[Alpha] Greenline - A qml Whatsapp client for Ubuntu Touch

ChromiumOS-Guy

@brenno.almeida i am sorry i did not mean to hurt you or be rude. as for permanently temporary solutions again my advice is to avoid this or refactor after the fact.
high complexity means compromises what im advising here is that for what your describing i don't think you should compromise right now because you won't be able to back out without a lot of effort.

Linus67

I wouldn't use a META product if there were alternatives. But there are a lot of people who are very resistant to change. There are groups for their kids' school activities: soccer, tennis, music, and so on.

If you use Ubuntu Touch every day, a lightweight QML app like Greenline is perfect. You can check WhatsApp messages when needed. In an emergency, you can send a message like, “I'll be 10 minutes late.”

Personally, I prefer a WhatsApp alternative that is fast and stable, uses few resources, and adapts well to changes in WhatsApp’s data structure—such as the Go library, whatsmeow, protobuf structures, and WebSocket conditions on the servers.

I don’t need features like video or forms.
If someone wants all of WhatsApp’s features (including META AI) on Ubuntu Touch, then they have the wrong device.

Keep Greenline lean, efficient, and adaptable to changes at Meta for a long life on Ubuntu Touch. Many people and groups still need some time before they’re ready to switch to alternatives.

brenno.almeida

There's a new release for this app. This release contains a big standardization / internal refactor. I highly recommend that you:

Logout from the app in your main Whatsapp device
In Greenline settings, reset the app
Install the update
Then login again

If you don't disconnect, there's a high chance that the app will crash in some places. As we approach to a beta release, I added more safeguards to catch bugs and make the app more robust, fixing some bugs on the way. Hopefully this will be the last time this will be needed, as from now on I'll adopt a data migration system for changes.

https://github.com/brennoflavio/greenline/releases

Changes:

Allow sending documents
Add option to catch and report crashes
Add option to pause daemon when closing the app
Render Whatsapp text messages with buttons
Fix images rotating in chat page
Restore old behavior for unread count bubble in app drawer
Handle Group Information and other whatsmeow events
Remove daemon configuration database, centralize all configuration in python
Harden media download, prevent crashes when downloading unavailable media
Reorganize code into modules, better separation of concerns
Add tests for daemon <> python communication and python <> qml communication
Document and test all python interfaces, with real, sanitized Whatsmeow data
App now validates at build and at runtime all data structures, logs errors, and ensures consistency between app parts

mihael

@brenno.almeida Amazing work, thank you so much!

One thing I noticed - and I don't think it has only started in this latest version - is that if I open a conversation from the app and not from the notification then the notification doesn't dissapear - I think I remember it used to.

brenno.almeida

@mihael noted!

Btw there's a new release: https://github.com/brennoflavio/greenline/releases

If you didn't disconnected your Whatsapp account in the last update, please take time to do it. Takes a few minutes and will improve your experience with the app.

Changes:

Now links inside text are clickable and will open the browser
Mentions are also treated as links, clicking on them open the messages
Text between stars are rendered as bold message, like in Whatsapp
Now sending a message while offline does not crash the app anymore
Daemon should be way faster to reconnect when going back from offline to online or switching networks
Fix bug when clearing data app not deleting all files

ChromiumOS-Guy

noticed something, there is no date to the messages.
my only note is that you probably want to either have an option in the settings or decide based on account region if to use dd/mm/yyyy scheme or US mm/dd/yyyy scheme.

pparent

@brenno.almeida

Hello Brenno,

Could you explain where the deamon is installed? Becaused I notice that when I disable the account inside the app and then uninstall the app, I still have some greenline deamon running, and creating some logs:

Jun 07 10:06:30 ubuntu-phablet systemd[2675]: greenline.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.
Jun 07 10:06:30 ubuntu-phablet systemd[2675]: greenline.service: Main process exited, code=exited, status=203/EXEC
Jun 07 10:06:30 ubuntu-phablet systemd[2675]: Started greenline.service - Greenline Sync Service.
Jun 07 10:06:30 ubuntu-phablet systemd[2675]: greenline.service: Scheduled restart job, restart counter is at 5123.
Jun 07 10:06:20 ubuntu-phablet systemd[2675]: greenline.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.
Jun 07 10:06:20 ubuntu-phablet systemd[2675]: greenline.service: Main process exited, code=exited, status=203/EXEC
Jun 07 10:06:20 ubuntu-phablet systemd[2675]: Started greenline.service - Greenline Sync Service.
Jun 07 10:06:20 ubuntu-phablet systemd[2675]: greenline.service: Scheduled restart job, restart counter is at 5122.
Jun 07 10:06:10 ubuntu-phablet systemd[2675]: greenline.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.
Jun 07 10:06:10 ubuntu-phablet systemd[2675]: greenline.service: Main process exited, code=exited, status=203/EXEC
Jun 07 10:06:10 ubuntu-phablet systemd[2675]: Started greenline.service - Greenline Sync Service.
Jun 07 10:06:10 ubuntu-phablet systemd[2675]: greenline.service: Sch
eduled restart job, restart counter is at 5121.
Jun 07 10:05:59 ubuntu-phablet systemd[2675]: greenline.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.
Jun 07 10:05:59 ubuntu-phablet systemd[2675]: greenline.service: Main process exited, code=exited, status=203/EXEC
Jun 07 10:05:59 ubuntu-phablet systemd[2675]: Started greenline.service - Greenline Sync Service.

Thank you very much!

brenno.almeida

@pparent did you use the restart button in system settings? If so its a bug that needs to be fixed. That button should remove everything from your system. If you remember, give me more details, I'll try to reproduce it.

Anyway the only file outside the app data/cache/config directory is a unit file in your user systemd directory, you can see it by running sysremctl --user status greenline.service

brenno.almeida

Hey, getting back to this project after a few weeks of vacation with a small release that fixes some bugs shown from the new crash report tool:

https://github.com/brennoflavio/greenline/releases

I'm also going to start preparing this software for a release in OpenStore. There's a few features missing and bugs to fix, after that, I'll release a beta version and only focus on bugs.

So if you find any new issues please report, so this can be released in a good shape. Thanks for your help and support!

Linus67

@brenno.almeida Greenline has been working perfectly for weeks. It has everything I need from WhatsApp. Thanks so much for the new update. You’ve more than earned that vacation.