I wanna go home

UniSuperBox

So let coders tell what they want or not to implement.

You've been told by one coder, I'm making it two. I wrote that blog post asking people to come here, to my post. And asking to read the entire thing before adding their thoughts.

It's taken us six months to bring up this update without needing to implement a classical desktop too. If a classical desktop can be made in a way that it is automatically tested, works across all screen sizes, and works across all input methods, I'm all for it. Maybe you'd like to design and implement such a thing? I haven't made a survey or anything, but if you're sure that I'm completely wrong and you'll have enough people helping you to successfully complete the task, do it!

UniSuperBox

@safriddle,

Indeed, the Drawer right now is pretty barren. It really should be able to search for more things and surface more useful results. That's something for the future, of course, and we'd love help with it.

UniSuperBox

@ImmyChan, please see the response to this in the original post:

Note that "just add another setting to..." is not an acceptable compromise. More customization means more development overhead, makes it more difficult to support users (you might have to do this, or you might have to do that), and takes away from a consistent experience. (If you want to discuss this metatopic, please make another thread.)

Keneda

@UniSuperBox said in I wanna go home:

I wrote that blog post asking people to come here, to my post. And asking to read the entire thing before adding their thoughts.

So that's what i do... If the point of this is to tell people that think a different way "just do it yourself", then it is pointless.

Maybe you'd like to design and implement such a thing? I haven't made a survey or anything, but if you're sure that I'm completely wrong and you'll have enough people helping you to successfully complete the task, do it!

Linux is not going to grow up if people is being told "just do it yourself".
Most people are not coders, most people can support coders many ways, in other hands.
People won't support anyone who treat them like that.

UniSuperBox

@Keneda, I don't know what else to say. It's a direct insult to you if I lie and say our team of three full-time developers can successfully implement your request in a reasonable amount of time, when it's taken six months just to make OTA-12 happen. But it's also an insult if I say we can't do it, and another option must be taken.

How would you prefer I word this? It's a rock and a hard place.

Keneda

@UniSuperBox said in I wanna go home:

@Keneda, I don't know what else to say. It's a direct insult to you if I lie and say our team of three full-time developers can successfully implement your request in a reasonable amount of time, when it's taken six months just to make OTA-12 happen. But it's also an insult if I say we can't do it, and another option must be taken.

No that is not, but that's not what you told me earlier.

Like i didn't tell you DO IT NOW, i just told i agree with previous users that said making a desktop would be a good solution for everyone : you like desktop you use it, you don't you let it blank.

I know dev is not easy, specially on open source side, where most project is on free time with few people.
So i don't expet to have features immediatly IF implemented.

And maybe include other devs in core project, like the Launcher Modular dev.

flohack

Guys please,

we had to do some decisions about where we would go, how all of this can be made also more compatible for non-Android-phones like the Pinephone, and how we can do this with our limited resources. So decisions have been made, and they can´t satisfy all users.
Android also does not satisfy all users, but probably people take what's happen there as a reference and say "I want to have that" simply because they accept it as a global standard.
So if our environment uses different paradigms, workflows, UX experiences, people are just confused why its like that. Also, I agree, some of the things are not "as easy" as with Android or iOS.
On the other hand of course it can be worked on, so that in the future there are more customization options for everyone. But for now, for this OTA, we had to remove stuff to make our live easier, otherwise we would still not be release-ready. And we are working on this for months now.
And please believe us when we say that the scopes code was horrible for us to keep, and would have slowed pretty much everybody down. It made no sense to keep that, and so its not a matter of asking users if we should keep it or not.
If other devs dont agree they can spin up their customization that brings scopes back, if they like, but then they also must maintain it themselves and keep it alive. Good luck with that.
So of course nothing is set in stone, but we cannot make heavy-lifting and change everything and then still have no bugs and everbody is happy. That´s not how software development works nowadays. Its about small increments, small changes, see how they fly, make again changes etc.

