Re: Ubuntu Desktop default apps Wiki page

[Paul Smith]

On Wed, 2017-08-09 at 02:08 +, Robert Ancell wrote:
> I've reworded this to hopefully be clearer. Note that the "proposed
> for removal" links just means it's been brought up on this list, but
> doesn't mean that proposal would be successful (someone will change it
> to "was proposed for removal in 17.10" or similar at the conclusion of
> that discussion). 

That's much more understandable, thanks!

> > Finally, as far as I can tell gnome-boxes doesn't support RDP (Windows
> > Remote Desktop Protocol).  If true this means it's not useful to me as a
> > replacement for Remmina.
> 
> I've linked to the RDP bug to be more specific.

It's good that there's a bug but... opened over 5 years ago, no interest
from the devs, and last message posted over a year ago.

I'm also sad to see no support for SSH tunneling which is super-handy. 
Really it seems the only thing gnome-boxes is interested in WRT remote
desktop is SPICE; even their VNC support is pretty basic.

https://wiki.gnome.org/Apps/Boxes/Remote

TBH I don't think we should be holding our breath on this :) :/.

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Re: Ubuntu Desktop default apps Wiki page

[Robert Ancell]

On Tue, Aug 8, 2017 at 6:33 PM Jean-Baptiste Lallement <
jean-baptiste.lallem...@canonical.com> wrote:

> Hi Robert,
>
> Le 08/08/2017 à 06:02, Robert Ancell a écrit :
> > Hi all,
> >
> > One thing that came out of discussions at GUADEC was a request that
> > Ubuntu ship the core GNOME apps. We've also had a few discussions
> > recently on this list about including some of these.
> >
> > I proposed that we should make a list of the reasons that we ship / do
> > not ship certain apps so it would be clear to everyone why this is the
> > case (and perhaps indicate any features that would make us change our
> > minds). Here it is:
> >
> > https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DefaultApps
> Thanks for making this list. In the criteria you mention "They are good
> quality apps" I think this criteria should be more detailed and the
> upstream QA process documented and linked. I propose to add the
> following information:
>   - There is a reliable test suite executed at least for every release.
>   - Description of the coverage of the test suite(s) (unit, functional,
> API, ...)
>   - The tests are executed at build time on all the arch we support and
> if not a rationale is provided to explain why some arch are excluded.
>   - autopkgtest are enabled and executed on Ubuntu releases against the
> actual binary packages.
>   - The test plan is documented.
>

I reverse-engineered the existing criteria but I agree we should be be more
stringent for new apps (as well as applying this over time to the existing
apps).

No opposition from me for you adding this.

--Robert
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Re: Ubuntu Desktop default apps Wiki page

[Robert Ancell]

Thanks for the feedback Paul!

On Tue, Aug 8, 2017 at 5:16 PM Paul Smith  wrote:

> On Tue, 2017-08-08 at 04:02 +, Robert Ancell wrote:
> > I've tried to summarise the status quo - feedback / changes welcome!
>
> I didn't understand the gnome-boxes / Remmina comments on the wiki page.
>
> In the "Core Apps" section gnome-boxes is not included and it is not
> marked "Proposed for inclusion" but it does say "Replaces/will replace
> functionality in Remmina".
>

Sorry for the confusion.

It's not marked proposed for inclusion because no-one has (yet?) proposed
it here on the list. When we briefly looked at it at GUADEC the size was
too large. But if anyone thinks it should still be proposed please email
this list and update the Wiki page.

The note about replacing Remmina functions came out of a discussion at
GUADEC - apparently the upstream vision for the project is for Boxes to
completely cover both virtual machines and remote desktops. I don't believe
the remote desktop support is complete yet. But in the future it might be a
compelling replacement.

>
> Then in the "Other Default" section, Remmina is marked "Proposed for
> removal" saying it will be replaced by gnome-boxes.



> So I don't quite understand the state of these two.  Should "gnome-
> boxes" be marked as "Proposed for inclusion"?  Or are you proposing no
> remote desktop app installed in the base system?  I think that would be
> unfortunate as I think it's something people would expect to find these
> days, if it can be made to fit.
>

I've reworded this to hopefully be clearer. Note that the "proposed for
removal" links just means it's been brought up on this list, but doesn't
mean that proposal would be successful (someone will change it to "was
proposed for removal in 17.10" or similar at the conclusion of that
discussion).

Finally, as far as I can tell gnome-boxes doesn't support RDP (Windows
> Remote Desktop Protocol).  If true this means it's not useful to me as a
> replacement for Remmina.
>

I've linked to the RDP bug to be more specific.
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Re: Default App: GNOME To Do

[Khurshid Alam]

On Tue, Aug 8, 2017 at 9:43 AM, Robert Ancell 
 wrote:
gnome-todo is a task manager / note taker and is part of the core 
GNOME apps. All its dependencies are in main.


