TaskPaper for iPhone and my Google App Engine account

[Pedro Fardilha]

Hi there.

I just bought TaskPaper for iPhone and decided to use the Google App
Engine account option, as described on this great tutorial:
http://knol.google.com/k/host-your-own-simpletext-ws-site-with-apps-engine

But no matter what I do, TaskPaper.iphone refuses to connect to my
server.
I double checked the server address, the account type and of course my
ID and password.
They are all correct but still every time that I try to sync, it
returns to popup asking for the password.

Just to play it safe, I decided to install the SimpleText client on my
mac to see if I could get a better error log.
To my surprise, using exactly the same settings that I'm using on the
iPhone, the mac client can connect without any problem.

Does anyone know what could it be?

Thank you all.
Pedro Fardilha


--
Subscription settings: http://groups.google.com/group/simpletextws/subscribe?hl=en

[Jon Skovron]

Do you have the latest version of the Simpletext code? Also, did you
have an older version deployed first? I've had the experience once
where I deployed a new version but for some reason GoogleAppsEngine
didn't set the new version to the default, so when I tried to use the
service, it was still using the old code version. You can check that
by looking at the versioning in your Google Apps Engine account.

On Apr 25, 7:28 pm, Pedro Fardilha <pe...@fardilha.net> wrote:
> Hi there.
>
> I just bought TaskPaper for iPhone and decided to use the Google App

> Engine account option, as described on this great tutorial:http://knol.google.com/k/host-your-own-simpletext-ws-site-with-apps-e...

[Pedro Fardilha]

Hi.

I just downloaded (and deployed) SimpleText yesterday for the first
time.
So, the code is the latest one and I don't have any other version that
the engine could me "mixing".

What confuses me most is why I don't have any problem when connecting
using the Mac app, but the iPhone one simply can't.

Thanks!
Pedro

[Jon Skovron]

That's totally weird and makes me think it's got to be something with
the iPhone client. I assume you have the latest version? Are you
allowing the app to be used by anyone with a Gmail login or are you
restricting it?

[Pedro Fardilha]

Hi Jon.
Thanks for keep on helping.

Yes, I'm using the latest version of the iPhone client.
In fact, I just bought it a few days ago, so it's as fresh as it can
get. ;)

My email service (@fardilha.net) is thru the free Google Apps Standard
Edition, so I have the login restricted to my domain.
On the mac client I have the account type to "hosted" and the service
host as either "https://fardilha-simpletext.appspot.com/" or "http://
simpletext.fardilha.net" and it works just fine.
(I know that I'm supposed to rebrand the web interface, as asked by
Jesse Grosjean and I did it on the first time that I deployed, but
after getting all this problems I deleted it and decided not to change
anything until all this is sorted out)

So maybe you are right and it has something to do with the iPhone
client and the fact that I'm restricting it to a specific domain.
Since my iPhone is jailbraked if there's some kind of log there
somewhere, I would gladly send it to the dev, I just can't seem to
find it.

Thanks and take care.
Pedro Fardilha

[Jon Skovron]

Ah, I've heard reports from other users that restrict logins that they
have had difficulties.I host mine on a google apps account
txt.jonskovron.com but I actually login with my Gmail. I keep it all
open and unrestricted. My thinking is this: It's not like someone else
who logs in will see my documents, and I don't pay for the bandwidth
someone else might use, so I don't really care if other people use it
to host their documents. As far as I'm concerned they are welcome to
it.

Here is what Jesse suggested a while back as a configuration set-up
option that might work for you. I've passed it on to a few people who
have a similar set up but haven't heard back from any of them whether
it worked or not, so YMMV:

1. Get Documents.com code.
2. Create app on app engine. Use authentication option "Restricted to
the following Google Apps domain" with url hogbaysoftware.com.
3. Change ID in code to ID of newly created app
4. Add app engine service to Google Apps account. (maybe this is the
step you were missing) You need to do this from your Google Apps admin
page, add service.

Then I deployed the app, waited for indexes to build. Then I signed on
and synced with the following settings:

Host: http://myauthtest.appspot.com
Account Type: HOSTED

If that doesn't work, and you feel comfortable doing so, try opening
it up and see if that works. I've heard it's helped others.

[Pedro Fardilha]

Hi Jon.

Thank you for all this, but I'm almost giving up.

I had the app engine service on my Apps account, like you mentioned on
step 4, so it couldn't be it.
Indeed if I open the registration to any gmail (or Google's) account
the problem goes any, but that doesn't really help me do what I was
trying to do.
Strange enough, and contrary to what it's stated on the info, my
Google Apps emails keeps working as it does my standard gmail one.
Google clearly states: "Open to all Google Accounts users - If your
application uses authentication, anyone with a valid Google Account
may sign in. (This includes all Gmail Accounts, but does *not* include
accounts on any Google Apps domains.)", but still my domain account
keeps on working when I use this option!

Since all this was just a step to eventually make it work under a
virtual machine on my mac mini server, the "free for all" approach
doesn't solve my problem.
After all, if I end up deploying it at home, the cpu usage, disk space
and the bandwidth are something that I need to be able to control a
little better.

Again, thank you for you nice responses and at least I found this
before buying the mac version of TaskPaper (I'm using the 30 days demo
on the mac and the paid version on the iPhone).
Guess that this mean that I need to keep searching for a notes/todo
solution that privately sincs between my Mac and iPhone, but man, that
makes me sad!
I was actually enjoying the simple but efficient interface of
TaskPaper and starting to understand why the "surprisingly adept" on
the description.

