863052 - Add icon for about://apps to the app drawer/homescreen

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Firefox for Android Graveyard :: Web Apps (PWAs), defect, P2)

Comment 1

[Erin Lancaster [:elan]]

Interim solution to the uninstall process. This should be fairly straightforward.

Comment 2

[Martyn Haigh (:mhaigh)]

Attachment: WIP patch

WIP

Currently shows an icon in the app drawer but uses an existing tab, if there is one, which is unwanted behaviour

Comment 3

[Martyn Haigh (:mhaigh)]

Also the dummy activity shows briefly before Fx launches which doesn't look very good.

Comment 4

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

Comment on attachment 744073 [details] [diff] [review]
WIP patch


>diff --git a/mobile/android/base/AndroidManifest.xml.in b/mobile/android/base/AndroidManifest.xml.in

>+                <action android:name="org.mozilla.gecko.LOAD" />

Do we need the new action? Just wondering if we can get by with an existing intent.

>+        <activity android:name=".AppHome"

"AppsHome" ?

>+                  android:label="Mozilla Apps"

We should consider if we need to localize this string. We might not, but putting it in the string resources might still be a best practice.

>+                  android:configChanges="keyboard|keyboardHidden|mcc|mnc|orientation|screenSize"
>+                  android:windowSoftInputMode="stateUnspecified|adjustResize"
>+                  android:icon="@drawable/marketplace"
>+                  android:launchMode="singleTask"
>+                  android:noHistory="true">

Is there a way to make the activity use a transparent theme? That might help with the flash.

>diff --git a/mobile/android/base/AppHome.java.in b/mobile/android/base/AppHome.java.in

AppsHome.java


This patch seems like a reasonable first attempt. I don't know of any other way to: Get an app in the Android apps list _and_ force it to open a page in Firefox

If anyone has other ideas, please let us know.

Comment 5

[Richard Newman [:rnewman]]

Can you not just trigger ACTION_VIEW with a specified component? In other words, "open this URI with org.mozilla.fennec"? That's basically what we do for webapp launcher items now, right?

Comment 6

[Brian Nicholson (:bnicholson)]

(In reply to Mark Finkle (:mfinkle) from comment #4)
> Comment on attachment 744073 [details] [diff] [review]
> WIP patch
> 
> This patch seems like a reasonable first attempt. I don't know of any other
> way to: Get an app in the Android apps list _and_ force it to open a page in
> Firefox
> 
> If anyone has other ideas, please let us know.

Just throwing it out there: I think the "Android way" of doing this would be to create a native activity for about:apps (kind of like we do for about:home). That activity could act as a launcher by showing the list of installed apps as an alternative to/replacement for about:apps. It wouldn't even need to be part of the browsing session, and it wouldn't have to show any of the browser chrome, so that might be nice to help decouple webapps from Fennec.

Comment 7

[Brian Nicholson (:bnicholson)]

As an added bonus, if we have a generic view that lists installed webapps, we might be able to reuse it in a widget if we ever go down that road.

Comment 8

[Martyn Haigh (:mhaigh)]

Attachment: Proposed patch

Incorporated suggestion from rnewman in regards to Intent.ACTION_VIEW.  Less eager to implement as suggested by bnicholson as this is, from what I know, a temp fix to a part of a larger issue.

Comment 9

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

Comment on attachment 745207 [details] [diff] [review]
Proposed patch

Given our move to APKs, I don't think we want this approach anymore.

Comment 10

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

I'm going to WONTFIX this. If we decide we want to do it anyway, we can reopen.