should offer a commandline option to override the user agent in webapp mode

Bug #1245465 reported by Oliver Grawert
18
This bug affects 3 people
Affects Status Importance Assigned to Milestone
webbrowser-app
Fix Released
High
Alexandre Abreu
unity-webapps-qml (Ubuntu)
Fix Released
Undecided
Unassigned
webbrowser-app (Ubuntu)
Fix Released
High
Alexandre Abreu

Bug Description

instead of having to add each and every url pattern to ua-overrides.js, it would be nice if webbrowser-app could offer a commandline option to override the user agent string when in webapp mode ...

while the override file is nice and all, it will not help for released images since we can not retroactively add overrides to the file, so webapps someone writes will only work from a specific release on if the site they use needs a specific UA string. while getting the override into the file eventually makes sense and should be the default, being able to override it in the Exec call of the .desktop file would make it possible to run the specific webapp in releases that dont ship the matching pattern in the .js file yet.

while we have possibilities to override the setting with a qml wrapper like in http://daker.me/2013/10/package-your-webapp-for-ubuntu-touch.html this only works suboptimal (the site itself works, but opening external links in the browser is not supported, there is a toolbar in the app but it is not easily possible to have navigational elements in there without a lot extra effort etc etc.)

so please consider adding something like a --ua-override= commandline option for the webapp mode.

Related branches

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

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

Changed in webbrowser-app (Ubuntu):
status: New → Confirmed
Revision history for this message
Olivier Tilloy (osomon) wrote :

We also discussed with the webapps team the idea of allowing webapps to ship their own override file, that would have a higher priority than the system-wide one.

Also note that we plan to implement some sort of update mechanism for the system-wide overrides file (probably by having it being part of a click package).

Changed in webbrowser-app:
importance: Undecided → High
status: New → Confirmed
Changed in webbrowser-app:
assignee: nobody → Alexandre Abreu (abreu-alexandre)
Changed in webbrowser-app (Ubuntu):
assignee: nobody → Alexandre Abreu (abreu-alexandre)
importance: Undecided → High
David Barth (dbarth)
tags: added: webapps-hotlist
Changed in webbrowser-app:
status: Confirmed → In Progress
David Barth (dbarth)
Changed in webbrowser-app (Ubuntu):
status: Confirmed → In Progress
Changed in unity-webapps-qml (Ubuntu):
status: New → In Progress
Revision history for this message
Launchpad Janitor (janitor) wrote :

This bug was fixed in the package unity-webapps-qml - 0.1+14.10.20140506.1-0ubuntu1

---------------
unity-webapps-qml (0.1+14.10.20140506.1-0ubuntu1) utopic; urgency=low

  [ Ubuntu daily release ]
  * New rebuild forced

  [ Alexandre Abreu ]
  * Add UA override capabilities to webapps; clean some code and tests,
    (LP: #1245465)
 -- Ubuntu daily release <email address hidden> Tue, 06 May 2014 17:27:01 +0000

Changed in unity-webapps-qml (Ubuntu):
status: In Progress → Fix Released
Revision history for this message
Launchpad Janitor (janitor) wrote :

This bug was fixed in the package webbrowser-app - 0.23+14.10.20140506.1-0ubuntu1

---------------
webbrowser-app (0.23+14.10.20140506.1-0ubuntu1) utopic; urgency=low

  [ Ubuntu daily release ]
  * New rebuild forced

  [ Alexandre Abreu ]
  * Add capability for single webapps to have specific UA overrides for
    the website that they serve (LP: #1245465)
 -- Ubuntu daily release <email address hidden> Tue, 06 May 2014 17:21:27 +0000

Changed in webbrowser-app (Ubuntu):
status: In Progress → Fix Released
Changed in webbrowser-app:
status: In Progress → Fix Released
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