[FHD] Remove Phone and Messaging apps from favorites, launcher and app scope

[Bill Filler]

Per product management, the Phone and Messaging apps should not be available on the Freiza build.

We can accomplish this in a few steps tbd
1 - do not show them in the launcher or the top favorites section
2 - do not show them anywhere including the app scope
3 - remove them from the image entirely, although messaging will be interesting at some future time (this probably requires a move from rootfs to custom tarball)
or
4 - make their appearance conditional based on device capabilities

Note we also want to remove the infographic feeds for these or ensure they are not visible by default
dialer-calls-duration
dialer-calls-incoming
dialer-calls-outgoing
text-messages-received
text-messages-sent

[Paweł Stołowski (stolowski)]

The list of favorited apps can be configured via gsettings key

$ gsettings get com.canonical.Unity.ClickScope core-apps

This key is currently an empty array of strings, in which case the Apps scope uses the following defaults:
"dialer-app", "messaging-app", "address-book-app", "com.ubuntu.camera_camera", "webbrowser-app", "com.ubuntu.clock_clock"

[Michał Sawicz (saviq)]

Not a unity8 issue, needs to be handled in the custom/device tarball.

[Luciano Barea (lubareac)]

Why remove?
Tablets will be capable to send messages and make calls for emergency cases.

[Łukasz Zemczak (sil2100)]

@Luciano: Generally not all tablets have SIM cards and can be used for calls or messages, this is about the general case - the custom tarball for a device should decide if it should have those installed or not. We shouldn't enforce installing that on all devices as it doesn't make much sense sometimes (wastes space).

As for the bug in hand, if we decide that we want to remove those completely from an image, this would need some changes in the builder config - we would have to remove the messaging etc. from the rootfs and re-add it to all of our devices custom tarballs. I would suppose that would be our long-term proper solution.

[Pat McGowan (pat-mcgowan)]

Reassign to make sure penk knows

[Luciano Barea (lubareac)]

@Łukasz
I think, sometimes developers will choose between "waste space" or "waste time".
Wasted space can be reduced in next OTAs, but wasted time in re-add things no return.

[Łukasz Zemczak (sil2100)]

@Luciano: as I said, it's the tablet vendor that's supposed to decide if the device needs a messaging/dialer app. If a tablet has no physical ability to use SIM cards, why should the image include those apps which will not work by default anyway? It's all being done in the custom tarball, so tablets with SIM-support would have those still installed but those that don't - wouldn't. No one says: hey, let's remove those apps from all tablet images. The general idea is to remove them from the rootfs so that every custom tarball can decide if installing those makes sense or not.

[Luciano Barea (lubareac)]

@Łukasz
Some tablet has SIM card reader, but some options, normally dialer, are deactivate by telephony company.
And sometimes , tablets and phones are blocked for use only with the company where you buy them, until you liberate the device.
If device not use SIM cards, maybe you will add to system something for disable (hide) them.
Other option is no install, and add later through something like ppa's. This way, you can release updates without launch new OTAs (hey, can you do that for security updates of things like kernel?).

Besides, try to understand my point of view as user:
I'm worried, because If you create custom tarballs for each device, what will happend with OTAs?
When you will have 30 or 50 custom tarballs, you will need time to test each one, and then the OTAs release time will be of 8, 12 or even more weeks.
Let's see the possible tarballs for same device in their different models
(take in mind, I don't know if same device but with different screen size (like maybe BQ E4.5 and BQ E5), or if 3G, 4G and next 5G version, use the same tarball):
-1 for Wifi and SIM card model.
-1 for Wifi only model (without SIM card).
-¿1 for SIM card only model? (i don't know if exist devices with SIM card and without Wifi).
Add to this:
-1 version for each model blocked (no liberate) by telephony company.
-1 version for each free or liberate model, but customized by telephony company.

[Łukasz Zemczak (sil2100)]

@Luciano: the number of custom tarballs is not a problem from the QA POV. If we have 20 different officially supported devices we have to test all 20 devices, regardless of how many custom tarballs we actually have. We're not testing custom tarballs but the specific devices. For instance, we have the same custom tarball for krillin and vegetahd but both devices need to be tested separately anyway, as the hardware is different (although in this case only slightly). Also, phone updates only happen through OTA anyway, no apt updates are supported as our images are read-only by default.

Anyway, for now I see that the latest frieza custom tarball has the phone apps temporarily hidden from the apps scope and launcher.

[Łukasz Zemczak (sil2100)]

QA reported that the phone apps are gone from the launcher and favorites but are still visible in the apps scope - is that a feasible enough solution? I suppose we should hide it completely? The bug doesn't specify explicitly what is required by design.

[Penk Chen (penk)]

The launcher / favorites icons has been removed in custom tarball via gsettings.