If the dev happens to browse thru this post, would he be kind enough
and maybe drop a few lines just to let us (me ;) know if he's aware of
this problem and if (even without a date) he's considering log a few
hours to look at it?
I would gladly prefer to wait, knowing that eventually this would be
sorted out instead of having to start my search again.
(Omni makes a really good product but it's just overkill for my needs)

Thank you and take care.
Pedro Fardilha

[Tom Holt]

Hey guys, I've got the exact same problem.

I've got a Google Apps for Domains, and a small work group, trying to
figure out a nice way to do a Shared Taskpaper (mac,iphone,ipad)

So, I grabbed the simpletext.ws, and I got it up and running AppEngine
and added to my Google Apps Domain. I can login just fine via the web
interface and SimpleText on the Mac works as expected. However, both
TaskPaper and WriteRoom cannot access, just keep getting prompted for
username/pass. I checked the logs on App Engine Dashboard and it's
showing 401's and I'm seeing a - for the username in the log. I
wonder if there's a bug in the WriteRoom/TaskPaper for iPhone apps
when you've changed to a hosted simpletext?

Here's the log lines...

SimpleText on the Mac
99.73.73.203 - swsupport [18/May/2010:15:02:11 -0700] "GET /v1/
documents HTTP/1.1" 304 261 - "SimpleText/19 CFNetwork/454.9.4 Darwin/
10.3.0 (i386) (iMac8%2C1),gzip(gfe)"

Chrome on the Mac
99.73.73.203 - swsupport [18/May/2010:15:02:17 -0700] "GET /v1/
documents HTTP/1.1" 304 261 "http://sinewavetext.appspot.com/documents/
documents/B5FF4E9903A08C1C9AB519BAAE818E2F.cache.html" "Mozilla/5.0
(Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10_6_3; en-US) AppleWebKit/533.9 (KHTML,
like Gecko) Chrome/6.0.401.1 Safari/533.9,gzip(gfe)"

TaskPaper on iPhone
99.73.73.203 - - [18/May/2010:14:48:22 -0700] "GET /v1/documents HTTP/
1.1" 401 124 - "TaskPaper/14 CFNetwork/459 Darwin/10.0.0d3,gzip(gfe)"

WriteRoom on iPhone
99.73.73.203 - - [18/May/2010:14:44:11 -0700] "GET /v1/documents HTTP/
1.1" 401 124 - "WriteRoom/2.6 CFNetwork/459 Darwin/10.0.0d3,gzip(gfe)"

[Pedro Fardilha]

Hi.

I might be wrong, since this is just a feeling, but I would say that
we can forget about simpletext.ws.
Why do I think this?

Simple:
• Hog Bay Software is a one person company.
• Between TaskPaper and WriteRoom for Mac, iPhone and iPad I have
serious doubts that the dev will have time in a near future to make
simpletext.ws behave better with outside scenarios, like Google Apps
Domain.
• To make it work on the Mac in a similar way that it does in the
iDevices the dev would have to better integrate the simpletext.ws in
the apps and that means extra work on something that it's a little
outside the core aspects of the apps.
• There's plenty other things in the waiting line (My favorite:
Printing templates or at least the ability of use the selected Theme
as the print format)

And probably the "game changer" since simpletext.ws was created:

• I would say that the dev is really enjoying Dropbox API and that
would be the future that he's heading to.

Since I'm a privacy paranoid myself I would rather have the chance of
using my own WebDAV server or something similar but I guess that
either we take what we got or we go looking somewhere else.
Personally I'm finding TaskPaper quite useful to ease my mental
confusion so I'll take a "wait and see" attitude and I'll keep seeing
what this nice app will end up being able to do.

Pedro

[Jesse Grosjean]

Pedro,

For many of the reasons that you list, you are correct, simpletext.ws
isn't likely to evolve any furthure. SimpleText was a neccessary
effort, because before the Dropbox API became availble there was no
good service to keep files synced between Mac and iPhone.

But now that Dropbox API is availible I'm planning to hand all the
server hosting issues over to them so that I have more time for my
core application development.

It's unlikely that I'll add other sync support (such as webdav)
anytime soon. But I am changing my storage model to plain text files
stored in your Documents folder on the iPhone. That means that you'll
be able to use iTunes to add remove documents... you won't need to go
through cloud to get data to and from your Mac.

Right now the iTunes method of accessing those files is pretty
horrid... but I would expect that to get better over time... at some
point I Apple (or a an open source webdav server from iphone) is
bound to provide a sane way to get files between your mac and iphone.

Jesse

> Since I'm a privacy paranoid myself I would rather have the chance of
> using my own WebDAV server or something similar but I guess that
> either we take what we got or we go looking somewhere else.
> Personally I'm finding TaskPaper quite useful to ease my mental
> confusion so I'll take a "wait and see" attitude and I'll keep seeing
> what this nice app will end up being able to do.

Jesse

[Pedro Fardilha]

Hi Jesse.

Thank you so much for your answer.

I understand that for you simpletext.ws was a "necessary evil" to
allow your apps to talk to the rest of the world.
And I'm glad that iTunes sync will be an option in the future.

Unfortunately I'm not only a privacy paranoid but also some sort of
nomad worker.
And between my iMac at home as my main computer, my MacBook Pro as my
"mobile office", my Mac mini as a (mini) server (great for pushing
calendar syncs and having my own cloud-ish file server) and my iPhone
as my "brain extension" I guess that the always synced under the
(Dropbox) cloud option will prevail to the local only iTunes Syncing.

So count me in to buy the Mac version as soon as my 30 days trial
period end. ;)

Keep up the good work!
(And whatever you do, please, keep on the simple but highly functional
line that makes TaskPaper apart from the rest)
Pedro