Spreading Ubuntu Touch to the world

Lakotaubp

@bencozzy Hi, This thread is about spreading the Ubuntu Touch word. Please can we not get distracted with bringing cryptocurrency into the debate.

flohack

@WLBI with the upcoming phones I really expect that things will change then.

While Purism is at the upper segment and therefore probably not for people who want to try out, I see lot of potential for advertising UT with the Pine phone. It will be in a reasonable price range, and especially for our app devs its important to get real hardware so they can work. Remember we do not have a working emulator or SDK, so its superhard to develop Apps.

dobey

@Flohack said in Spreading Ubuntu Touch to the world:

Remember we do not have a working emulator or SDK, so its superhard to develop Apps.

TBF, it's not so hard, if you build a qqc2 app. However, there does seem to be some issues in the stack when running on a device, which don't appear under X11 qpa with Qt. It seems to be related to initial sizing of components in the QML, and partly depends on how they are constructed in the QML.

Am still banging my head on some of this, but it seems like maybe less of a problem if using Qt's autoscaling by enabling it in a main.cpp before initializing the app engine. So it's possible to develop an app on say stock Ubuntu 18.04 which works fine there with Qt 5.9.5, and then package it with clickable into a click for UT.

flohack

@dobey I mean rather the lack of all APIs, like sensors, camera etc. Modern Apps want to use that stuff, of course, and thats much easier for hobbyists or part time developers if they can just a real device.

Emulation, cross-development etc. is all possible, but comes at a cost, and we want to have the lowest possible barrier ofc.

hummlbach

Instead of thinking of a whole SDK, we could start by providing docs on how to get auto completion and code navigation for some editors, as well as docs on how to debug apps. Imo we would have achieved a lot already then (together with clickable and the docs we already have).

dobey

@Flohack said in Spreading Ubuntu Touch to the world:

@dobey I mean rather the lack of all APIs, like sensors, camera etc. Modern Apps want to use that stuff, of course, and thats much easier for hobbyists or part time developers if they can just a real device.

The sensors and camera APIs are standard Qt APIs in QML. For example, I use authenticator-ng (qqc2/ergo version) daily on my PC. The camera usage in it works fine, as long as I have a webcam plugged in, or use it on laptop with built-in camera. Granted, there are plenty of things like content-hub which won't work without the pieces being available, but building a pure qqc2 app works just fine, as I said.

Emulation, cross-development etc. is all possible, but comes at a cost, and we want to have the lowest possible barrier ofc.

The whole point of unity8's goal of convergence is that the apps are built to run everywhere from the same source tree. You don't need, cross-compiling, etc… to develop apps, only for building to deploy. The barrier for developing apps for UT is extremely low, we just haven't made it apparent. If you want to lower it further, the best ways I see to do that are to focus on making convergence a reality, documentation, and then the deployment issue.

Aury88

Hi guys. I've done a "local" UT/Ubports group on Minds for the Italian community (it was an Italian community approved choice).
This group substitute the Italian Google+ group (so I didn't choice diaspora after tried it because we needed something more similar to G+) .
Sadly it is not possible to see, in guest mode, directly the posts, but it's possible to see them with single direct link that I regularly post on the Italian UT/UBports Telegram Group (e.g. https://www.minds.com/newsfeed/960417396226318336).
Actually it contains only 20 posts (first post on 13 oct 2018) with an average of 20 visualizations each and 8 members so we are far from the 240 members and hundreds post of G+
the positive side is that I can use tokens, earned thank to the social activity on my personal Minds page, to advertise ubports (each token can be spent for 1000 visualizations).

gimenez

My feeling is that the communication is very community centered. Once you're inside, it's OK : you know which communication channels are available, you know what to find in it, you recognise the key members and give more importance to their annonces.

When it comes to spreading Ubuntu Touch to the world, the communication should aim outside the community, and the message should be loud and clear.

I would redesign the webpage, and re-orient it towards "the world". Now that I'm "in the community", I just use the UBports.com as a hub to access this forum, the documentation, etc... But before stepping in, I was looking for a clear description of the OS itself, to know the state of development of the thing and couldn't find a proper one on the web page. Basically, there are too many information, and too vague:

I was expecting a revival of the Canonical Ubuntu touch page, neet, and sexy, focused on the OS. Instead I landed on an obscure crowded webpage for a developper community.
The ubuntu touch devices pages could be optimized. Both device detail pages (for instance https://devices.ubuntu-touch.io/device/hammerhead) and "commercial" promoted devices page (https://ubports.com/de_DE/devices/promoted-devices) could by merged together.
Illustrations are not suited : we see a lot of safes and ubuntu logos, but no images of the actual OS itself
No demo of the OS... I found some on the internet, but homemade. I had to navigate a lot to find a page that describes how the gestures work (which is a key information if you look for an alternative OS).
No clear idea of what is convergence. There are no demo for it, which is a pity, because it's cool and it works! The dedicated convergence page is too long Each paragraph almost re-says the same content. They are like 5 or 6 different (and graphically unconsistent) illustrations, but no demo, and no actual picture of what is it. It is not clear if it is a whished or a working feature... Still the image of safe in the header

