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Firstly, I think having webapps so well supported has been a great move by Canonical - its one of the things I like best about this new platform. The fact that I can have multiple websites open as their own application - and behaving like their own application - is enormously beneficial. The fact also that webapps are so easy to create front-end clients for is also really great - all the work is being done on the server side. As a first step to adding functionality to the platform, I think its been a great move.
The issues come from implementation, as you've already pointed out. The navigation bar at the top is one problem - many webapps have these, and don't need them. Others need some kind of navigation, and leave it in. I agree it would be better to find a different solution, however the default container has its benefits.
Ogra's alternative webapp is a great idea, but is missing several recently (last month or so) implemented features. Navigating outside of the webapp container now pulls up that site from the bottom of the screen, which I can close at anytime, rather than opening the browser. (this is awesome!) Also, copy and paste now works on rc-proposed - this hasn't been implemented with Ogra's container yet. Not sure what the plan is with these features, and if Oliver is interested in adding them, but that's already a couple differences.
In terms of always defaulting to the bottom edge navigation, several apps won't work well with this. I.e. - this wouldn't work for the ABC (Australian) Radio's website, which I've created an app for (not great as there's no content hub support yet), or the Sydney Morning Herald's mobile website, which uses the bottom edge for social media. While I love the bottom edge implementation, it doesn't work for all situations.
What would be better would be a template that gives options - this form of navigation could be one of them. And yes, a simple configuration file would be easier, so devs don't need to hunt through the main.qml file unless needed for something else.
Part of the problem with webapps though comes from how easy it is to create them - I'm guilty of this myself - and that until someone learns what they are doing, its very easy to create crap ones. I.e. - a decent webapp requires lots of testing to get the web-url matching patterns right, or its pretty pointless. Then there's account integration (if needed), content-hub support, navigation options (fullscreen? navigation bar?), url-matching from scopes and other apps, splash screen, etc.
Unfortunately, its very easy to publish crap webapps to the Ubuntu Store - its also very easy to publish really good ones, but most people don't take the time to do it. Also, for whatever reason, there was a webpage canonical published where people could create webapps from a simple form without using the sdk - I think this was a really bad idea. There was no pattern matching possible, and I suspect this has helped flood the store with useless 'site bookmarks'.
So yep, I agree with you that the container needs work, and it would be cool to see bottom edge navigation worked into it. I just don't think this should be default in all cases - or if it is, it should be easy to turn this off. Also, I think the concept of webapps - and the features this platform is supporting them with - are awesome. I think the crap nature of many of the webapps in the store stems from people who haven't gotten their heads around it yet - not sure what to do about that yet.
Cheers, Mitchell On Wednesday, 2 September 2015 3:44:03 AM AEST, Peter Bittner wrote:
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
-- Sent using Dekko from my Ubuntu device
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