741471 - Add to Home Screen Needs to Provide More Context to the User on How the Icon is Being Added to the Homescreen

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Firefox for Android Graveyard :: Web Apps (PWAs), defect)

Description

[Jason Smith [:jsmith]]

The current approach for "add to home screen" adds an icon to the user's homescreen, but does not put the user enough in control in where the app icon is added, what happened as a result of adding the icon, etc. The resulting problems that can occur is the following:

1. I selected add to home screen, the shortcut is added - Where was it added? Why could I not control where it was added?
2. I selected add to home screen with my current home screen full, I get a series of two messages (an error saying it's full, then it's added to a different home screen) - Where did it end up getting added? Why could I not control this?

Steps:

	1. Start Fennec Native Nightly on a home screen with no more room for shortcuts
	2. Go to apps.mozillalabs.com/appdir
	3. Install an app
	4. Go to about:apps
	5. Long press the app installed
	6. Select Add to Home Screen

Expected:

I should know that the shortcut was successfully added to what home screen with no unexpected messages.

Actual:

A series of two messages are reported with "No more room on Home Screen" and "Shortcut successfully added" are shown in succession. This feels confusing - A user is likely to think something did not go right in their control, but then it magically corrected itself.

Additional Notes:

UX needs to comment here to determine the best workflow. With native applications in Android, I know that users can usually just do a drag and drop like process of migrating apps to the desktop from the "Apps" location. An approach to consider might be something like this:

1. User selects add to home screen
2. The user is returned back to the home screen with drag and drop started with the app icon

Not sure if this is feasible though.

Device: Samsung Galaxy Nexus
OS: Android 4.02
Build: Fennec Native Nightly

Comment 1

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

Keep in mind that Android does not give applications the control to put a shortcut on any given homescreen. The user can move the icon around after it is created.

Comment 2

[Jason Smith [:jsmith]]

Would a scenario like this be possible:

1. I select add to home screen
2. Fennec Native minimizes and goes to the Android screen where the shortcut was created

Comment 3

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

(In reply to Jason Smith from comment #2)
> Would a scenario like this be possible:
> 
> 1. I select add to home screen
> 2. Fennec Native minimizes and goes to the Android screen where the shortcut
> was created

No. There is no API to determine where a shortcut ended up and there is no API to pan the homescreen. Closing this bug since it's not feasible.

We have other bugs that are more feasible, like launching after install (bug 741431)