Whatsnew: Whatsapp Web with Electron.

Yes newer Chromium web engine is way more efficient, but this should be even better when we can switch this app to Wayland (instead of Xwayland) and use the GPU to accelerate rendering, this will be when the system upgrades Mir to 2.x.

(Unfortunately there are still some few keyboard-related Quirks in this version that I will try to improve in the coming weeks.)

projectmoon

@pparent out of curiosity, have you considered attempting to bundle the Qt6 web engine statically? Similar to whatever is going on with Morph Qt6 version.

pparent

@projectmoon

Yes but for now I needed something that works fast, and I know how to make an electron app work fast on UT, for now QT6 bundling is a bit more obscure to me.

Also I think Electron apps really have advantages for this kind of important and complex webapp, because it does not depend on the webengine of the system that can easily become too old, and it's way more flexible. Sadly he version of the webengine in Morph Qt6 is still a bit old, and not as performant as Chromium 140+ .

I know that electron apps currently have the disadvantage to run on XWayland, but it will hopefully be solved with Mir2.x release, making them more performant et more integrated to the system, and perfect for this kind of complexe webapp that are very sensitive to the browser engine version.

Also @chromiumos-guy is working on xdg_portal integration that will fursther help with better integration of electron apps into the system. ( Thanks! )

pparent

@projectmoon @mihael @vlad-nirky

I would like to maybe find a better name that "Whatslectron" because this is a name the I've found rapidly but it seems to long, at least for the icon.

I've been thinking in "Whatse⁻" "Whatsem" "Whatsep", ect... But I'm not 100% convinced by any of them.

Any idea or preference?

Vlad Nirky

@pparent
whatsup ?

Moem

@pparent WhatsUB?

messayisto

@Moem UBWhats -?

mihael

Regarding the keyboard:

I had to adjust the keyboard height (thanks to Ambot Installer this is possible) in order to be able to see the text input area. So it seems that when the keyboard is displayed the text input area moves up indeed but not above the keyboard (depending on keyboard height) but to a fixed position.

projectmoon

@mihael I have this problem as well, and it's because the X11 server doesn't really know what the keyboard height is. The responsive patch for Whatsapp Web/Signal/etc is basically shrinking the window size inside the X server to the standard keyboard height when the keyboard is out. But it would need a configurable option to change that value in the app itself, I think. Unless there is some magic (and preferably confined) way to yoink the keyboard height from the keyboard?

Personally, I think the keyboard height in UT is way too low. But, an adjustable height keyboard Should Just Work once Mir 2.x comes out... right?

mihael

Regarding pinning the icon to the left menu bar:

If anybody wants to pin the starting icon to the left menu bar in UT, I was able to do that during the start-up portion of the app - when that introductory page is displayed. After that, when the whatsapp content is displayed, the icon on the left changes to "X11 support" and pinning it will not start the app.

pparent

@mihael said in Whatslectron: Whatsapp Web with Electron.:

Regarding the keyboard:

I had to adjust the keyboard height (thanks to Ambot Installer this is possible) in order to be able to see the text input area. So it seems that when the keyboard is displayed the text input area moves up indeed but not above the keyboard (depending on keyboard height) but to a fixed position.

Do you have the default config in terms of scaling in Ubunut Tweaks. For now normally this problem happens when you have changed the default scaling, because I don't know how to get that value. (I guess you must have the same problem with Signal UT, or Rocket.Chat). I will try to find a solution for all of them.

pparent

@projectmoon said in Whatslectron: Whatsapp Web with Electron.:

The responsive patch for Whatsapp Web/Signal/etc is basically shrinking the window size

No it is not shrinking the window size, it is moving up the edit area

Personally, I think the keyboard height in UT is way too low. But, an adjustable height keyboard Should Just Work once Mir 2.x comes out... right?

I don't know about that yet

pparent

@mihael said in Whatslectron: Whatsapp Web with Electron.:

Regarding pinning the icon to the left menu bar:

If anybody wants to pin the starting icon to the left menu bar in UT, I was able to do that during the start-up portion of the app - when that introductory page is displayed. After that, when the whatsapp content is displayed, the icon on the left changes to "X11 support" and pinning it will not start the app.

As mentioned in the app description it is also possible to pin it When you export or import a file with contentHUB.

mihael

@pparent said in Whatslectron: Whatsapp Web with Electron.:

Do you have the default config in terms of scaling in Ubunut Tweaks.

Current value: 21 - is this the default value? - or have I modified it in the past and I don't remember...