State of WebApps in 14.04

[Kostiantyn Rybnikov]

Hi. I installed 14.04 (snapshot) couple weeks ago, and since then, none of web apps I used worked good, and in general they seem rather broken to me. I didn't bother to report concrete bugs, but currently broken parts are:

- launcher. after installation it's shown as "unknown" icon in dock
- apps themselves look weird, like a version from ubuntu touch. they don't have forward/backward buttons, only if you swipe from bottom with your (!) mouse
- overall experience seem to feel broken

So I just wanted to ask. Is it just me? If no -- I feel it would be better to disable them for now until they will be fixed.

Thank you!

[Robert Bruce Park (robru)]

Nope it's not just you, webapps are currently caught in the middle of a transition that has left them unfortunately broken currently. Fixes are on the way.

[Kostiantyn Rybnikov (k-bx)]

I see. Great to know that. Thanks!

[Joe Mooring (jmooring)]

I performed a fresh desktop installation of 14.04 last night. The first thing I did was open Firefox and check my gmail account. I was immediately asked if I wanted to install the web app, as expected. I installed it, then tried it out -- yikes. Not a terrific experience someone trying out an LTS release. I'm glad to know the fixes are in the works.

It seems like a phone app, not a desktop app. Problems with zooming, clipping, etc.

[Kostiantyn Rybnikov (k-bx)]

@Robert Bruce Park, it seems webapps are still "not ready". Are you going to disable them from LTS so that at least they don't show annoying "install webapp" pop-ups? Seems release is near.

Thanks.

[Robert Bruce Park (robru)]

Hi Konstantine,

I've just confirmed this with The Management, and the decision is official: We're shipping webapps in Trusty. We feel that with the recent landing of Oxide as the rendering engine for webapps, that the quality has increased to a useable state.

Of course there are bugs and we are working on those, not all of the fixes may make it in before the release. You might have to wait until 14.04.1 before you see webapps really achieve excellence.

If you are bothered by the presence of webapps on your system, it is possible to remove them with this command:

$ sudo apt-get purge xul-ext-unity unity-webapps-common unity-chromium-extension

This will prevent the integration prompts from bothering you and will remove all currently installed webapps. You may also want to inspect ~/.local/share/applications and delete any webapps-related .desktop files you find in there (just be careful not to delete them all as it may contain applications that you care about as well).

[Kostiantyn Rybnikov (k-bx)]

Thanks for the update, I'm glad to hear you'll continue improving webapps, I like the overall concept and wish you good luck!