We should ship it by default or give a reason in 
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DefaultApps why it should not be included.


--Robert


Heads-up: Todo 3.25.x is still missing from Gnome staging PPA.




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Re: Default App: GNOME Clocks

[Will Cooke]

On 8 August 2017 at 15:55, Didier Roche  wrote:

> The remaining issue would be if you schedule an alarm and reboot though,
> but it could be quite a good intermediate solution for this cycle and then,
> we fix this properly next one with more available developer cycles?
>
>
As Robert (I think) said... better to have something which doesn't work at
all than something which works sometimes.

I think we'd be better off postponing Clocks until such time as it works
all the time.
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Re: Default App: GNOME Contacts

[Didier Roche]

Le 08/08/2017 à 12:44, Tim a écrit :




On 08/08/17 17:09, Khurshid Alam wrote:


Hi,

On Tue, Aug 8, 2017 at 10:07 AM, Robert Ancell 
 wrote:
gnome-contacts is an address book and is part of the core GNOME 
apps. It has all dependencies in main except for folks (which used 
to be in main).


While this seems to work well in managing your e-d-s based contacts, 
I'm not sure if there's a particular use for it in Ubuntu. Address 
book functionality seems tied to your email client of choice which 
is probably Thunderbird (installed by default, has own tools) or an 
online service (e.g. GMail, and also has own tools).


Beside it can be used to view other vcard information like phone 
numbers, im-addresses and Thunderbird may not be suitable for this.
Thunderbird does not have native support for google contacts. GNOME 
contacts provides an easy way to search android phone contacts. It 
also allows searching contacts from other online-accounts providers 
(for the ones that provide that support) if you have them setup.




The issue to include GNOME Contacts without having thunberbird 
integration is the dichotomy in contact manager. Why do my contacts I 
added in GNOME contact don't appear in Thunberbird and vice-versa? I 
think we should look into its inclusion (which would be great, as 
describe, with the nice Shell integration) if someone volounteer to look 
into having it integrated with Thunderbird to only have one contact 
provider on the system.


Cheers,
Didier

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Re: Default App: GNOME To Do

[Didier Roche]

Le 08/08/2017 à 08:57, Sebastien Bacher a écrit :

Hey,

Le 08/08/2017 à 06:13, Robert Ancell a écrit :

gnome-todo is a task manager / note taker and is part of the core
GNOME apps. All its dependencies are in main.

We should ship it by default or give a reason in
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DefaultApps why it should not be included.

That one looks like a potential nice addition to me.


+1

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Re: Default App: GNOME Clocks

[Didier Roche]

Le 08/08/2017 à 09:24, Sebastien Bacher a écrit :

Hey again there,

Le 08/08/2017 à 06:20, Robert Ancell a écrit :

Based on verbal discussions most people seem keen for it to be shipped
by default, with a blocking issue being the alarms being unreliable if
that app closes:

My understanding is not that they are unreliable but not working at all
if the application is closed since there is no background service.

I'm a bit unsure about this one since it's needed to be able to add
different timezones to be displayed in the clock indicator, which is a
nice feature and that we had out of the box in unity, but at the same
time it feels wrong providing an application were a core/important
feature is not working (if you provide alarm/reminders to users they
might rely on those and it's quite a let down if it's not working).

Iain said at GUADEC that it sounded like a job for making use of systemd
and that he would be interested maybe to have a look.

In any case I would say +1 if we fix or remove the non working features
but -1 otherwise.


An intermediate fix until we turn it into a proper system service would 
be to do something similar than what we did with rhythmbox: if an alarm 
is scheduled, the quit signal is turned into hide window. Then recalling 
this gapplication just show back the main instance.


The remaining issue would be if you schedule an alarm and reboot though, 
but it could be quite a good intermediate solution for this cycle and 
then, we fix this properly next one with more available developer cycles?


Cheers,
Didier

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Re: Default App: GNOME Contacts

[Tim]

On 08/08/17 17:09, Khurshid Alam wrote:


Hi,

On Tue, Aug 8, 2017 at 10:07 AM, Robert Ancell 
 wrote:
gnome-contacts is an address book and is part of the core GNOME apps. 
It has all dependencies in main except for folks (which used to be in 
main).


While this seems to work well in managing your e-d-s based contacts, 
I'm not sure if there's a particular use for it in Ubuntu. Address 
book functionality seems tied to your email client of choice which is 
probably Thunderbird (installed by default, has own tools) or an 
online service (e.g. GMail, and also has own tools).




Contacts was included by default in previous releases. It has nice 
integration with shell-search api. User can search
contacts in shell and open with gnome-contacts. If they click on any 
email, it automatically opens compose window
of default email client (i.e in this case Thunderbird). A very nice 
workflow to have.

+1 on the gnome-shell search provider, I find that very useful.


