@nero355 The HTML5/WebApp feature for Clickable to create UT app is quite literally putting an application in its own browser window, the only difference is the lack of NodeJS on the backend.

After some playing with regular ReactJS I've been able to make some applications, hopefully webpack will play nice with any modules I like to use in my setup, though generally it always has done.

I doubt the overhead for Electron or Chromium is going to be much different to Morph if ran on the platform due to the fact Morph utilises Qt WebEngine which has Chromium at the core.

I'm not certain what the performance tweaks are and whether they could be applied to Electron.

Ubuntu Touch does support windowed mode so being able to spawn multiple windows (assuming its supported) could be useful in that mode.

Eitherway, I got the input I needed.

Thanks for your responses everyone.

@mrt10001 Instead I replaced the phone! With the Google Pixel 2 XL. Now I have both models to test and play with, though I can't test battery life with the Pixel 2 as its so bad. So far the 2 XL (used) is already looking good.

I'll feedback when I have a definitive answer and hopefully more answers regarding stability, I'll be using it at my work phone so I'll have to keep it charged and ready to go daily.

Hi all,

I've been tinkering and hacking around with my Google Pixel 2 XL.

After some messing around and doing unspeakable things with the OS I managed to get Electron and Chromium to run under Libertine with Xmir and little effort outside of making it use an existing X session i.e. setting DISPLAY=:0 or another screen number, this relies on another X application to be running under Xmir to use its session, in this case I used lxterminal and ended up with Electron & Chromium displaying ontop.

I also found that at some point Chromium added support for Wayland to its "Ozone" graphics and input abstraction layer.

I'm assuming this could allow it to work with Mir?
Though my understanding of Mir is practically 0 outside it being similar to Wayland, but I could be off the mark. Running Electron results in a broken pipe and SIGABRT.

Is it possible to package an application that can start its own Xmir session or how can I get Electron to play nice with Mir using Electrons upstream Wayland support?

Though this does introduce some significant overhead. Because... well, Chromium likes RAM.

Unless there's a better solution that allows NodeJS on the backend of an app presenting a HTML5 UI with communication via IPC or similar?

From poking around at Clickable, it appears to just run a command, would this allow running a shell script with a few commands, does it need to present a window etc.

I have so many questions, but the end result is the same. HTML5 applications backed with NodeJS, though I'm still looking at my options.

I suppose it's possible to use a HTML5 application and hoping webpack will work to create a full featured app.

I've found a possible solution for myself to install applications without needing to change the read only permissions on the rootfs of Ubuntu Touch.

The solution I'm using is copying the executables from the Libertine containers rootfs to "/home/phablet/.local/bin" which has allowed me to use git and htop without having to do anything to my installation.

The question remains, would this persist through updates or is .local cleared when updating OTA?

If not, this may be a good solution to get git, htop and similar working. Obviously this excludes anything that requires X11 support but allows terminal applications to run. Is there any obvious drawbacks?

Thanks for the feedback.
I may have just shelled out £60 on a Google Pixel 2 XL
I'll be trying Crackle with that

Has anyone got any ideas on how to do this?

Re: How to use the RuntimeApi in HTML5 Apps?

I'm having a similar issue,
How would I go about accessing the APIs to ready information such as the battery status?

I've dissected the cordova support and it appears to use navigator messages to speak to qt, I assume this is kind of specific to cordova?

Whats the recommended approach?

@nero355 The HTML5/WebApp feature for Clickable to create UT app is quite literally putting an application in its own browser window, the only difference is the lack of NodeJS on the backend.

After some playing with regular ReactJS I've been able to make some applications, hopefully webpack will play nice with any modules I like to use in my setup, though generally it always has done.

I doubt the overhead for Electron or Chromium is going to be much different to Morph if ran on the platform due to the fact Morph utilises Qt WebEngine which has Chromium at the core.

I'm not certain what the performance tweaks are and whether they could be applied to Electron.

Ubuntu Touch does support windowed mode so being able to spawn multiple windows (assuming its supported) could be useful in that mode.

