can run on your server to backup your data? Backing up MySQL databases usually requires some sort of command line script, then the data needs to be moved to another machine somehow, this would be unique for every network.
  
  
• Have you considered all the security issues? Should you expect people to login when they are using a local network?  If so, would this password be the same as their cloud version?  Think about how complicated this would get.  If you are expecting your local version of MM to talk to the cloud version, have you thought about all the security issues that would expose into your teams information?
  
  
• Lastly, I will point out that you are using a free service and getting free support.  There is not an army of programmers here just waiting to fill your every feature request or respond to every post.

Please lets put an end to this thread.  As has been said, a MM local server support is possible but its not high priority, it is not as simple as you continue to propose.  If MM doesn't meet your all your teams needs I would suggest you find and use another tool.

Mike

[TARSAR]

Based upon what you said above, I'm not sure that you are following my proposed solution.  My proposed solution for an offline database has one machine hosting the database in a multi-access format such as MySQL.  Other computers access this data from the host machine across a local network.  This simulates how MM is set up now, just moving the database location from the cloud to a local machine.  This is rather straightforward and not uber-complex to set up.  It would require some sort of guide, though, to ensure setups were uniform.  IMO, the biggest challenge in this setup would be support for those who tried it but were not experienced enough.

My proposed solution places the data permanently offline.  An awesome next step would be to make a method to synch from the local database (offline) to the cloud database (online).  This increase the complexity is exponential over just keeping a separation between offline and online.  The only possibility that comes to mind is some sort of massive CSV export/import, but that is over my head in knowing how it would work.  Don't get me wrong, it's a pipe dream.  But it would certainly be the absolute best possible scenario because in essence you would have a cloud backup of your offline data should you lose it.

Oh.  In re-reading your post before submitting, I think your concern is about the second half of what I talked about - synching from local to cloud.  In proposing my offline solution, I was completely discounting this as an option, initially.  I figured start to finish the offline solution would be used.  So all data would be built out in the offline/local database.  Does that make sense?

You're correct that I hadn't considered that you were wanting a completely offline solution.  I would suspect the only potential option for running it purely on your own network would be to have a database dump from the source DB, which would include relationships and permissions, in addition to the complete source code to the site itself.  Having that would allow you to setup your own installation of MM.  The code would have to be altered to facilitate the change in computer names, userids/passwords, and relative paths to the various web and db "services".  Since MM is a web based, you'd need a properly configured LAMP or WAMP stack (assuming it's been created on that platform) for it to work.  One thing I'm not sure of is whether all organizations are contained in a single DB or whether each gets its own DB, but that could be a consideration as far as data security goes.

My thought initially was that in the event of a deployment in an emergency situation you wanted to "dump" the online DB to your own server and then run the event from there.  That's why I had mentioned that ability to sync the data (could be read download as well) since you were deploying in response to an emergency and communications could already be compromised.  If you were running your own server on the network, you'd still need to consider the availability of internet connectivity in order to use the mapping feature along with the various overlay components. 

At the end of the day, there are many technical issues to work out, but perhaps with programming assistance from qualified and approved developers this could be an option.  My initial (and current) concerns would be that at what level is the expectation of support from the developer moving from fixing his code on his hosting platform to assisting every unit and their various IT infrastructures going to be counter productive to the overall success of this project.  There is one "possible" solution that could make it somewhat "portable", that would be if he were to create a VM of his hosting platform and make that available, but that would make code and database updates very difficult to the end users of the VM.  Just an idea.  VMware ESXi is free, and linux is free, the major cost would be hardware and the developers time...which I'll assume is stretched pretty thin already.

[cmleaver]

TARSAR - thank you for taking the time to actually understand what I am talking about.  It makes things a lot simpler.

You're correct that I hadn't considered that you were wanting a completely offline solution.  I would suspect the only potential option for running it purely on your own network would be to have a database dump from the source DB, which would include relationships and permissions, in addition to the complete source code to the site itself.  Having that would allow you to setup your own installation of MM.  The code would have to be altered to facilitate the change in computer names, userids/passwords, and relative paths to the various web and db "services".  Since MM is a web based, you'd need a properly configured LAMP or WAMP stack (assuming it's been created on that platform) for it to work.

Here is where I think you missed one thing I said originally.  My proposed offline solution would use a fat client instead of the existing web app.  That would eliminate the complexities of the web-server back end.  It would also make configuration simpler.  You could either punch all the settings in manually, or have the installation of the server-side app as a final step generate an XML with the settings that you could then import into the clients.

One thing I'm not sure of is whether all organizations are contained in a single DB or whether each gets its own DB, but that could be a consideration as far as data security goes.

Individual databases would be more resource consuming.  I'm assuming they are shared, but load-balanced across multiple DB servers in some sort of a cluster.

My thought initially was that in the event of a deployment in an emergency situation you wanted to "dump" the online DB to your own server and then run the event from there.  ...  If you were running your own server on the network, you'd still need to consider the availability of internet connectivity in order to use the mapping feature along with the various overlay components.

No, this option never occurred to me.  If using a fat client solution, I would like to see it link to a mapping app such as Streets and Trips.

My initial (and current) concerns would be that at what level is the expectation of support from the developer moving from fixing his code on his hosting platform to assisting every unit and their various IT infrastructures going to be counter productive to the overall success of this project.

I admit this is something I had not thought about, yet.

[TARSAR]

Do keep in mind that a "fat client" scenario would require an entirely different code base since none of this is programmed as standalone application.   Moving from .php to any other platform (C, C++, VB, Java, Perl, etc) would be quite a project to do.  Interesting wish list item, but not sure how feasible.

