I'm curious what would be the best approach for synchronizing data found on a website like craigslist where an API is not available.
Let's say you have already downloaded a set of posts. When you want to update the posts, what is the best way to compare what you already have with what is there, and then determine which ones are new to download and which ones should be deleted because they no longer exist on the server?
Please note my question isn't specific to craigslist, as this is just an example. I'm interested in general principles/techniques with specific regards to iOS.
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I am working on an app that will access an external database that needs to be able to load quickly. This is our own database, and the issue is where to store it for the fastest loading time. Currently, the database resides on a wpengine website, but it loads very slowly. One option is uploading a .plist file sporadically to the user's app when new data is available; it seems like that might not be very secure - although it would probably make accessing the data lightning fast. I was thinking that possibly CloudKit shared storage would be the best place to store the data if I wanted to keep it fast and also keep users from viewing it directly. I would appreciate any thoughts or suggestions.
As far as I understand, CloudKit will be OK for you. You can have a look at NSHipster's excellent summary here.
You also have a link to a tutorial in the comments above. If you want to discuss it further, don't hesitate to contact me through chat.
I am looking to build an iOS app and website that work 'together'.
What the plan is for each:
On the iOS side, it will be pushing information to the server in the form of a post. The users will then be able to vote up and down on the posts as well; which also implies they will be able to see the other users information (in real time).
The website will be viewing this information in real time and using the posts. If a post gets enough down votes the server should tell the website and apps to remove it.
I have experience with SQL. Although SQL does not seem to be the appropriate server choice - for what I want to do - given my experience with it. (I could definitely be wrong.)
I would like to host the information myself, however have heard that Parse is good about holding information for iOS apps. I just don't know whether it gives you enough freedom to work with websites as well.
TL;DR: What kind of database/datastore should I use for a real time queries that allows for push notifications?
All suggestions are welcome. Thank you.
Try Using FireBase
firebase.google.com
Documentation
I am trying to collect some information on the usage of quizzes and turnitin.com enabled dropboxes for specific courses within the d2l database. All I really need is a way to tell via valence whether or not a course offering has a turnitin.com enabled dropbox and/or a quiz associated with it, though other useful information would be nice as well. Is there a way to do this with valence? I should note that I am aware of how to access a list of standard dropboxes, but I cannot seem to find how to tell if that particular dropbox is turnitin.com enabled. I have no starting point for quizzes. I appreciate your help, and please let me know if I can clarify anything. Thank you.
There is no current way to identify, through Valence, a TurnItIn enabled Dropbox. Our TurnItIn integration is an extension available to customers who have the appropriate TurnItIn licensing. Because we cannot assume it is in place, we cannot expose this data through Valence. I am not sure if this information would be available through TurnItIn API's.
In regards to Quizzes, today we don't have Quiz data exposed through Valence. One option for you, which isn't perfect, would be to parse through Content Topics looking for Quicklinks which contain a reference type of quiz. This would provide you with a list of how many quizzes are linked into the course's content experience.
I'm rather new to IOS but i managed to get my app to display a list of blog posts from RSS feeds. I would like to give my users the ability to save the blog posts for reading later when they might not have an internet connection.
I will do this through a setting in the settings bundle. I do not however know what the best way is to store blog posts within my app. I am already using core data, would this be a good option for it?
If you are already using a persistence option then use it for everything, don't mix and match.
If you are already using Core Data then yes it makes sense to keep using it throughout the application for consistency and maintainability.
Im thinking about learn to develop app for iOS. I had a lot of ideas, but most of them i would need the API of that website. For example: http://www.filmaffinity.com/en/main.html
The point is: is there any other possibility of collect/use information of a site without the API, anything else without the typical parsing or scraping?
Thanks you
To get the most up to date information to your users, you would need to use the API. If you want to store the data locally, you could do some initial scraping and build up your own database and distribute it within your app. This approach is not ideal because your data may become out of date quickly (unless you have a database update mechanism) and the owners of the sites you are scraping may not take too kindly on the matter