We've got some improvement to do in this direction Maybe is it allready even a tackled topic. For my concern, I only know basics of web dev, but I have a good feeling with user experience and design in general. I could help with mock ups and illustrations if a new site is planned one day.

gimenez

Adding to my post, here the page from the canonical times I was refering to (my very first serious use of the internet archive :P) :

Even found the old gestures videos... https://web.archive.org/web/20180124153738/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qocy2Ypz-_Y

Unless the scopes, most is still uptodate enough to be reused for promotionnal purposes. (It is also satisfying to see that the designs from 2014 have not got old at all !) In which extend is the support from canonical about it ? Would they allow to reuse those materials and even be OK to share the project files from webpages, images and videos so that a talented community member would update them ?

advocatux

@gimenez fair points, just keep in mind that UBports is a volunteered based project, and there's an obvious lack of manpower, so any help is welcomed

Perhaps you might be interested in joining the Design and / or Marketing groups (?)

dobey

@gimenez said in Spreading Ubuntu Touch to the world:

No clear idea of what is convergence. There are no demo for it, which is a pity, because it's cool and it works! The dedicated convergence page is too long Each paragraph almost re-says the same content. They are like 5 or 6 different (and graphically unconsistent) illustrations, but no demo, and no actual picture of what is it. It is not clear if it is a whished or a working feature... Still the image of safe in the header

Simply put, convergence means shell and apps are usable across a wide range of devices, including phones, tablets, and PCs, with the same security constraints.

Given this, convergence is still therefore not complete, and there are a few related points to make:

The Unity8 shell does not work well on PCs as of yet
We are not able to confine security context of apps on PCs as well as on phones/tablets yet
While Libertine can allow running legacy apps under some confinement, it is unrelated to the goals of convergence itself.
Being able to use a phone/tablet with external screen/kb/mouse is a nice feature, and related to convergence, but is not itself convergence.
Most native UT apps (and webapps) are only suitable for phones/tablets still, and therefore are also not convergent yet.

So, as you can see, it can be difficult to clearly present that in a very shiny way with demos and such, when it's still not yet all there.

gimenez

@dobey Thanks for the clarification. But you got my point : summing up one entire page in one post

I'm totally OK with the fact that the convergence is still "on development" (it's actually part of the fun to live with new updates as they arrive !) and I guess some interested incommers would be OK with it as well as soon as they have a clear dev state like you presented. If the dev state is clear enough they would have al informations they need to decide this feature or not.

I do think that there are possibilities to present a shiny visual for this feature even in the actual dev state. Plug the phone, key in your password, open up some of the converged core apps and answer one or two sms/mails in the meanwhile. Would be already impressive
I'll make myself clever on how to make screen recordings, and if it is possible in the converged mode. I'm sure they are visuals that are doable, that would look as beautiful and proffessional as UT is actually !

edit : the screenshots work in desktop mode. Hereunder a fresh example of a satisfyingly filled desktop. For me this is already shiny

To tell the story until the end, I took the screenshot and uploaded it like a charm here from morph browser in desktop mode. It opened up "files", I selected the screenshot. How cool is that ?

edit 2: unity crashed during the redaction of this edit. Still, it rocks.

dobey

@gimenez Right, that can work, but I think "here is my phone plugged into a screen and I have windows" as the means of showing convergence, contributes too much to the false idea that that is in fact what convergence is, when in reality it is but a very small part of it.

A Former User

To be honest, I don't think Jo/e average really cares about the technicalities of convergence... just the powerful outworking of it.

Giiba

@gimenez
You do a good job showing how pretty this OS is in use, and isn't it the case that unity always crashes right at an inconvenient moment

dobey

@3arn0wl said in Spreading Ubuntu Touch to the world:

To be honest, I don't think Jo/e average really cares about the technicalities of convergence... just the powerful outworking of it.

It doesn't matter whether they care or not. If we can't explain it in a way that makes them understand it, then when they talk about it in a way which does not include all the other parts, it undermines the goals.

Saying "this is convergence" for a thing that is not convergence, but rather is simply the windowed mode of unity8 shell, makes it more difficult to actually build a fully convergent system.

Leppa

@dobey Show of the most prominent, visual part of convergence, then use that to explain the other parts in ways that can be easily understood without a long explanation.

A Former User

We'll have to agree to differ on that, @dobey.

Opolork

@advocatux said in Spreading Ubuntu Touch to the world:

Mastodon

The Mastodon account needs some love. Last post was January this year.

advocatux

@Opolork this is a very old thread, we're using another address now

https://framapiaf.org/@ubports