However the apps scope there's not much we can do about it, dialer-app and message-app are installed in rootfs, therefore should be removed in rootfs for bq-pd.

[Pat McGowan (pat-mcgowan)]

This is sufficient for now. Ideally there visibility will be controlled by the capabilities of the device for dialer and what plugins are available as in the case of messaging

[Luciano Barea (lubareac)]

@Pat
¿Phone and messaging apps will be controlled by the capabilities of the device (SIM card reader) or by if one SIM card is connected?
If the device don't have SIM car reader, phone and messaging apps will be hidden.
But, what happen in a device without SIM card, because you don't have one in this moment?
Hide this apps like in devices without SIM car reader, or still visible but with a message like "You can't use this app, because no SIM card detected"?

@Łukasz
>Also, phone updates only happen through OTA anyway, no apt updates are supported as our images are read-only by default.
I see vulnerabilities in ubuntu ( http://www.ubuntu.com/usn ), but i don't know if could affect Ubuntu Touch.
And like i don't dirty this, where can i open a wishlist for "receive urgent security updates using a temporary write mode"?

I almost forget, Łukasz and Pat, sorry for disturb you with all this.

[Jean-Baptiste Lallement (jibel)]

@Luciano, availability of telephony related features will be controlled by the presence of a modem.

[Pat McGowan (pat-mcgowan)]

In the short term we could add a blacklist in gsettings that the app scope would use to hide certain apps. This could be overlaid from the custom tarball

[Pat McGowan (pat-mcgowan)]

launcher and favorites done

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[John McAleely (john.mcaleely)]

similar tablet related work in system settings bug #1541588

[Noemí (noemi-gallego)]

@John,

If the messages and phone apps are going to remain for VoIP calls and telegram messages, then the sound settings should be reset.

Thanks!

[Pat McGowan (pat-mcgowan)]

in the near term the plan is to hide the phone and messaging apps. Once they are generally useful they will be revealed along with the relevant settings.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package unity-scope-click - 0.1.1+16.04.20160307-0ubuntu1

---------------
unity-scope-click (0.1.1+16.04.20160307-0ubuntu1) xenial; urgency=medium

  [ Antti Kaijanmäki ]
  * libclickscope/click/interface.cpp: remove accents and use
    QString::compare() to find matches (LP: #1546513, #1378490)

  [ CI Train Bot ]
  * Resync trunk.

  [ Rodney Dawes ]
  * Add an "ignored-apps" gsettings key for a list of apps to ignore in
    results. Generate a gsettings schema during build for the app scope
    tests. Use the temporary schema and memory backend for app scope
    tests. (LP: #1536665)
  * Refactor download manager class to use web::Client for network
    usage. Update all usage of click::DownloadManager for refactored
    API. Add a method to the web::Client to invalidate credentials.
    Remove integration-harness tests from coverage rule. (LP: #1432506,
    #1317292)
  * Use the online-accounts integration for payments button. Refresh the
    store results on purchase cancellation. (LP: #1513093)

 -- Rodney Dawes <email address hidden> Mon, 07 Mar 2016 14:10:31 +0000

[Alejandro J. Cura (alecu)]

We are still missing the gsettings entries in the frieza tarball to hide the phone and messaging apps.

[Pat McGowan (pat-mcgowan)]

Can these get into the device tarball for frieza and cooler?

[Alejandro J. Cura (alecu)]

The missing keys needed for frieza are the following:

gsettings set com.canonical.Unity.ClickScope ignored-apps "['dialer-app.desktop', 'messaging-app.desktop']"

[Alfonso Sanchez-Beato (alfonsosanchezbeato)]

The device tarball already sets FORM_FACTOR=tablet in /etc/ubuntu-touch-session.d/android.conf. Should not rootfs take this into account to create the gsetting entry?

Otherwise we need to add a script in /etc/profile.d/ meant to be overriden by the device tarball to make this call to gsettings.

[Pat McGowan (pat-mcgowan)]

This is more a per device capability definition and I don't think form factor is directly related.
From the rootfs we could detect the lack of modem and turn off the dialer, and similarly detect the lack of messaging protocols that can be used by the messaging app. In the future, the messaging app will be supportable, and even the dialer could be with a capable usb modem for example.
I agree with abeato to try to do this from the rootfs based on capabilities. unless it proves too difficult. Short term we could base it on the available device name.

[Pat McGowan (pat-mcgowan)]

For now we would like a gsettings.override file in the custom tarball to contain

[com.canonical.Unity.ClickScope]
ignored-apps=['dialer-app.desktop', 'messaging-app.desktop']

[Pat McGowan (pat-mcgowan)]

thats for cooler and frieza

[Penk Chen (penk)]

custom dconf key added for bq-aquaris-pd.en channel.