[cmleaver]

cmleaver, While I appreciate your enthusiasm in wanting to make your point, you are still WAY over simplifying this.  In a final effort to close this thread I will point out just a few things that you are not taking into consideration:

Mike - There is are reasons I keep pushing this.  1) I am not getting answers to simple questions that would help me better understand the product.  2) You are not understanding how I am trying to address this design suggestion.  These two, combined, have cause you to come to some very wrong conclusions about what I am trying to say.  As a result, you're assuming that I am not thinking about a lot of things when in reality I have not addressed them because I am stuck needing basic information.

The most important question, which I have asked multiple times now, is this:  Is there another version of MM available, a fat client version?  I've seen it mentioned elsewhere, so need to understand that first.  Had that been answered when first asked, a lot of this could have been avoided.

I'll address your individual points without quoting them.

1) If using a fat client, as I am suggesting, then web services are not required.  This is where actually understanding where I am coming from helps.  You're assuming things that are not true and then knocking me for over-simplifying when you failed to provide the information I needed.

2) On the contrary, we specifically make the time to update all that information at meetings.  Further, we don't want people sending messages via Mission Manager.  We have a communications SOP that defines when to use e-mail, text, and phone calls.  No other method is authorized for regular team members.

More importantly, though, I don't understand why you are arguing against splitting the data up - half locally and half in the cloud.  No one has suggested that.  Especially not me.  That makes it a straw man.  Nicely done!

3) Not mentioning a point does not equal ignoring it.  It's kinda hard to address advanced items when you have yet to answer basic questions - like about a fat client.

As a developer, I can only hope that you understand the concept of version control.  I trust that you put updates out on a schedule, with the requisite notifications to clients, and not just randomly shove updates into production and hope for the best?  If you know anything about version control then you know how to address updates correctly and you know that it is a straight-forward process.  Yes, it requires downtime.  Yes, it can be cumbersome.  But it's not that hard to prepare a service update/pack and e-mail a link to your clients so that they can download it from an FTP site and apply at their leisure.  Since I am running completely stand-alone, it doesn't make a difference when I update, as long as I update all components at the same time.  The only warning I would need is that I would not be able to run a backup to the cloud unless I was on the latest version.

Let me clarify on the statement "backup to the cloud."  This is my phase two of my proposed solution.  This would allow the use of the product online or offline with the synching of the data.  This provides absolute redundancy of the data.  Yes, I am aware of the many, many, many issues in setting up such a complex beast.  As I have previously stated, it is of course a pipe-dream and if we are dreaming, we might as well dream big.

4) Got backup software?  That's really all I need to say.  Maybe you're thinking of everything in terms of Linux/UNIX.  I'm thinking of everything in terms of Windows and as a non-profit TechSoup is my friend.

5) Again, you and I are not talking about the same thing.  You are assuming a hybrid on/off-line environment.  I am not.  What I am proposing would be totally offline, so anything online doesn't matter to me.

6) You don't need to point this out.  I know this very well.  Yet again, if you'd answer a basic question I have already asked...  Is Radishworks ownership keen on only using their own developers, or are they willing to crowd-source development?

Unemployment is high, and there are a lot of young developers keen to build out their profiles.  I can imagine plenty who would be willing to take on some code as long as they could list it in their portfolio.  It would allow you to concentrate on specific higher-profile bug-fixes and overall guidance of product development. 

Please lets put an end to this thread.  As has been said, a MM local server support is possible but its not high priority, it is not as simple as you continue to propose.

Happy to end it, if I can get answers to two simple questions.  Thank you!

[cmleaver]

Do keep in mind that a "fat client" scenario would require an entirely different code base since none of this is programmed as standalone application.   Moving from .php to any other platform (C, C++, VB, Java, Perl, etc) would be quite a project to do.  Interesting wish list item, but not sure how feasible.

I didn't see your reply earlier before I composed my lengthly one back to the Admin.  I actually (thought I) saw it mentioned elsewhere that there already was a fat client as a stand-alone.  If that is not the case, then my proposal falls apart quickly.

[TARSAR]

There are some applications that tie in to MM (http://sarapp.com/ comes to mind) for the purpose of mobility, but then again it's based on the assumption that your phone has internet connectivity.

One thing I'm seeing that's breaking down a bit of communication is/was the belief that there is an application that could be installed on a workstation.   To date I'm not aware that there is or has been.  Surely the concept of moving the database locally in the case of locally installed applications would be doable, but since there isn't, you should now be able to see where our perspective was coming from.  The free exchange of ideas is a key part of any publicly used site or web app's life cycle and improvement.  Mike knew there wasn't an app and you thought there was...pretty easy to see where differing perspectives influence the tone of the conversation.

Ultimately we're all here for the same basic reason, easier management of field operations and searches. 

[cmleaver]

but then again it's based on the assumption that your phone has internet connectivity.

I sure would like to know where this decision was made in the initial development cycle.  In my very limited experience, it's just not realistic to assume that there will be reliable service.

One thing I'm seeing that's breaking down a bit of communication is/was the belief that there is an application that could be installed on a workstation.   To date I'm not aware that there is or has been.  Surely the concept of moving the database locally in the case of locally installed applications would be doable, but since there isn't, you should now be able to see where our perspective was coming from.  The free exchange of ideas is a key part of any publicly used site or web app's life cycle and improvement.  Mike knew there wasn't an app and you thought there was...pretty easy to see where differing perspectives influence the tone of the conversation.

I cannot find where I saw it.  I am sure it was in a thread here somewhere.  I read a few other threads before I posted in this one and then started the other one.  I just wish I could remember where I saw reference to a fat client app.