1179872 - Remove about:apps page and menu item

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Firefox for Android Graveyard :: General, defect)

Description

[:Margaret Leibovic]

UI telemetry shows that very few people use the Tools->Apps menu item, and the about:apps page isn't a great experience, so let's just remove it.

Comment 1

[:Margaret Leibovic]

about:apps was written before it was possible for users to access and uninstall their apps through the native Android UI, but now that that's possible, removing about:apps wouldn't remove any app management functionality.

Comment 2

[Anthony Lam (:antlam) Find me, @antlam on Slack!]

+1 for simplification

Comment 3

[Mark Finkle (:mfinkle) (use needinfo?)]

I'm trying to remember why we kept this UI in the application after landing the improved webapp support. I'm not remembering though. I know we had some early issues where an app could be "stuck" in limbo during an uninstall. Using about:apps and long-press was a way to force an uninstall to complete. 

I don't know that is an issue anymore.

Comment 4

[:Margaret Leibovic]

Attachment: MozReview Request: Bug 1179872 - Remove about:apps page and menu item. r=mcomella

Bug 1179872 - Remove about:apps page and menu item. r=mcomella

Comment 5

[:Margaret Leibovic]

(In reply to Mark Finkle (:mfinkle) from comment #3)
> I'm trying to remember why we kept this UI in the application after landing
> the improved webapp support. I'm not remembering though. I know we had some
> early issues where an app could be "stuck" in limbo during an uninstall.
> Using about:apps and long-press was a way to force an uninstall to complete. 
> 
> I don't know that is an issue anymore.

Myk mentioned that this could be a way to work around any bug with our APK uninstall logic, but I don't think we should keep a feature just for the possibility of working around a bug.

He also said that about:apps provides a way for users to force a check for updates, but we do that check daily, and if there is any users who *really* want to check sooner and complain about this, I'll write an add-on for them.

Comment 6

[Michael Comella (:mcomella) [NI reported issues only: ex-Mozilla]]

Comment on attachment 8630783 [details]
MozReview Request: Bug 1179872 - Remove about:apps page and menu item. r=mcomella

https://reviewboard.mozilla.org/r/12801/#review11357

I don't have context to know if we missed removing anything, but what's done here seems reasonable.

Comment 7

[:Margaret Leibovic]

https://treeherder.mozilla.org/#/jobs?repo=try&revision=bc65dc5c0f63

Comment 8

[:Margaret Leibovic]

url:        https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/fx-team/rev/6932c3a8a0fc113b2ab7f3acd87f6908038651ca
changeset:  6932c3a8a0fc113b2ab7f3acd87f6908038651ca
user:       Margaret Leibovic <[e-mail]>
date:       Tue Jul 07 16:01:43 2015 -0700
description:
Bug 1179872 - Remove about:apps page and menu item. r=mcomella

Comment 9

[Carsten Book [:Tomcat]]

https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/6932c3a8a0fc

Comment 10

[Ioana Chiorean]

Nightly - 42.0a1 2015-07-12 
about:apps returns blank page is pen in new tab (does nothing if loaded over other website)
Apps is no longer present in tools menu. 

Margaret - will this be pushed over the trains or will it ride? Do you want to make about:apps to return "This address isn't valid " like for ex about:robots?

Comment 11

[:Margaret Leibovic]

(In reply to Ioana Chiorean from comment #10)
> Nightly - 42.0a1 2015-07-12 
> about:apps returns blank page is pen in new tab (does nothing if loaded over
> other website)
> Apps is no longer present in tools menu. 
> 
> Margaret - will this be pushed over the trains or will it ride? Do you want
> to make about:apps to return "This address isn't valid " like for ex
> about:robots?

Oh, that's weird. Yeah, can you file a follow-up bug? I'll work on fixing this, since we do want this to ride the trains.

Comment 12

[Liz Henry (:lizzard) (relman/hg->git project)]

Margaret, are you intending to uplift this to 41? I just came across this bug from discussion in bug 1178747 where you mentioned uplifting to deal with the confusion in about:apps.

Comment 13

[:Margaret Leibovic]

(In reply to Liz Henry (:lizzard) from comment #12)
> Margaret, are you intending to uplift this to 41? I just came across this
> bug from discussion in bug 1178747 where you mentioned uplifting to deal
> with the confusion in about:apps.

Sorry for the delayed response.

No, I wasn't planning on uplifting this. about:apps isn't a commonly used piece of UI, so I would be fine with us shipping with bug 1178747 present for one release.