Beside it can be used to view other vcard information like phone 
numbers, im-addresses and Thunderbird may not be suitable for this.
Thunderbird does not have native support for google contacts. GNOME 
contacts provides an easy way to search android phone contacts. It also 
allows searching contacts from other online-accounts providers (for the 
ones that provide that support) if you have them setup.


And talking about Thunderbird, why there isn't any discussion about 
default email client?
Evolution suffers from the same security issues as Epiphany, that being 
there are no security updates for webkit! Also in the context of this 
discussion, evolution is not a GNOME core app.













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Re: Ubuntu Desktop default apps Wiki page

[Sebastien Bacher]

Hey Robert,

Le 08/08/2017 à 06:02, Robert Ancell a écrit :
> https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DefaultApps
>
> I've tried to summarise the status quo - feedback / changes welcome!

That looks great, thanks for building that page and starting those
discussions!

Cheers,

Sebastien Bacher


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Re: Default App: GNOME Clocks

[Sebastien Bacher]

Hey again there,

Le 08/08/2017 à 06:20, Robert Ancell a écrit :
> Based on verbal discussions most people seem keen for it to be shipped
> by default, with a blocking issue being the alarms being unreliable if
> that app closes:

My understanding is not that they are unreliable but not working at all
if the application is closed since there is no background service.

I'm a bit unsure about this one since it's needed to be able to add
different timezones to be displayed in the clock indicator, which is a
nice feature and that we had out of the box in unity, but at the same
time it feels wrong providing an application were a core/important
feature is not working (if you provide alarm/reminders to users they
might rely on those and it's quite a let down if it's not working).

Iain said at GUADEC that it sounded like a job for making use of systemd
and that he would be interested maybe to have a look.

In any case I would say +1 if we fix or remove the non working features
but -1 otherwise.

Cheers,

Sebastien Bacher


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Re: Default App: GNOME Characters

[Sebastien Bacher]

Hey,

Le 08/08/2017 à 06:27, Robert Ancell a écrit :
>
> I found it simpler to find useful characters than gucharmap (which is
> more of a Unicode browser) and the use of a Headerbar makes it more
> consistent with the rest of the desktop.

That sounds like a good candidate for a switch but we should look at the
features to see if they have parity or if they have difference (and
which ones/if we would miss anything we think is important)

Cheers,

Sebastien Bacher


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Re: Default App: GNOME Contacts

[Khurshid Alam]

Hi,

On Tue, Aug 8, 2017 at 10:07 AM, Robert Ancell 
 wrote:
gnome-contacts is an address book and is part of the core GNOME apps. 
It has all dependencies in main except for folks (which used to be in 
main).


While this seems to work well in managing your e-d-s based contacts, 
I'm not sure if there's a particular use for it in Ubuntu. Address 
book functionality seems tied to your email client of choice which is 
probably Thunderbird (installed by default, has own tools) or an 
online service (e.g. GMail, and also has own tools).




Contacts was included by default in previous releases. It has nice 
integration with shell-search api. User can search
contacts in shell and open with gnome-contacts. If they click on any 
email, it automatically opens compose window
of default email client (i.e in this case Thunderbird). A very nice 
workflow to have.


Beside it can be used to view other vcard information like phone 
numbers, im-addresses and Thunderbird may not be suitable for this.


And talking about Thunderbird, why there isn't any discussion about 
default email client?










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Re: Default App: GNOME To Do

[Sebastien Bacher]

Hey,

Le 08/08/2017 à 06:13, Robert Ancell a écrit :
> gnome-todo is a task manager / note taker and is part of the core
> GNOME apps. All its dependencies are in main.
>
> We should ship it by default or give a reason in
> https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DefaultApps why it should not be included.

That one looks like a potential nice addition to me.

Cheers,
Sebastien Bacher

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Re: Ubuntu Desktop default apps Wiki page

[Jean-Baptiste Lallement]

Hi Robert,

Le 08/08/2017 à 06:02, Robert Ancell a écrit :

Hi all,

One thing that came out of discussions at GUADEC was a request that
Ubuntu ship the core GNOME apps. We've also had a few discussions
recently on this list about including some of these.

I proposed that we should make a list of the reasons that we ship / do
not ship certain apps so it would be clear to everyone why this is the
case (and perhaps indicate any features that would make us change our
minds). Here it is:

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DefaultApps
Thanks for making this list. In the criteria you mention "They are good 
quality apps" I think this criteria should be more detailed and the 
upstream QA process documented and linked. I propose to add the 
following information:

 - There is a reliable test suite executed at least for every release.
 - Description of the coverage of the test suite(s) (unit, functional, 
API, ...)
 - The tests are executed at build time on all the arch we support and 
if not a rationale is provided to explain why some arch are excluded.
 - autopkgtest are enabled and executed on Ubuntu releases against the 
actual binary packages.

 - The test plan is documented.

JB.


--
Jean-Baptiste Lallement
Canonical Services Ltd.
IRC: jibel

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