BlackBerry 10 Client? - Page 2

robn · 20 Apr 2015, 07:23 AM

I didn't realise the CalDAV in BB 10 was so deficient. 12 hours is pretty ridiculous.

I don't really understand what you mean about the syncing/two calendars thing. In our testing it works like it did with every other client - you'd make changes to your BB calendar, and after sync they appear in the FastMail web interface and/or other CalDAV client, and vice-versa.

In this case the FastMail app wouldn't help you anyway. Its a thin wrapper around the web client so it doesn't (currently) work without network, and it doesn't make any attempt to integrate with native mail, calendar and contacts facilities. We prefer to support standard protocols and leave the syncing to native facilities or third-party apps. On iOS its native, on Android you need to choose from a variety of third-party connectors.

If we did a version of the app for Blackberry, it'd be the same situation - you'd still be reliant on the platform CalDAV support to use the native calendar. I don't know if there's a third-party CalDAV connector available with better features, but if there is it should just work with our server.

GeekOnTheHill · 20 Apr 2015, 07:42 AM

Thanks for your response.

When I set it up, after rebooting the BB, the FastMail calendar showed up as a second calendar which I could switch to. What I was hoping for was that it would integrate with the BB local calendar and merge the data.

This might be an unreasonable request because my one criticism of BlackBerry, having been a user practically since the devices existed, has always been the poor calendar support. It was designed to sync with Outlook and nothing else. RIM didn't even have a desktop interface of its own until they released Blend.

Google Calendar sync was added a few years ago, but even before I grew to detest Google, the Google Calendar sync was unreliable. It would sometimes get into some sort of loop and create a bazillion copies of the same appointments (and contacts), and other times would mysteriously delete some or all the information. And that was before Google started rivaling the U.S. NSA as an enemy of personal privacy. The way it stands now, I'd use a paper notepad and a pencil before using anything Google puts out.

The calendar in BlackBerry Blend provides a decent desktop interface for the native BB calendar, which is better than nothing; but I'd also like remote Web access, preferably with a sharing option. Also, for whatever bizarre reason, the BB backup is built into BlackBerry Link, not BlackBerry Blend; so after making changes to the calendar on the device or by using BlackBerry Blend on the desktop, you then have to switch to BlackBerry link to back it up. It's a minor inconvenience, but it's still an inconvenience.

I'm actually a Web developer by training and trade (semi-retired now), but I have zero experience coding for BB10. Maybe I should learn how to do it and then look into building a decent Web-based calendar app and selling it on BB World. It shouldn't be that hard... but then again, considering that I still haven't found one in all these years, maybe it's harder than I think.

Thanks again.

Richard

GeekOnTheHill · 20 Apr 2015, 08:12 AM

Actually, I think I was wrong about the 12-hour refresh interval. It looks like if you start in "Advanced" you can select a shorter time. That would solve one problem.

Now if there were some way to import / export the BB calendar into / out of Fastmail, I think I could live with that. At least it wouldn't require manually re-entering all the appointments. Do you know of such a way?

Thanks,

Richard

robn · 20 Apr 2015, 08:44 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by GeekOnTheHill

Now if there were some way to import / export the BB calendar into / out of Fastmail, I think I could live with that. At least it wouldn't require manually re-entering all the appointments. Do you know of such a way?

I don't know how to export from BB - any answer I found would be from experimenting and/or searching the web, so I'll leave that to you. Importing can be done through the web app via menu->import & export. If you can export a standard iCal file, we can import it.

GeekOnTheHill · 20 Apr 2015, 08:46 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by robn

I don't know how to export from BB - any answer I found would be from experimenting and/or searching the web, so I'll leave that to you. Importing can be done through the web app via menu->import & export. If you can export a standard iCal file, we can import it.

Thank you. I just un-canceled my account and will play with it for a while.

BB doesn't seem to have a native export function, but there's probably an app that will do it. I'll check.

Richard

GeekOnTheHill · 24 Apr 2015, 09:21 PM

I did get the calendar exported, though it took a cumbersome set of steps that I wouldn't recommend to others. But now it works well enough for my purposes.

There are still two separate calendars, which was not what I ideally would have wanted; but the permanent items (birthdays, anniversaries, and the like) don't change often enough for having to save them twice to be much of a bother, and the BB seems to remember the FM calendar data (including new events) even when it doesn't have a signal. It doesn't sync, of course, until it grabs a signal, but it's available to me on the device until it does.

That's acceptable. In practical terms, it means that I don't lose the information for my appointment when I get close to the location if the appointment location happens to be in a dead zone, and that I can view my next appointment and/or schedule a follow-up appointment while I'm there, which will sync once the device finds a signal. I can live with that.

