ubuntu-phone team mailing list archive

[Michael Zanetti <michael.zanetti@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On 15.11.2016 14:20, ali hagigat wrote:
> On 11/13/16, Michael Zanetti <michael.zanetti@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>
>>
>> On 13.11.2016 12:09, ali hagigat wrote:
>>> I have Nexus 5, UbuntuTouch and ubuntu-sdk. Can i use some fundamental
>>> telephony functions by ubuntu-sdk? How I can use the telephony gsm
>>> libraries because there is no document for them. For example , i want to
>>> write an application to dial another number or send text SMS messages to
>>> another number. What libraries i should use to do that?
>>
>>
>> Hi, there is no API for that in the SDK. The platform's design doesn't
>> allow arbitrary apps to send messages or place phone calls in the user's
>> name without requiring interaction from the user. What you can do in
>> your app, is to open a link like tel:///12345678. This would cause the
>> dialer app to appear with that number filled in. All the user then has
>> to do is to press the call button. This should cater for most of the
>> uses cases I think. For example, an app that finds some phone numbers
>> for the user to call, can be done pretty nicely with that.
>>
>> That said, obviously, there might be some use cases where sending
>> messages or calling numbers in a completely automated way are desired
>> (say, anti theft apps). This is still possible by either accessing ofono
>> on D-Bus yourself or calling the scripts in /usr/share/ofono/scripts.
>> Your application needs to be unconfined for that. Obviously this is
>> highly sensitive from a security point of view and because of that an
>> app doing so cannot be published in the store at this point. Your
>> application needs to be unconfined for that, which means your options to
>> publish it are either by hosting it yourself or publish it in the
>> openstore.
>>
>> Br,
>> Michael
>>
>>
> 
> Thank you very much Michael Zanetti, for your valuable answers. I appreciate it.
> I looked at the architecture of Ubuntu, it seems that a user space
> application can access qtubuntu or platform-api  functions and
> interfaces.
> There was no path to communicate with  Ofono directly by an
> application, but you said a user space application has access to the
> Ofono interface. It is interesting. Can i call Ofono functions by a
> program inside ubuntu-sdk and then compile the code for Nexus 5 mobile
> phone?

Yes, you can call things on ofono, if your app is unconfined. Use QtDBus
for that, or, depending on what you need, just execute the before
mentioned scripts from your app.

> 
> What software interfaces are available for a user application under
> UbuntuTouch operating systems, I see some names like QtUbuntu,
> Platform-API, Hybris, Ofono and so on. Which of them are available?
> Can they be used inside a Ubuntu-SDK environment?

All of them are "available" in a sense that you can use them from a code
point of view, however, some of them might be restricted by apparmor
(again, need to be unconfined to use them) and some of them are also not
preinstalled in the sdk and you'd need to manually install them in your
crossbuild container.

> 
> When you want to develop an application for UbuntuTouch, do you use
> Ubuntu-SDK? or you compile your application another way? By developing
> code, i mean accessing GSM functionalities particularly.

I use the Ubuntu SDK yes... That said, so far I haven't written anything
that interferes with GSM functionality yet...

Br,
Michael

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