821174 - The mini-manifests generated for packaged apps need to include developer information from the app manifest

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Marketplace Graveyard :: Consumer Pages, defect)

Description

[Jason Smith [:jsmith]]

Currently, the mini-manifest being generated for packaged apps does not appear to be including developer information. This prevents developer information from being available to be parsed by Gaia's app install flow. Let's fix that problem by incorporating the developer information from the webapp manifest into the mini-manifest.

Comment 1

[Christopher Van Wiemeersch [:cvan]]

The developer's `name` and `url` are not required fields in the manifest. Should they be since Gaia is showing them? I know there's a bug for the "undefined" message if there is none supplied. Can we either require this or omit the developer info from being shown by Gaia?

Comment 2

[Jason Smith [:jsmith]]

(In reply to Chris Van Wiemeersch [:cvan] from comment #1)
> The developer's `name` and `url` are not required fields in the manifest.
> Should they be since Gaia is showing them? 

Yup. We discovered this during the stand-up we need to do this. Basically, any field that's in the app manifest that can be consumed by an install prompt needs to be included.

> I know there's a bug for the
> "undefined" message if there is none supplied. Can we either require this or
> omit the developer info from being shown by Gaia?

The undefined piece I think was a UX decision by jcarpenter. Probably can't require it, cause it is an optional property. I've cc-ed him for input on the UX rationale.

Comment 3

[Christopher Van Wiemeersch [:cvan]]

(In reply to Jason Smith [:jsmith] from comment #2)
> (In reply to Chris Van Wiemeersch [:cvan] from comment #1)
> > I know there's a bug for the
> > "undefined" message if there is none supplied. Can we either require this or
> > omit the developer info from being shown by Gaia?
> 
> The undefined piece I think was a UX decision by jcarpenter. Probably can't
> require it, cause it is an optional property. I've cc-ed him for input on
> the UX rationale.

As far as I know, that's a legitimate JS error where it's "undefined" - not an actual localized message: bug 815501 (which you filed).

Comment 4

[Jason Smith [:jsmith]]

(In reply to Chris Van Wiemeersch [:cvan] from comment #3)
> (In reply to Jason Smith [:jsmith] from comment #2)
> > (In reply to Chris Van Wiemeersch [:cvan] from comment #1)
> > > I know there's a bug for the
> > > "undefined" message if there is none supplied. Can we either require this or
> > > omit the developer info from being shown by Gaia?
> > 
> > The undefined piece I think was a UX decision by jcarpenter. Probably can't
> > require it, cause it is an optional property. I've cc-ed him for input on
> > the UX rationale.
> 
> As far as I know, that's a legitimate JS error where it's "undefined" - not
> an actual localized message: bug 815501 (which you filed).

Oh that thing. Yeah, that fails if one of the pieces of developer info is missing.

Comment 5

[Josh Carpenter [:jcarpenter]]

(In reply to Jason Smith [:jsmith] from comment #2)
> (In reply to Chris Van Wiemeersch [:cvan] from comment #1)
> > The developer's `name` and `url` are not required fields in the manifest.
> > Should they be since Gaia is showing them? 
> 
> Yup. We discovered this during the stand-up we need to do this. Basically,
> any field that's in the app manifest that can be consumed by an install
> prompt needs to be included.
> 
> > I know there's a bug for the
> > "undefined" message if there is none supplied. Can we either require this or
> > omit the developer info from being shown by Gaia?
> 
> The undefined piece I think was a UX decision by jcarpenter. Probably can't
> require it, cause it is an optional property. I've cc-ed him for input on
> the UX rationale.

UX captured it, but it was part of a longer email thread. IIRC this information helps users to understand who's content they are ostensibly installing, providing some level of assurance. I'll defer to Lucas on the value of this, and whether it's needed for v1.

Comment 6

[Rob Hudson [:robhudson]]

If the developer info isn't in the zip file's manifest, and the update UI is using this, would it make sense to fall back to the Marketplace's developer info that we show on the site?

On the Marketplace side this is a simple change.

Comment 7

[Rob Hudson [:robhudson]]

(In reply to Rob Hudson [:robhudson] from comment #6)
> If the developer info isn't in the zip file's manifest, and the update UI is
> using this, would it make sense to fall back to the Marketplace's developer
> info that we show on the site?

Jonas informed me that this needs to match what's in the package manifest, so this isn't a viable option. I'm told if this isn't defined in the package that it is ok to leave this empty.

Comment 8

[Rob Hudson [:robhudson]]

I'm pretty sure this looks like the following. Correct me if I'm wrong.

{
    ...
    "developer": {
        "name": "Mozilla", 
        "url": "http://mozilla.org"
    }, 
    ...
}

Comment 9

[Brian Smith (:briansmith, :bsmith, use NEEDINFO?)]

(In reply to Rob Hudson [:robhudson] from comment #6)
> If the developer info isn't in the zip file's manifest, and the update UI is
> using this, would it make sense to fall back to the Marketplace's developer
> info that we show on the site?
> 
> On the Marketplace side this is a simple change.

The developer name in the JAR should always match the developer name presented on the marketplace. Otherwise, it is just confusing. The whole idea here is that the marketplace website, the installation UI, and the actual package must all present this subset of information exactly the same. That means the client has to enforce that the installation UI matches the information in the JAR, and the marketplace needs to enforce that the information on the marketplace websites' web pages matches the information in the JAR.

Comment 10

[Lucas Adamski [:ladamski]]

Per bug 821211 the information in the mini manifest is not verified against the full manifest in the package.  This would need to be fixed before we can rely on any information the mini manifest provides.

Comment 11

[Rob Hudson [:robhudson]]

https://github.com/mozilla/zamboni/commit/33764e8