Your email also works well on the BB. I don't know whether you're using BB Push or IMAP IDLE (or both), but whichever it is, it works. The mail shows up immediately on the device. Because one of the most important uses I have for this account is for failure notices from machines that I administer, that's important to me.

Now the one remaining challenge is CardDAV. Using the settings on your "servers and ports" page, it doesn't work with the BB's native CardDAV client. I suspect that the BB can't autodetect my account and I need the full URL to the CardDAV server to make it work. I have asked Support for that information last night, but have received no reply. Do you know the full URL to the CardDAV server?

Just to get back to the original thread topic for a moment, I suspect (without any evidence other than my own biases) that a lot of potential customers may choose your service in part because they hate Google. This can also be said about some BlackBerry users. I've been using BB's since there existed BB's, but I'm not married to the devices. If Android weren't so infested with Google spyware, I might have considered at least trying one.

The above is not to say that your service isn't better than Gmail in your own right, but Gmail is more well-known despite being younger; and some people who come to you are almost certainly Gmail refugees.

If all of the above are true, then it's not unreasonable to assume that users who stick with BB in part because they hate Google, and who shun Gmail for the same reason, might especially flock to FM if you offered a native app that completely avoids the need for the Android runtime or anything that even hints of a Google lineage.

Or maybe not. But it's something to think about.

Thanks,

Richard

robn · 24 Apr 2015, 09:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by GeekOnTheHill

Your email also works well on the BB. I don't know whether you're using BB Push or IMAP IDLE (or both), but whichever it is, it works.

It'll be IMAP IDLE there.

Quote:

Now the one remaining challenge is CardDAV. Using the settings on your "servers and ports" page, it doesn't work with the BB's native CardDAV client. I suspect that the BB can't autodetect my account and I need the full URL to the CardDAV server to make it work. I have asked Support for that information last night, but have received no reply. Do you know the full URL to the CardDAV server?

BB 10's CardDAV setup is pretty broken. Here's some instructions I put together when someone asked a few months ago: http://pastebin.com/dLsAUwZ8

I'll make sure they're included in the documenting when we get CardDAV out of beta.

GeekOnTheHill · 24 Apr 2015, 09:29 PM

Okay, thank you. I'll play with that for a while later on today.

Richard

GeekOnTheHill · 25 Apr 2015, 08:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by robn

It'll be IMAP IDLE there.

BB 10's CardDAV setup is pretty broken. Here's some instructions I put together when someone asked a few months ago: http://pastebin.com/dLsAUwZ8

I'll make sure they're included in the documenting when we get CardDAV out of beta.

Unfortunately, that did not work. BB replied with "an unexpected error has occurred," as opposed to the expected kind, I guess...

BB OS version is 10.3.1.1779, FYI.

My FM account is still on trial status. Is it possible that that has something to do with the problem?

Thanks,

Richard

robn · 25 Apr 2015, 08:45 PM

It worked in 10.1 when I tested it but I haven't looked into it since, and I don't have a Blackberry device here to test with right now (its late Saturday night and I'm at home).

CardDAV is available to verified trial users, but you still need to opt-in to the beta - its not in general release yet. If you haven't signed up for the beta yet, you'll need to do that. See here for the details: http://blog.fastmail.com/2014/12/22/...-beta-release/

GeekOnTheHill · 25 Apr 2015, 08:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by robn

It worked in 10.1 when I tested it but I haven't looked into it since, and I don't have a Blackberry device here to test with right now (its late Saturday night and I'm at home).

CardDAV is available to verified trial users, but you still need to opt-in to the beta - its not in general release yet. If you haven't signed up for the beta yet, you'll need to do that. See here for the details: http://blog.fastmail.com/2014/12/22/...-beta-release/

Ah. Well that certainly would make a difference.

I think I just opted in for the beta. I clicked the button, but it took me to my mail screen, not a confirmation of any sort. Is that normal?

Thanks,

Richard

robn · 25 Apr 2015, 09:40 PM

Yeah, that's right. If you try the link again it'll ask you if you want to opt-out/revert.

GeekOnTheHill · 25 Apr 2015, 09:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by robn

Yeah, that's right. If you try the link again it'll ask you if you want to opt-out/revert.

Okay, thanks. I have a couple of fires to put out at the moment, but I'll try setting it up again a bit later. Thanks again, and maybe you should get some sleep!

Richard

adamlau · 27 Apr 2015, 08:49 AM

Quote:

The first problem was that the Fastmail calendar didn't really sync with the BB calendar. They were both available on the BB, but not merged.

All calendars sync as expected here. OS 10.3.1.2726. @GeekOnTheHill: What OS is your device on?

Quote:

The BB's shortest-allowable sync interval is 12 hours.

