Media Player should not be visible in the app scope and launcher

Bug #1387691 reported by Giorgio Venturi
72
This bug affects 10 people
Affects Status Importance Assigned to Milestone
Canonical System Image
Fix Released
High
Bill Filler
Ubuntu UX
Fix Committed
Critical
James Mulholland
mediaplayer-app (Ubuntu)
Triaged
High
Unassigned
mediaplayer-app (Ubuntu RTM)
Fix Released
High
Unassigned
unity8 (Ubuntu)
Invalid
Undecided
Unassigned
url-dispatcher (Ubuntu)
Triaged
High
Unassigned
url-dispatcher (Ubuntu RTM)
Invalid
High
Unassigned

Bug Description

The mediaplayer is an 'auxiliary app' in the current design approach. That means that its purpouse it playback media launched by other apps (e.g Messaging) or scopes (e.g. Videos). It should not be launched from the App scopes.

However, the 'Update' section System Settings should still display it when an update to mediaplayer is available.

Current behaviour
- Mediaplayer app displayed in App Scope, Launcher and Settings

Desired behaviour
- Mediaplayer app not displayed in App Scope or Launcher
- Mediaplayer displayed in Settings > Update

--- --- --- --- ---

UX Comment:

Fix appears partially released.

Implemented:
- Mediaplayer app not displayed in App Scope/ Ubuntu Store

Not implemented:
- Mediaplayer app not displayed in Launcher (still visible in launcher, can be 'pinned' to launcher, etc).
- Mediaplayer displayed in Settings > Update

Related branches

Changed in ubuntu-ux:
importance: Undecided → Critical
assignee: nobody → Giorgio Venturi (giorgio-venturi)
Revision history for this message
Michał Sawicz (saviq) wrote :

I don't think there's anything to do in unity8, it should be enough to go "NoDisplay=True" or similar in the .desktop file for the mediaplayer app.

Changed in unity8 (Ubuntu):
status: New → Incomplete
Changed in ubuntu-ux:
status: New → Fix Committed
Revision history for this message
Jim Hodapp (jhodapp) wrote :

Maybe the NoDisplay=true has changed since the last time I tried it, but when I tried to fix this bug in the past, adding that tag to the desktop file meant that the mediaplayer-app wouldn't launch anymore.

Revision history for this message
Michał Sawicz (saviq) wrote :

Yeah, url-dispatcher seems to ignore apps with "NoDisplay=true". Workaround is to go "OnlyShowIn=Old" for now.

Adding a url-dispatcher task in any case.

Revision history for this message
Jim Hodapp (jhodapp) wrote :

Awesome, thanks for the reply! It'll be great to get this simple bug fixed.

Changed in mediaplayer-app:
assignee: nobody → Alejandro J. Cura (alecu)
Revision history for this message
Ted Gould (ted) wrote :

I'm a little confused here. It seems like media player should be using a trusted prompt session instead of a desktop file. That seems to handle the design requirements better.

Revision history for this message
dobey (dobey) wrote :

Where is the rationale for this?

Can we please have bugs filed where they state a problem, and not a description of a task the reporter expects developers to do? And if the problem is related to design, please provide the appropriate links to rationale of why the design is changed, so that the developers can understand things better.

Ted Gould (ted)
Changed in url-dispatcher (Ubuntu):
status: New → Incomplete
Revision history for this message
Jim Hodapp (jhodapp) wrote :

What's the status of this fix landing for vivid/rtm?

Revision history for this message
Launchpad Janitor (janitor) wrote :

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

Changed in mediaplayer-app (Ubuntu):
status: New → Confirmed
Jim Hodapp (jhodapp)
Changed in mediaplayer-app:
status: New → In Progress
Changed in mediaplayer-app (Ubuntu):
status: Confirmed → In Progress
Changed in mediaplayer-app (Ubuntu RTM):
status: New → In Progress
Changed in mediaplayer-app:
importance: Undecided → Medium
Revision history for this message
Michał Sawicz (saviq) wrote :

I agree with Ted, if the media player should never "be" an app, it needs to be a trusted prompt, overlaying the originating app, not its own separate app in the spread etc.

Changed in unity8 (Ubuntu):
status: Incomplete → Invalid
Revision history for this message
Pat McGowan (pat-mcgowan) wrote :

The plan is to treat the player as a trusted prompt session and not as an app. That means it will not appear in the app scope or the launcher, but as an overlay to the video scope or whatever starts it.