Lakotaubp

Agree with @Flohack We need the strong well maintained OS that works. On top of that if others have the time and inclination to work on other projects that fit with/work on UT then all power to their elbow and good luck.

UniSuperBox

@Keneda Ah, I see. I apologize, I assumed intent where there was none. Getting defensive in my stressed state.

For the record, I don't believe that a desktop where you can put things is impossible, but there are several questions that aren't easy to answer with it. For example:

How do you reorder the desktop when the user goes from a small screen to a large one? What about when they go back again? What if they have too many items on their desktop, and they float off the available real estate?
Desktops have files on them too. But we don't work with files, we work with content. How do you put content on your desktop, where content could be a file, or a database entry on someone's service. For example, you could have an odt file or you could have a document on your NextCloud server.

That's why my suggestion is to gather people to answer these questions rather than assert that they should be answered. I agree, if we think that a traditional "desktop" is the best way to present content that the user wants to come back to often, we should make that happen. But what's more interesting is how, not if.

And honestly, it's hard to answer if if we don't know how.

@Flohack and @Lakotaubp, I think everyone understands this. I directed people here if they are angry (or just slightly miffed) at the change, so expect more replies here over the next few days.

dobey

@Keneda said in I wanna go home:

And maybe include other devs in core project, like the Launcher Modular dev.

Anyone is welcome to contribute to the core projects, but when we suggest they do, give them hints on where to look, and they decide to go off and make their apps which abuse the system instead of helping to improve it, there isn't much more we can do about that.

But we need to actually understand needs, where things fail, etc… before we can build quality experiences and quality software. We can't simply assert some truth with absolutely zero data, such as having feature X will make everyone happy, because at the very least, such a statement will never be true. Adding every feature that gets asked for, with no understanding of the underlying issues, will only end up with a worse experience for everyone (cf. MS Office).

Furthermore, Open Source Software is built up from people scratching their own itches, for the most part. If you are unable to scratch that itch yourself, it's fine, but making denigrating comments about the state of Linux and Open Source, will not help nor change things. Developing software takes much time and energy.

Keneda

@dobey said in I wanna go home:

but making denigrating comments about the state of Linux and Open Source

I didn't. Read again please...
And, i love open-source.

Anyone is welcome to contribute to the core projects, but when we suggest they do, give them hints on where to look, and they decide to go off and make their apps which abuse the system instead of helping to improve it, there isn't much more we can do about that.

Are you telling that's what launcher modular dev did?

hummlbach

Yes we need to improve collaboration between the laucher modular guys and the unity guys...
I didn't follow all the numerous discussions closely, but have there ever been concrete advice how the launcher modular (respectively the parts of it that are not yet covered by the app drawer [launching apps]) could be integrated into the app drawer? I believe we're just bad at communication/collaboration here...(?)

AppLee

@hummlbach said in I wanna go home:

I believe we're just bad at communication/collaboration here...(?)

I believe that too. And I personally reached out to "launcher modular" s people to better understand their need.
I can say that they want a way to integrate special apps (launchers) into the system either to replace one of the available "sidebar launcher" or "app drawer" (not sure how to call the first one).
My understanding is that such "launcher" should have special rights and an API must be made to fulfill this requirement.

The problems I see are the confinement or rights allocated to such "launcher" apps, how to grant them special rights, how to identify them in the Open-store and how to fast access such app.
Regarding the latter a proposal was to hack the orange logo but it's something that will mess with the UX in convergence.

I hope we can put together all the good willing people and come to something doable and acceptable for most people.

hummlbach

Yes, okay, for me too that would be an appealing thing, but if the decision was to not implement such an API (due to complexity and so on and what not...) (for now), would jimmy and kazord agree and help to integrate the widget like stuff for example into the app drawer directly? (What would be the argument against it, as long as there are not multiple interfering launcher ideas...? Maybe because you're not entirely free to do what you'd like to, but need some people to agree on what you're doing...?)

dobey

@Keneda said in I wanna go home:

Are you telling that's what launcher modular dev did?

