touch-packages team mailing list archive

[Matthew Exon <mat.ubuntu@xxxxxxxxx>]

Public bug reported:

Browsers normally include some way to save a page, including all CSS,
JavaScript and images necessary to show the page correctly.  This would
be good in the Touch web browser.

Justification:

I would argue that saving web pages for later viewing is even more
important on a mobile device than a computer.  On a computer you can
reasonably just leave the browser open if you want to do something else
and come back to it later.  On a phone the browser risks being closed
for lack of memory, and you have no control over that.

Furthermore, on a computer you normally have continuous internet access,
so it's easy to go back to the page later.  On a phone you are
frequently drifting in and out of good reception, so you may not be able
to reload the page precisely when you need it most.

For example, there's a webpage with a map showing an address, but when
you get there you're in a notspot.  Open your browser to where you left
it and you briefly get to see a fuzzy version of the map, which then
immediately gets yanked away from you!

My personal need is when I'm travelling.  I like to save
wikitravel/wikipedia pages of the place I'm going, hotel pages, booking
receipts and so on.  It is normal that when I first arrive in a city I
have no SIM card, let alone 3G.  At the moment my solution is to use
wget --page-requisites in a terminal to download the page, then run
Apache in a chroot to serve the pages back to the browser.  This is
fiddly and unpleasant.

A traditional save/load style interface with a file chooser dialog might
be nice.  I think better would be an option in the hamburger menu to
"cache" the page, similar to bookmarking but it keeps a copy of the
entire page.  Or you could save on UI surface area by always keeping an
entire copy of any page that's bookmarked.

My fantasy solution would be the above plus a dbus interface.  That
would allow, for example, an itinerary app to automatically figure out
which country/province/city I'm going to and pre-download relevant
pages.

** Affects: webbrowser-app (Ubuntu)
     Importance: Undecided
         Status: New

-- 
You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu
Touch seeded packages, which is subscribed to webbrowser-app in Ubuntu.
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1520500

Title:
  Feature: save or cache page

Status in webbrowser-app package in Ubuntu:
  New

Bug description:
  Browsers normally include some way to save a page, including all CSS,
  JavaScript and images necessary to show the page correctly.  This
  would be good in the Touch web browser.

  Justification:

  I would argue that saving web pages for later viewing is even more
  important on a mobile device than a computer.  On a computer you can
  reasonably just leave the browser open if you want to do something
  else and come back to it later.  On a phone the browser risks being
  closed for lack of memory, and you have no control over that.

  Furthermore, on a computer you normally have continuous internet
  access, so it's easy to go back to the page later.  On a phone you are
  frequently drifting in and out of good reception, so you may not be
  able to reload the page precisely when you need it most.

  For example, there's a webpage with a map showing an address, but when
  you get there you're in a notspot.  Open your browser to where you
  left it and you briefly get to see a fuzzy version of the map, which
  then immediately gets yanked away from you!

  My personal need is when I'm travelling.  I like to save
  wikitravel/wikipedia pages of the place I'm going, hotel pages,
  booking receipts and so on.  It is normal that when I first arrive in
  a city I have no SIM card, let alone 3G.  At the moment my solution is
  to use wget --page-requisites in a terminal to download the page, then
  run Apache in a chroot to serve the pages back to the browser.  This
  is fiddly and unpleasant.

  A traditional save/load style interface with a file chooser dialog
  might be nice.  I think better would be an option in the hamburger
  menu to "cache" the page, similar to bookmarking but it keeps a copy
  of the entire page.  Or you could save on UI surface area by always
  keeping an entire copy of any page that's bookmarked.

  My fantasy solution would be the above plus a dbus interface.  That
  would allow, for example, an itinerary app to automatically figure out
  which country/province/city I'm going to and pre-download relevant
  pages.

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