Changed in mediaplayer-app (Ubuntu):
assignee: nobody → Ted Gould (ted)
Changed in canonical-devices-system-image:
importance: Undecided → High
milestone: none → ww05-2015
status: New → Confirmed
Changed in mediaplayer-app (Ubuntu):
importance: Undecided → High
Changed in mediaplayer-app (Ubuntu RTM):
importance: Undecided → High
Ted Gould (ted)
Changed in url-dispatcher (Ubuntu):
status: Incomplete → In Progress
importance: Undecided → High
assignee: nobody → Ted Gould (ted)
Changed in mediaplayer-app (Ubuntu RTM):
assignee: nobody → Ted Gould (ted)
Changed in url-dispatcher (Ubuntu RTM):
status: New → In Progress
importance: Undecided → High
assignee: nobody → Ted Gould (ted)
Revision history for this message
Ted Gould (ted) wrote :

NOTE: The fixes for this bug are on hold pending the splash screen work for trusted prompt sessions that are discussed in bug 1352251

Ted Gould (ted)
no longer affects: mediaplayer-app
Revision history for this message
Nick Dedekind (nick-dedekind) wrote :

@ted.
What work for the splash screen? As far as I am aware, there shouldn't be any splash screens for UI processes launched by a prompt helper.

Revision history for this message
Michał Sawicz (saviq) wrote :

@Nick, we were discussing that the shell should (optionally) provide a transition/splash screen/something for trusted prompts (as requested/configured by the trusted helper when creating a trusted session) to improve the user experience while waiting for the new UI to load.

Changed in canonical-devices-system-image:
status: Confirmed → In Progress
milestone: ww05-2015 → ww09-2015
Revision history for this message
Michał Sawicz (saviq) wrote :

Output from a chat with tvoss today:

We foresee two parallel approaches: a media player widget and a player using trusted sessions.

1)
If your app has video playback caps + apparmor profile, you should just be able to go:

VideoPlayer { // name TBD, component to be ~extracted from the current media player app into the SDK
    source: "url://to/video"
}

That's it. It should be an item as any other in your QML scene, and have a button to put it fullscreen. Hardware decoding included.

2)
If you don't want to embed the player in your app, dispatching a URL to it should result in the video player opening as a trusted session for your app, covering it whole.

That might not necessarily be the behaviour we want for windowed mode, where we might want an actual player app, but that we'll have to determine when we get there.

Revision history for this message
Jim Hodapp (jhodapp) wrote : Re: [Bug 1387691] Re: Media Player should not be visible in the app scope and launcher

I like it, I think it's a good plan. You should check with bfiller and his
team, as from my memory they started on a media player widget already.

On Thu, Feb 5, 2015 at 10:52 AM, Michał Sawicz <email address hidden>
wrote:

> Output from a chat with tvoss today:
>
> We foresee two parallel approaches: a media player widget and a player
> using trusted sessions.
>
> 1)
> If your app has video playback caps + apparmor profile, you should just be
> able to go:
>
> VideoPlayer { // name TBD, component to be ~extracted from the current
> media player app into the SDK
> source: "url://to/video"
> }
>
> That's it. It should be an item as any other in your QML scene, and have
> a button to put it fullscreen. Hardware decoding included.
>
> 2)
> If you don't want to embed the player in your app, dispatching a URL to it
> should result in the video player opening as a trusted session for your
> app, covering it whole.
>
> That might not necessarily be the behaviour we want for windowed mode,
> where we might want an actual player app, but that we'll have to
> determine when we get there.
>
> --
> You received this bug notification because you are subscribed to a
> duplicate bug report (1343353).
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1387691
>
> Title:
> Media Player should not be visible in the app scope and launcher
>
> Status in the base for Ubuntu mobile products:
> In Progress
> Status in Ubuntu UX bugs:
> Fix Committed
> Status in mediaplayer-app package in Ubuntu:
> In Progress
> Status in unity8 package in Ubuntu:
> Invalid
> Status in url-dispatcher package in Ubuntu:
> In Progress
> Status in mediaplayer-app package in Ubuntu RTM:
> In Progress
> Status in url-dispatcher package in Ubuntu RTM:
> In Progress
>
> Bug description:
> The mediaplayer is an 'auxiliary app' in the current design approach.
> That means that its purpouse it playback media launched by other apps
> (e.g Messaging) or scopes (e.g. Videos). It should not be launched
> from the App scopes.
>
> However, the 'Update' section System Settings should still display it
> when an update to mediaplayer is available.
>
> Current behaviour
> - Mediaplayer app displayed in App Scope, Launcher and Settings
>
> Desired behaviour
> - Mediaplayer app not displayed in App Scope or Launcher
> - Mediaplayer displayed in Settings > Update
>
> To manage notifications about this bug go to:
>
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/canonical-devices-system-image/+bug/1387691/+subscriptions
>

Revision history for this message
Pat McGowan (pat-mcgowan) wrote :

pushing out as no way it lands this week

Changed in canonical-devices-system-image:
assignee: nobody → Bill Filler (bfiller)
milestone: ww09-2015 → ww11-2015
Revision history for this message
Noemí (noemi-gallego) wrote :

