ubuntu-phone team mailing list archive

[Peter Bittner <peter.bittner@xxxxxxx>]

Dear Canonical,
Dear Appear.in,

I'm trying to turn Appear.in into a Web app for Ubuntu Touch, for true
video conversations "with up to 8 people for free." It works in Ubuntu
Touch's default browser, but for a Web app there are a few things I
need to be able to control:

1.) [Canonical] By default the browser uses the rear camera. This can
be changed in the browser menu via Settings -> Privacy & permissions
-> Camera & Microphone. You have to reload the web page afterwards,
the browser does not switch the camera on an open "connection" as it
seems. A bit clumsy, but it's possible. The browser seems to remember
this setting for a while (when closing the browser window in the
meantime), albeit not forever.

   Unfortunately, the menu in the right upper corner next to the
address bar is not available in a Web app (due to the address bar
missing completely, which is on purpose to use all of the available
screen real estate). Is there a way specify which camera should be
used when starting up the web app container, e.g. by a command line
switch or so? If not, I probably have to write a Qt application and
use the API function the web browser application is using, right? Can
you point me to the API documentation?

2.) [Appear.in] The text box on the login screen is somewhat squeezed
on the Welcome screen (https://appear.in/) as soon as you start typing
a room name. This is probably because there is so much text on top of
the screen ("About FAQ Blog Premium") that pushes the input box
downwards while at the same time the screen real estate is reduced
even more by the keyboard pushing upwards. A small CSS issue.

3.) [Appear.in] Appear.in opens a room with the chat box open on the
mobile device browser screen. This is kind of okay, because there is
still half of the screen available for the actual video, but it would
be nice if the chat box could be closed (by default). Is there a query
parameter in the URL that I could use to address this issue, or do you
guys have to work on it?

   [Canonical] Otherwise I'd have to trigger a touch event on the
"minimize chat box" button using JavaScript (or so) is there a way to
do this? Kind of Selenium powered thingy, or via Qt something?

4.) [Appear.in] In case I have to write Qt code I'd love to assist
users in logging in with native input controls. Is there a reliable
way / API to perform the login and query the logged-in state, or do I
have to sniff the HTML and send a usual POST request mimicking the
input form? Same goes for the rooms locked with the user profile, can
they be retrieved via an API function?

   I've read in the FAQs [1] that it's only possible to log in using
the native apps (Android, iOS). Looks like I can't do this either
using the API [2]. Is there any other (official, yet undocumented)
way?

   [1] https://appear.in/information/faq/
   [2] https://developer.appear.in/

5.) [Canonical] Will I be able to use the NPM-driven appearin-sdk in a
(Qt) app? I'll probably have to pack and install this with the app.
The docs in [2] say, "Note that the NPM version requires a
pre-compilation step using something like browserify or webpack to
work."


Cheers, Peter