I do not see an option for a 12 hour sync internal. Sync intervals are 5, 15 and 30 minutes, 1, 2, 4 and 24 hours or manual syncing.

GeekOnTheHill · 27 Apr 2015, 09:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by adamlau

All calendars sync as expected here. OS 10.3.1.2726. @GeekOnTheHill: What OS is your device on?

The calendar sync is working as designed as it was not designed to merge the calendars, which actually is what I was hoping for. But I can live with it this way as long as it retains the inputted data pending finding a signal.

Version-wise, I did just notice an odd thing: In Software Updates it says I'm on 10.3.1.1779 (AT&T's latest version), but BBVE has it as 10.3.1.2576. Strange.

Quote:

Originally Posted by adamlau

I do not see an option for a 12 hour sync internal. Sync intervals are 5, 15 and 30 minutes, 1, 2, 4 and 24 hours or manual syncing.

That was a mistake on my part, although I'm not sure exactly how I did it except that I used the guided setup. When I deleted the FM CalDAV account and re-created it manually, it presented the correct options. So now the mail works fine and the calendar works fine. (I can live without the merge, which is more of a BB limitation anyway.)

The CardDAV also connects and syncs, but there's no native way for it to import the BB address book (nor for the BB address book to export its data) much less to merge the data. I did download a BB app that exported about 25 percent of the contacts -- I have no idea why it didn't export the rest -- which I then emailed to my FM address, and which FM was able to import and then sync back to my BB. So the FM CardDAV works once it's populated; but there's no easy way to populate it from the BB contacts, much less to keep the two in sync.

Clearly, and in fairness to FM, these sorts of things are BB limitations, not FM limitations. Also, RIM never got sync quite right, either. I remember back in olden days -- before I hated Google -- when I used RIM's pre-BB10 Gmail sync. It was just as likely to delete or duplicate appointments as it was to sync them. The same went for the native contact sync: Even before I started hating Google, I stopped using the BB / Google contact sync because it was almost as likely to duplicate or delete contacts as it was to properly sync them. (And Google's versions of these tools were even worse than RIM's.)

Nonetheless, apps by definition add functionality and/or work around native limitations; so a native BB app from FM that allowed merging, importing, exporting, comparing, automatic updating, back-upping, or at least some of the above, between the BB and the FM data stores, would be a delightful thing -- especially considering that no one else has managed to get it quite right before. I can see where such an app might drive some sales to FM if it were done well.

In the meantime, CardDAV is the least-important of the things I need FM to able to do. It's more of a "nice" thing than a "must have" thing. And even without a native app, FM has spent more time supporting (or trying to support) BB devices than any similar provider I know of, which said efforts are noted and appreciated.

So most likely I'll be converting my trial account to a paid one quite shortly. I have some travels this coming week and the next during which I want to do some real-world testing, but I can't think of any reason why it shouldn't work for me.

As an aside, I also plan to download the BB SDK and try to get some idea of why it's so hard to get BB's contact and calendaring databases to play nicely with others. It doesn't seem like it should be that hard a thing to do. But apparently it is.

Richard

20 Apr 2015, 07:23 AM	#16
robn Master of the @ Join Date: May 2012 Location: Melbourne, Australia Posts: 1,007 Representative of: Fastmail.fm	I didn't realise the CalDAV in BB 10 was so deficient. 12 hours is pretty ridiculous. I don't really understand what you mean about the syncing/two calendars thing. In our testing it works like it did with every other client - you'd make changes to your BB calendar, and after sync they appear in the FastMail web interface and/or other CalDAV client, and vice-versa. In this case the FastMail app wouldn't help you anyway. Its a thin wrapper around the web client so it doesn't (currently) work without network, and it doesn't make any attempt to integrate with native mail, calendar and contacts facilities. We prefer to support standard protocols and leave the syncing to native facilities or third-party apps. On iOS its native, on Android you need to choose from a variety of third-party connectors. If we did a version of the app for Blackberry, it'd be the same situation - you'd still be reliant on the platform CalDAV support to use the native calendar. I don't know if there's a third-party CalDAV connector available with better features, but if there is it should just work with our server.