Eitherway, I got the input I needed.

Thanks for your responses everyone.

@alan_g
Thanks for getting back to me, I did some light research this morning but I didn't get down to fully understanding the differences, I did read about that distinction but forgot!

Mir and Wayland are completely new to me with only having heard of Wayland but not of Mir, any limited experience I have lies with X11.

Thats makes sense to me why it didn'twant to play ball when running directly in the main UT environment.

Regarding Xmir, is it possible to tap into that from a regular app without libertine or is this something that would be able to make it onto the Open Store due to slight differences in software between any supporting systems?

Hi all,

I've been tinkering and hacking around with my Google Pixel 2 XL.

After some messing around and doing unspeakable things with the OS I managed to get Electron and Chromium to run under Libertine with Xmir and little effort outside of making it use an existing X session i.e. setting DISPLAY=:0 or another screen number, this relies on another X application to be running under Xmir to use its session, in this case I used lxterminal and ended up with Electron & Chromium displaying ontop.

I also found that at some point Chromium added support for Wayland to its "Ozone" graphics and input abstraction layer.

I'm assuming this could allow it to work with Mir?
Though my understanding of Mir is practically 0 outside it being similar to Wayland, but I could be off the mark. Running Electron results in a broken pipe and SIGABRT.

Is it possible to package an application that can start its own Xmir session or how can I get Electron to play nice with Mir using Electrons upstream Wayland support?

Though this does introduce some significant overhead. Because... well, Chromium likes RAM.

Unless there's a better solution that allows NodeJS on the backend of an app presenting a HTML5 UI with communication via IPC or similar?

From poking around at Clickable, it appears to just run a command, would this allow running a shell script with a few commands, does it need to present a window etc.

I have so many questions, but the end result is the same. HTML5 applications backed with NodeJS, though I'm still looking at my options.

I suppose it's possible to use a HTML5 application and hoping webpack will work to create a full featured app.

@mrt10001 Instead I replaced the phone! With the Google Pixel 2 XL. Now I have both models to test and play with, though I can't test battery life with the Pixel 2 as its so bad. So far the 2 XL (used) is already looking good.

I'll feedback when I have a definitive answer and hopefully more answers regarding stability, I'll be using it at my work phone so I'll have to keep it charged and ready to go daily.

Thanks for the feedback.
I may have just shelled out £60 on a Google Pixel 2 XL
I'll be trying Crackle with that

Ah, thanks for clarifying.

Any thoughts on my above approaches to get git and other terminal applications running under the main shell?

Are there any obvious issues?

@hugehead said in Ubuntu Touch Q&A 116 Saturday 29th Jan At 19:00 UTC:

Hello! I hear often, when you talk about updates and news, that you say this and that is related to Android 9 devices (or 8 or whatever).
This confuses me, as i thought UBTouch is independent system, why is it based on what android my phone has/had? Could you light me up a little?

From my understanding of the porting process. They require drivers extracted from the original Android installation in order for UB to be compatible with the phones hardware such as the screen, camera etc.

I'm not 100% sure but I'm assuming this is the case and that maybe something has changed with newer versions of Android. Someone more experienced may be able to chime in.

I've recently got UB installed on my old Google Pixel 2.

So far WiFi is working flawlessly, I've not tested Bluetooth out but it does boot with it turned on.

Regarding battery life:
This phone is just over 4 years old now so its battery is really on its last legs, I'm trying to decide whether to muster the courage to replace the battery or not.

On Android 11 I'm able to manage about a work day on it, so about 8 hours of occasional use.

On UB I'm seeing about half of that, though I've been using it a bit more lately than I'd have used Android, though I do have a lot of apps in the background when using Android.

I'm estimating that with UB I'm probably getting just over half the amount of battery, though I don't know if this is the battery degrading fast or not.

Other than that, pretty good. A few applications don't run when installed via Libertine but I'm chalking that up to other issues. All other applications that came stock with the install work fine.

Hope this feedback helps!