ubuntu-phone team mailing list archive

[Peter Bittner <peter.bittner@xxxxxxx>]

Hi webapp developers,

I see quite a few webapps on the Ubuntu Store that simply wrap a
website, and, probably in fear of situations that require a back
button, they show the address bar by default. Personally, I feel
that's almost worse than providing a simple link to the website opened
in the default web browser, because you have no real benefit of having
a webapp. The main downside is precious screen real estate is wasted
for an address bar you can't even manipulate.

Other users seem to have similar feelings, that's why those kind of
apps get unpleased (and unpleasant) review comments. In the end it's a
problem for the whole platform: We'll get a bunch full of frustrating
webapps that provide little to no benefit, and make Ubuntu Touch look
like a lousy platform where you "first have to dig yourself through
the mud of useless apps" (a future review in computer magazine may
say).

(Disclaimer) Let me note that webapps in the end are not useless per
se, in my opinion. They can provide significant value over simply
running the same mobile application in the web browser. And not having
the address bar wasting precious screen real estate is just one major
benefit.

So, why doesn't Ubuntu Touch provide and promote something like the
ogra webapp container [1] as the default for running webapps in order
to help lazy webapp developers (myself included)? There should really
be no need to activate an address bar when I can have the back and
forward button to my rescue with a swipe up from the lower edge of the
screen. (See the uApp Explorer webapp [3] for a demo.) If these
options (Home, Back, Forward, Reload) were in the bottom edge menu by
default, even better. The menu should be able to be extended or
overridden by a simple addition of options in a webapp config file. No
strict need to add QML code or so for simple shortcuts. (Webapps using
this container currently do copy the QML code and change it, which is
suboptimal in my opinion.)

Note that there is also another alternate webapp container [2] demoed
e.g. by the fantastic "Google Apps" webapp [4], which however I find a
bit confusing with its dual-function bottom edge menu.

Bottom line: There should be no more webapps with address bars in the
Ubuntu Store. (Unless this provides a significant benefit for a
specific application, of course. I wouldn't know of any such app at
the moment, though.)

[1] https://launchpad.net/alternate-webapp-container
[2] https://launchpad.net/alternate-webapp-container-v2
[3] https://uappexplorer.com/app/uappexplorer.bhdouglass
[4] https://uappexplorer.com/app/googleapps.mattirn

What's Canonical's opinion or plans on that?

Peter