20 Apr 2015, 07:42 AM	#17
GeekOnTheHill Junior Member Join Date: Apr 2015 Posts: 11	Thanks for your response. When I set it up, after rebooting the BB, the FastMail calendar showed up as a second calendar which I could switch to. What I was hoping for was that it would integrate with the BB local calendar and merge the data. This might be an unreasonable request because my one criticism of BlackBerry, having been a user practically since the devices existed, has always been the poor calendar support. It was designed to sync with Outlook and nothing else. RIM didn't even have a desktop interface of its own until they released Blend. Google Calendar sync was added a few years ago, but even before I grew to detest Google, the Google Calendar sync was unreliable. It would sometimes get into some sort of loop and create a bazillion copies of the same appointments (and contacts), and other times would mysteriously delete some or all the information. And that was before Google started rivaling the U.S. NSA as an enemy of personal privacy. The way it stands now, I'd use a paper notepad and a pencil before using anything Google puts out. The calendar in BlackBerry Blend provides a decent desktop interface for the native BB calendar, which is better than nothing; but I'd also like remote Web access, preferably with a sharing option. Also, for whatever bizarre reason, the BB backup is built into BlackBerry Link, not BlackBerry Blend; so after making changes to the calendar on the device or by using BlackBerry Blend on the desktop, you then have to switch to BlackBerry link to back it up. It's a minor inconvenience, but it's still an inconvenience. I'm actually a Web developer by training and trade (semi-retired now), but I have zero experience coding for BB10. Maybe I should learn how to do it and then look into building a decent Web-based calendar app and selling it on BB World. It shouldn't be that hard... but then again, considering that I still haven't found one in all these years, maybe it's harder than I think. Thanks again. Richard

20 Apr 2015, 08:12 AM	#18
GeekOnTheHill Junior Member Join Date: Apr 2015 Posts: 11	Actually, I think I was wrong about the 12-hour refresh interval. It looks like if you start in "Advanced" you can select a shorter time. That would solve one problem. Now if there were some way to import / export the BB calendar into / out of Fastmail, I think I could live with that. At least it wouldn't require manually re-entering all the appointments. Do you know of such a way? Thanks, Richard

24 Apr 2015, 09:21 PM	#21
GeekOnTheHill Junior Member Join Date: Apr 2015 Posts: 11	I did get the calendar exported, though it took a cumbersome set of steps that I wouldn't recommend to others. But now it works well enough for my purposes. There are still two separate calendars, which was not what I ideally would have wanted; but the permanent items (birthdays, anniversaries, and the like) don't change often enough for having to save them twice to be much of a bother, and the BB seems to remember the FM calendar data (including new events) even when it doesn't have a signal. It doesn't sync, of course, until it grabs a signal, but it's available to me on the device until it does. That's acceptable. In practical terms, it means that I don't lose the information for my appointment when I get close to the location if the appointment location happens to be in a dead zone, and that I can view my next appointment and/or schedule a follow-up appointment while I'm there, which will sync once the device finds a signal. I can live with that. Your email also works well on the BB. I don't know whether you're using BB Push or IMAP IDLE (or both), but whichever it is, it works. The mail shows up immediately on the device. Because one of the most important uses I have for this account is for failure notices from machines that I administer, that's important to me. Now the one remaining challenge is CardDAV. Using the settings on your "servers and ports" page, it doesn't work with the BB's native CardDAV client. I suspect that the BB can't autodetect my account and I need the full URL to the CardDAV server to make it work. I have asked Support for that information last night, but have received no reply. Do you know the full URL to the CardDAV server? Just to get back to the original thread topic for a moment, I suspect (without any evidence other than my own biases) that a lot of potential customers may choose your service in part because they hate Google. This can also be said about some BlackBerry users. I've been using BB's since there existed BB's, but I'm not married to the devices. If Android weren't so infested with Google spyware, I might have considered at least trying one. The above is not to say that your service isn't better than Gmail in your own right, but Gmail is more well-known despite being younger; and some people who come to you are almost certainly Gmail refugees. If all of the above are true, then it's not unreasonable to assume that users who stick with BB in part because they hate Google, and who shun Gmail for the same reason, might especially flock to FM if you offered a native app that completely avoids the need for the Android runtime or anything that even hints of a Google lineage. Or maybe not. But it's something to think about. Thanks, Richard

24 Apr 2015, 09:29 PM	#23
GeekOnTheHill Junior Member Join Date: Apr 2015 Posts: 11	Okay, thank you. I'll play with that for a while later on today. Richard

25 Apr 2015, 08:45 PM	#25
robn Master of the @ Join Date: May 2012 Location: Melbourne, Australia Posts: 1,007 Representative of: Fastmail.fm	It worked in 10.1 when I tested it but I haven't looked into it since, and I don't have a Blackberry device here to test with right now (its late Saturday night and I'm at home). CardDAV is available to verified trial users, but you still need to opt-in to the beta - its not in general release yet. If you haven't signed up for the beta yet, you'll need to do that. See here for the details: http://blog.fastmail.com/2014/12/22/...-beta-release/

25 Apr 2015, 09:40 PM	#27
robn Master of the @ Join Date: May 2012 Location: Melbourne, Australia Posts: 1,007 Representative of: Fastmail.fm	Yeah, that's right. If you try the link again it'll ask you if you want to opt-out/revert.