We are planning a community event with hackathon from May 18th to 19th to promote an open source alternative for Android and iOS. We invite developers but also founders and entrepreneurs to discuss possibilities and cooperation with us and to work on some practical topics.

@advocatux Indeed, the budget is not comparable. However I like the community approach. Unfortunaltey I've sold my professional video equipment. Othervise I would offer to record sessions at the next event. But I think a half professional recording would also be ok for Youtube. If the speakers offer their slides it would be easy to add an audio overlay. I could help at the next conference.

Thanks for your help. I got help in the Fairphone forum. I had to start the app in Linux with the sudo command in the terminal app. I recommend to update the installation instructions for UBPorts.

@cibersheep Thanks. Very precise and helpful answer! I appreciate the lively UBports community.

If I follow the recommendation in the documentation, I should use crossbuilder for platform development and clickable for app development. The suggested editor is Atom. Unfortunately I have no idea, how install the mentioned plugin.

I wasn't able to install the Unbuntu SDK, that seems to be out of maintenance:

What's about Qt Creator and a setup with the libraries and dependencies, that are necessary for UBports?

@advocatux Thanks for your link of Ubicon. Unfortunately I missed the event in April. But I saw, that there is also a Ubicon in Berlin, unfortunately with no more information about a location and date. Do you have more information?

By the way: Is UBPorts still a topic at this events after Ubuntu dropped the official support of Ubuntu Touch?

My company is located in West Germany, North Rhine-Westphalia. I'm interested in learning the capabilities of UBPorts as a plattform for commercial devices with a custom UX and meeting developers, enterpreneurs and business people for recruiting and synergies.

Participating in already organized events woud be fine. Otherwise we would happy to host an boot camp.

Unfortunately, there is no response for a community event for UBPorts. My company could host a boot camp or similar event for UBPorts. We also could choose a broader scope like alternativ operation systems beyond UBPorts in general like Plasma Mobile and Sailfish OS. A probable date could be in September after the summer vacation season. What do you think?

Are there any community events to bring people and companies together, who would like to realize ideas, innovate and make business with the Android and iOS alternative.

Currently, the alternatives are only available as after marked operation systems. Purism could be the ice breaker for further brands and phones to create a relevant market.

I would like to discuss the possibilities to port UBPorts for hardware and customize the user interface and experience.

@andybleaden Thanks for your tutorial. it makes UBPorts better readable. I would appreciate the text size in the system settings.

I tested the convergence use case with an external screen, that is connected with a dongle, that uses Miracast over WiFi. In addition I tested the setup with and without a bluetooth keyboard with touchpad.

I could manage to morror the sceen in a large desktop resulution. Unfortunately the screen ratio of the vidio signal (16:10') didn't match the ratio of the external screen (16:9). The vido signal was cropped.

Further more I realised, that hte mouse respectively touch pad signals are processed with a sginificant delay. So it is allmost impossible to control the external display. I also wasn't able to activate the window mode with the tweak app.

I think, it is not an issue of the hardware. My UBports developer device is Fairpgone 2. I compared the setup with LineageOS on a weak Wileyfox Swift developer device. The external screen with Sentio and LeenaOS are very smooth and the mouse pointer response has no realizable delay.

How can I improve the performace of the convergence use case. Only with the delay, the tested setup is not usable for practice.

Shouild I test a secenrio with a wired connection? Unfortunately the FP2 has USB-B and not the full implemented USB-C to connect an external screen with HDMI. Some recommendations and experiences?

@advocatux Thanks. I'm afraid I don't quite understand the idea behind the app. I suspect the intention is to freely select preferred apps and place them on a grid on the so-called desktop.

Interestingly, an alternative selection of apps was simply implemented as an app itself. It would be nice if the default view was adapted to SuruDark.

With the Tweak Tool many interesting variants are already possible. I would still like to be able to hide the permanent display of the device status.

A refined UI could start with the following actions:

1. Adding another mode to the fan and window mode, that uses tiles.
2. Hiding respectively replacing the starter bar with a different one.
3. Adding another launcher as one or more apps.

@malditobastardo Do you have a link? I found a special user interface for Sprint phones, but I think you have something different in mind. If I search for sprint and user interface I get many scrum related hits

@divideandsponsor Great work. Thanks. So, you realized the modification with the Tweak Tool? Amazing. I will have a look at it.

If I understand you correctly, you hide the Ubuntu inspured app side bar and introduced an app dock at the bottom of the screen, that is alway wisible?