It came out of the announcement that scopes were deprecated and would be removed. It also abused the system to replace the old dash with itself. That can't be done any more with OTA-12, as all the dash related stuff was removed.

TotalSonic

If there was an option in System Settings for "launch app(s) on startup" the people wishing the ability to have an application launcher / "home" other than the left edge quick launchers and the App Drawer - could choose something like Launcher Modular, Sprint, QML Launcher, of Simple Dash (all currently available in the Open Store) to be opened automatically right after bootup. Maybe something to consider for inclusion for say OTA-14 or after.

Best regards,
Steve Berson

Keneda

@dobey said in I wanna go home:

It also abused the system to replace the old dash with itself.

What do you mean by "abuse"? Are there any unalllowed things he did?
Why this launcher's even on open store if it abuses system in a way UBports devs don't endorse?

In a hackers world, what right and what's wrong? What makes you a white one, or an "abusing" one?

It looks like you really don't like the man...

@AppLee said in I wanna go home:

I hope we can put together all the good willing people and come to something doable and acceptable for most people.

If it could be, would be great yes...

UniSuperBox

@Keneda,

To be clear, you can still use launcher-modular. It's not going away. It's still an app that can be launched on OTA-12 just as well as on OTA-11. It still has full access to your contacts, apps, and the rest of your data. So it can still do the same job. The only difference is that it doesn't launch automatically, and doesn't appear when you perform a long swipe from the left of the screen.

Yes, there is a set list of things that apps may do, and Launcher Modular goes outside of that list. It modifies system files in order to replace the unity8-dash installed on OTA-11 and earlier. unity8-dash was removed in OTA-12, so it cannot do this any more. That was never a supported method to launch an app, so it should not have been surprising when it went away. But the OpenStore does allow apps which do things like modify system files, provided they are open source and manually reviewed.

@TotalSonic, Is launching an app on startup a solution to this problem? If the app is pinned to your Launcher, that only saves one tap. I can understand the feeling of it being better, but is it really so much more efficient that we should expend the effort?

hummlbach

Are there any unalllowed things he did?
...
It looks like you really don't like the man...

Its really not about blaming jimmy or kazord or anyone! Of course we're all free to do with the system what we like to...

What do you mean by "abuse"?
...
What makes you a white one, and a "abusing" one?

"Abusing" means doing things in a way they're not meant to be done. Doing things that aren't supported. And they mostly aren't supported not because someone wants to restrict anyone or dictate what (app) devs should do, but to ensure the stability and security of the system. For example dekko, rockwork, telescope or ut tweak tool are also "abusing" the system. They are unconfined mostly (except uttt in this list) to run daemons in the background which may lead to substantial battery drain, which indeed reduces the "systems quality". Average Joe user might not know and yell at ubports while they aren't causing the problem <- bad situation...
That all doesn't mean someone doesn't like the devs of these apps...! Its just that it would actually make more sense to create the necessary APIs/features the OS is lacking than finding ways around it, punching security holes and creating instabilities. Thats what dobey isn't happy with... But it may not be clear (or even far from obvious) how the needed APIs should look like, and more work to create them instead of working around it abusing the system and not every app dev feels capable to contribute to such an API.

Why this launcher's even on open store if it abuses system in a way UBports devs don't endorse?

Because its known that there are functions missing and it takes time to get them in place, and if theres an app fulfilling some needs which currently could hardly serve its purpose without "abusing" the system is therefore accepted. (And if you allow such things it gets hard to decide where to draw the line...)

Keneda

@hummlbach

Ok i was writing a long answer and yours justed poped during that time and aswered lot of my questions or even you said what i was thinking.

So i just kept that part :
"Abusing" is a strong word i think, because it has a wicked connotation.

Anyway, i hope each one of you, core devs or not, will be able to understand each other, and work together, so we can have the best of you