837338 - Allow app-loading effects used by the window manager to be configurable (and disable screenshot by default)

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Firefox OS Graveyard :: Gaia::Settings, defect, P1)

Description

[Chris Jones [:cjones] inactive; ni?/f?/r? if you need me]

Prior art from android is that some users might prefer shaving 100ms off startup time to a smoother transition (or just different UX).  There also may be downstream folks who disable the animation regardless of what Moz's opinion is, so it would be nice if this can be done cleanly.

Comment 1

[[e-mail]]

Yes. It would be good to have a settings options for configuring windows animation, transition duration and to disable.

Comment 2

[Chris Jones [:cjones] inactive; ni?/f?/r? if you need me]

Attachment: WIP

Adds options to turn off screenshotting or "everything".

Comment 3

[Chris Jones [:cjones] inactive; ni?/f?/r? if you need me]

Attachment: Allow selectively enabling app-load effects

This is taken from a previous patch from Vivien.

Comment 4

[Chris Jones [:cjones] inactive; ni?/f?/r? if you need me]

Josh, ready to revisit turning screenshots off?

Here's why
 - they're buggy.  Pretty much inevitably because it's an impossible system to get 100% correct right.
 - they have a negative performance/responsiveness impact.  For some apps like Settings, they're noticeable on profiles of early startup.
 - now that "real" startup times are much faster across the board, the need for entertaining users while b2g chugs away is greatly reduced

We maybe want to use a different default bg than the rocketship.

Comment 5

[Vladimir Vukicevic [:vlad] [:vladv] (needinfo me, slow to respond)]

+1 to turning off screenshots.  I was working on getting a partner app ready for approval by them, and the final thing that was causing problems was the screenshots -- random parts of the app's startup process were screenshotted, so you'd often have random-UI show up briefly, then a loading screen, then the app's main screen.  The app also used CSS transitions during load, so sometimes the screenshot would be random faded-in elements.  It looked horribly ugly.

For some built-in apps, notably settings, it can cause confusion -- screenshot has wifi turned off, you want to turn it on and then tap.. but surprise, it's actually turned on and you just turned it off because the app actually loaded as you were pressing.

IMO, we should turn off screenshots, and then as a followup, add support for the manifest screenshot property to allow apps to configure their own startup image.

Comment 6

[Tim Guan-tin Chien [:timdream] (please needinfo)]

Comment on attachment 716311 [details] [diff] [review]
Allow selectively enabling app-load effects

Instead of, say, copying lines of code from openWindow() and exec them in the | if (!appLoadEffectsEnabled) |, it's better to call the function directly. window_manager.js is getting bigger and bigger...

It's depend on the urgency of this bug though (I don't see any flag here so I couldn't tell).

Comment 7

[Chris Jones [:cjones] inactive; ni?/f?/r? if you need me]

I'm mostly just passing through Vivien's patch, don't shoot the messenger ;).  Let me see what I can do here.

Comment 11

[Leo]

We've received complaints about the old screenshot effects too many times when app-loading. We'd like to take this patch to v1-train..

Comment 12

[Tim Guan-tin Chien [:timdream] (please needinfo)]

(In reply to Leo from comment #11)
> We've received complaints about the old screenshot effects too many times
> when app-loading. We'd like to take this patch to v1-train..

I have no opinion on v1.1-only patch as long as UX sign-off the visual change.

Comment 13

[Stephany Wilkes]

Reassigning to Casey for UX sign-off since Josh is no longer taking needinfo flags.

Comment 14

[Casey Yee]

Just revisiting the dev-gaia screenshot thread and it looks like we are still a ways off from a final solution to the screenshot issue.   I think for now until we have fully proved the ideas that are being proposed in the thread we should disable screenshots.

The solution in my mind should:
- Have minimal impact on app load times and performance.
- Responsive and work with multiple resolution and device orientation.
- Does not display stale/in-accurate UI. 

Even with these points considered, there is still the issue of apps that do not support screen-shot/do not define a splash that need to be considered.

Comment 15

[John Hammink]

Tim, (from triage) any action on this this?

Comment 16

[Alex Keybl [:akeybl]]

(In reply to Casey Yee [:cyee] from comment #14)
> Just revisiting the dev-gaia screenshot thread and it looks like we are
> still a ways off from a final solution to the screenshot issue.

wontfix for 1.1 based upon how far we are from this enhancement

Comment 17

[BMO Automation]

Firefox OS is not being worked on