Hi,
I'm testing this bug on R19 version.
About comment #10, if the idea is to treat the player as a trusted prompt session and not as an app, and hide the app icon, then if the user wants to reproduce a video and he/she does not have data or wifi connection, his/her own videos won´t be shown on the vieo scope, so there would be no way of reproducing them.
In my opinion hiding the app icon should be just something provisional until finding the solution.
Truly, I am a little lost about which would be the solution that would land on ww11. Could someone confirm me this?
Thank you.
Regards

Revision history for this message
Bill Filler (bfiller) wrote :

@saviq
I agree with the 2 approaches from comment #14. However neither are really feasible for RTM without doing a sizable amount of work:

1) For the embedded video component
- my team would create the component, and move it into ui-extras to start with. We started this a while ago here:
https://code.launchpad.net/~renatofilho/mediaplayer-app/share-components/+merge/241599, but this would need to be finished
- modify Video scopes to use the component
- modify Gallery and Camera to use the component

2) Trusted session support
For this to land, there are a couple of blocking issues that need to be sorted on Unity and/or Scopes
- fullscreen window support - this is needed because users expect video playback to happen in fullscreen mode as it does today when launching mediaplayer-app via url-dispatcher.
- feedback when launching - based on ted's prototype of launching mediaplayer-app as a trusted session, there is quite some delay when launching as a trusted session. Some sort of spinner or splash screen is needed when launching it. Guessing would be better to build this into the framework somehow rather than having each client (i.e. scopes, apps) be responsible for doing it.

My suggestion is that we add these tasks to respective backlog and get them scheduled.

For the short term, I'd suggest we use "OnlyShowIn" in the desktop file of mediaplayer-app. This would hide it from the apps scope but still allow it to be launched as it is today from scopes and apps. The only downside is it would still show up in the launcher when running and could be pinned, but I'd say that is still an improvement over what we have today.

Question: what value would we set for "OnlyShowIn"?

Thoughts?

Changed in canonical-devices-system-image:
milestone: ww11-2015 → ww13-2015
Revision history for this message
Ted Gould (ted) wrote :

The problem with the "OnlyShowIn" approach is that it is going to create a really odd user experience. Should the app show up in the Launcher? What about the application spread? What if someone pins it on the launcher? Providing something that is both an application in some states but not others is only a route to confusing the user.

Along with that, it's really not where we want to go long term. We want to move towards more helpers and less applications for this type of functionality. It breaks the architecture that we're trying to build. I think that CI Train has taught us how long "temporary fixes" can burn us :-)

Perhaps there is a middle ground on trusted session splash screens where it could be at least a black screen so the user can tell *something* is happening.

Changed in ubuntu-ux:
assignee: Giorgio Venturi (giorgio-venturi) → James Mulholland (jamesjosephmulholland)
Bill Filler (bfiller)
Changed in canonical-devices-system-image:
milestone: ww13-2015 → none
Revision history for this message
Noemí (noemi-gallego) wrote :

Could someone make me a summary of the final design or abut what it's been decided?

Revision history for this message
Noemí (noemi-gallego) wrote :

Any news?

Revision history for this message
Bill Filler (bfiller) wrote :

A new solution has been proposed by design. The shell will be responsible for overlaying a video playback screen on top of the current app or scope. The mediaplayer app will go away, and will be replaced by this functionality in the shell.

Revision history for this message
Ted Gould (ted) wrote :

On Tue, 2015-05-26 at 16:43 +0000, Bill Filler wrote:

> A new solution has been proposed by design. The shell will be
> responsible for overlaying a video playback screen on top of the current
> app or scope. The mediaplayer app will go away, and will be replaced by
> this functionality in the shell.

I think that this bug is still valid though for cases of other apps
wanting to play video though? Especially for non-QML apps that can't use
the widgets we provide.

Revision history for this message
Ted Gould (ted) wrote :

The URL Overlays feature in URL Dispatcher solves this problem. There's a branch for mediaplayer that implements URL Overlays there but it needs mediahub support as well. Marking it complete in URL Dispatcher.

Changed in url-dispatcher (Ubuntu):
status: In Progress → Fix Released
Changed in url-dispatcher (Ubuntu RTM):
status: In Progress → Invalid
Changed in mediaplayer-app (Ubuntu RTM):
status: In Progress → Invalid
Revision history for this message
Noemí (noemi-gallego) wrote :

What is finally going to happen with the error message that this app shows?