You can slide the app dock in like in Plasma Mobile and Sailfish OS to show all apps, that are avalable in a separate scope by default. Correct?

I think, the window mode has no fan arrangement of the open apps. So you have to tap on an icon at the bottom to get an opened app to the front, right?

Your suggest, that app tiles should be possible to implement more easy with a window mode, doesn't you?

What do you mean with this sentence?

The only limitation right now is that I don't know how to keep all the windows locked so I don't accidentally move them out of place

@dobey I appreciate the improvements of the UI like the support of the Suru Dark theme. Pushing themes is a good example for flexibilisation.

Improvements don't necessarily need a completely new UI. Some alternative concepts might be easy to implement lika a tile instead of fan arrangement of open apps by reusing the UI element of scopes in the fan.

However, I respect the fact that you are not open to UI changes. The current concept is not bad. It highlights the concepts of Ubuntu that many users appreciate.

My question is directed at all forum participants who enjoy discussing improvements to the user experience and maybe want to be practical about it.

It is very gratifying that the people behind the UBports Foundation are very open-minded about the topic.

I like by the way the concept of Android to develop and exchange a launcher like an app. It makes the implementation of ideas and innovations very easy.

@dobey My examples are unserintefaces, which hides the apps underneath. In companies it is now a matter of course that data, business logic and user interfaces are separated. I also think this approach makes sense for end users. See also the vision of tim Berners Lee to create a standard for data that can be used by different services and apps.

Too bad that there are no other initiatives to improve or change the UI of UBports. In the medium term, I think this makes sense if other device classes are to use UBports, for example Smart Watches or Smart Glasses. Developers or companies of the community who are interested can write to me. I am a big friend of cooperations.

@dobey the point is, that an app is a technical artefact. We have to start with the professional requirements independently from the technial solution. If a user want to access information immediately, it needn't be necessarily an app. see the concepts of Spotlight or Notification center for example. As a product manager I often see professional requirements of companies, that are miced up with a technical solution. This limits innovations or the options for implementing a requirements.

I agree, there are alternative user interfaces. I know Plsama Mobile and Sailfish, but what alternatives are available for UBports? I found some concepts and discussions in the past on this forum: https://forums.ubports.com/topic/834/ui-design-concepts-and-proposals/3

Are these initiatrives still active? Is someone working on this? Or is someone interested to work together with me and my team?

@dobey I think it's a good approach to go from user requirements. Apps are not part of it.

The Blloc Phone is a good inspiration. Siri is also an example that abstracts from apps, although I find a pure voice interface impractical in many cases.

An abstraction of apps can of course only be done step by step. A step into this right is already a comprehensive search, which Spotlight offers in iOS.

Abstraction does not necessarily mean a monolithic system. Instead of apps, functions or services can also be installed.

Anyway, my question in this thread is much easier. Is there anyone working on an alternative or improved UBports system interface?

@kugiigi I agree, that a user experience should be consistent.

I was told that the Unity8 shell could be modularized in the future to allow such modifications.

In our hackaton, we would like to evaluate this with a proof of concept, that shows a grid view instad of the fan arrangement and may have different side menus.

Someone in the Telegram chat told me, that someone is already working on a UX modification, but the person couldn't tell me who.

@kugiigi I agree, UT support the convergence use from the beginning. In this respect, Ubports is a step ahead of Sailfish OS. In this respect, Ubports is a step ahead of Sailfish OS. Nevertheless the convergence use case doesn't seem to be optimal even in UBports. A good technical basis is to enable responsive apps and a responsive system user interface. DeX is certainly a good model here.

Maybe a user interface for a productive work environment with a large screen has to look completely different, as you suggest in your post. The decisive factor here is the same database. Of course this is not possible with a container solution like MaruOS. Libertine is also an isolated container, if I understand correctly.

@dobey I agree, currently each mobile OS is app centric. Apople's business model is even partly dependent on the App Ecosystem.

Basic needs are the consumption, editing and sharing of content. These functions should be in the foreground and should be available independently of apps. The prerequisite is a separate data level, which UBports already makes technically possible. The most recent concept by Tim Berners Lee is inspiring in this respect: https://solid.inrupt.com/

Apps will still have authorization for a long time to come. But I see a gradual replacement of apps for an alternative operating system. Again, the Blloc Phone is inspiring.

We are currently testing our concept with a focus group and hope to go public with it this year.