Revision history for this message
Łukasz Zemczak (sil2100) wrote :

This bug was fixed in the package mediaplayer-app 0.20.5+15.04.20150701-0ubuntu1 in https://launchpad.net/~ci-train-ppa-service/+archive/ubuntu/stable-phone-overlay

---------------

mediaplayer-app (0.20.5+15.04.20150701-0ubuntu1) vivid; urgency=medium

  [ Bill Filler ]
  * use OnlyShowIn=Old to hide from Apps scope (LP: #1387691)

  [ Renato Araujo Oliveira Filho ]
  * Fixed slider positioning. (LP: #1470331)

mediaplayer-app (0.20.5+15.10.20150630-0ubuntu1) wily; urgency=medium

  [ Renato Araujo Oliveira Filho ]
  * Updated app icon. (LP: #1457424)

mediaplayer-app (0.20.5+15.10.20150522-0ubuntu1) wily; urgency=medium

  [ Jim Hodapp ]
  * Quit playback after fatal playback error. (LP: #1435088)

mediaplayer-app (0.20.5+15.04.20150428-0ubuntu1) vivid; urgency=medium

  [ CI Train Bot ]
  * Resync trunk.

  [ Ricardo Mendoza ]
  * Bug #1417006 Performance/Rendering fixes:  * Remove clipping on
    video loader  * Remove unused rectangles (overdraw) (LP: #1417006)

 -- CI Train Bot <email address hidden> Wed, 01 Jul 2015 21:53:38 +0000

Changed in mediaplayer-app (Ubuntu RTM):
status: Invalid → Fix Released
Revision history for this message
Launchpad Janitor (janitor) wrote :

This bug was fixed in the package mediaplayer-app - 0.20.5+15.10.20150701-0ubuntu1

---------------
mediaplayer-app (0.20.5+15.10.20150701-0ubuntu1) wily; urgency=medium

  [ Bill Filler ]
  * use OnlyShowIn=Old to hide from Apps scope (LP: #1387691)

  [ Renato Araujo Oliveira Filho ]
  * Fixed slider positioning. (LP: #1470331)

 -- CI Train Bot <email address hidden> Wed, 01 Jul 2015 21:53:38 +0000

Changed in mediaplayer-app (Ubuntu):
status: In Progress → Fix Released
Changed in canonical-devices-system-image:
status: In Progress → Fix Released
milestone: none → ww28-2015
description: updated
John Lea (johnlea)
Changed in mediaplayer-app (Ubuntu):
status: Fix Released → Triaged
Changed in mediaplayer-app (Ubuntu RTM):
status: Fix Released → Triaged
Changed in url-dispatcher (Ubuntu):
status: Fix Released → Triaged
Revision history for this message
James Mulholland (jamesmulholland) wrote :

Asked JohnLea to reset the status of this bug until fix is fully implemented.

Revision history for this message
Łukasz Zemczak (sil2100) wrote :

This bug was fixed in the package mediaplayer-app 0.20.5+15.04.20160106.1-0ubuntu1 in https://launchpad.net/~ci-train-ppa-service/+archive/ubuntu/stable-phone-overlay

---------------

mediaplayer-app (0.20.5+15.04.20160106.1-0ubuntu1) vivid; urgency=medium

  [ Arthur Mello ]
  * Add X-Ubuntu-Touch=true to desktop file (LP: #1521773)
  * Translate app title (LP: #1521186)

mediaplayer-app (0.20.5+15.10.20150701-0ubuntu2~gcc5.1) wily; urgency=medium

  * No-change test rebuild for g++5 ABI transition

mediaplayer-app (0.20.5+15.10.20150701-0ubuntu1) wily; urgency=medium

  [ Bill Filler ]
  * use OnlyShowIn=Old to hide from Apps scope (LP: #1387691)

  [ Renato Araujo Oliveira Filho ]
  * Fixed slider positioning. (LP: #1470331)

mediaplayer-app (0.20.5+15.10.20150630-0ubuntu1) wily; urgency=medium

  [ Renato Araujo Oliveira Filho ]
  * Updated app icon. (LP: #1457424)

mediaplayer-app (0.20.5+15.10.20150522-0ubuntu1) wily; urgency=medium

  [ Jim Hodapp ]
  * Quit playback after fatal playback error. (LP: #1435088)

 -- Bill Filler <email address hidden> Wed, 06 Jan 2016 17:11:48 +0000

Changed in mediaplayer-app (Ubuntu RTM):
status: Triaged → Fix Released
Ted Gould (ted)
Changed in mediaplayer-app (Ubuntu):
assignee: Ted Gould (ted) → nobody
Changed in mediaplayer-app (Ubuntu RTM):
assignee: Ted Gould (ted) → nobody
Changed in url-dispatcher (Ubuntu):
assignee: Ted Gould (ted) → nobody
Changed in url-dispatcher (Ubuntu RTM):
assignee: Ted Gould (ted) → nobody
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