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Bug 728454 - more clear deliniation of webapps
more clear deliniation of webapps
Status: RESOLVED FIXED
Product: gnome-software
Classification: Applications
Component: General
unspecified
Other Linux
: Normal normal
: ---
Assigned To: GNOME Software maintainer(s)
GNOME Software maintainer(s)
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
 
Reported: 2014-04-17 18:36 UTC by Bill Nottingam
Modified: 2014-09-01 09:51 UTC
See Also:
GNOME target: ---
GNOME version: ---


Attachments
Describe webapps more clearly (10.11 KB, patch)
2014-04-23 23:30 UTC, Matthias Clasen
none Details | Review

Description Bill Nottingam 2014-04-17 18:36:47 UTC
We've been looking at the integration of gnome-software and its webapp support in Fedora. The Fedora board looked at it, and said "Software not included in the Fedora repositories must be clearly differentiated when presented to the user."

I'm here on FESCo's behalf to hopefully find a good way to accomplish this. 

A suggestion of http://kalev.fedorapeople.org/gnome-software-details-google-drive.png doesn't seem to really cover this - by merely describing it as 'internet-only' it gives it a description that could be considered common to:

- the recent SimCity
- Firefox or Web
- Evolution
- Empathy

etc.

Maybe a more clear "This is a third-party application hosted by $VENDOR." It could certainly keep the internet connection disclaimer as well.
Comment 1 André Klapper 2014-04-18 09:54:51 UTC
Related: bug 725002
Comment 2 Matthias Clasen 2014-04-18 12:00:38 UTC
(In reply to comment #0)
>
> Maybe a more clear "This is a third-party application hosted by $VENDOR." It
> could certainly keep the internet connection disclaimer as well.

Can you explain how the twitter webapp is different from, e.g. birdie, and why one of them needs to be given a scary label, and the other doesn't ?
Comment 3 Matthew Miller 2014-04-18 12:34:39 UTC
(In reply to comment #2)
> Can you explain how the twitter webapp is different from, e.g. birdie, and why
> one of them needs to be given a scary label, and the other doesn't ?

Birdie is an open source program which connects to a proprietary service. It is presented to the user _as_ that. Or, more exactly, it is presented to the user as a "beautiful twitter client for Linux", and because it is presented in Fedora, our users can happily assume that it is open source, regardless of the status of the remote service.

By contrast, the Twitter webapp is presented _as Twitter_.

If, instead, it were presented as Gnome Web, a completely open source client which can render any standards-compliant web site, and hey, look, Twitter is one of them, that would be different. The distinction is clear to the user. And there is probably a design somewhere in between which keeps that clear line without entirely focusing on Gnome Web (I understand the desire for that to be largely a background detail).

There are other more technical distinctions (and other less technical ones too, for that matter) that can be made, but I think this one is pretty obvious.
Comment 4 Matthias Clasen 2014-04-21 17:23:04 UTC
The current app data for the twitter webapp says:

Twitter

Twitter is a micro-blogging website that lets you 'tweet' messages of up to 140 characters in length. To use Twitter you need a twitter account and be aged over 13.


The birdie appdata says:

Birdie

Birdie is fast, easy to use and works great. It provides all the essential Twitter features and allows you to enjoy Twitter right on your desktop.



So yes, the twitter webapp actually presents twitter. It is actually much more informative than the birdie one, which is basically just marketing ('fast', easy', 'great') and just assumes that you know what twitter is and does. Neither mentions that twitter is not free software.


I really don't see how one is bad and the other is good.


I think it would be fine to change the title to mention it being a webapp, and to add an explanation of that to the summary:



GNOME Web Twitter webapp


This webapp provides a quick way to launch the GNOME Web browser to access Twitter. Twitter is a micro-blogging website that lets you 'tweet' messages of up to 140 characters in length. To use Twitter you need a twitter account and be aged over 13.



Or something to that extent
Comment 5 Matthew Miller 2014-04-21 18:03:25 UTC
(In reply to comment #4)
> I think it would be fine to change the title to mention it being a webapp, and
> to add an explanation of that to the summary:

That seems sufficient and reasonable to me, with the bonus of being easy to implement, with no new code or UI design. (And the downside, of course, that it will need to be done for each app now and in the future, but I don't think that that's too onerous; just add a note to the appstream metadata docs.)
Comment 6 Michael Catanzaro 2014-04-21 22:43:17 UTC
I think the real solution is simply to rephrase the "Internet Only Application" notice. Maybe something along the lines of:

GNOME Web Application

This application will open in your browser and can only be used when there is an active internet connection.
Comment 7 Allan Day 2014-04-23 08:48:06 UTC
(In reply to comment #0)
> We've been looking at the integration of gnome-software and its webapp support
> in Fedora. The Fedora board looked at it, and said "Software not included in
> the Fedora repositories must be clearly differentiated when presented to the
> user."
...

If the goal is to indicate the source of each piece of software, my recommendation would be to add a "Source" field to each of the details pages. This can indicate the name of the repository provider. (It would be different from the Vendor field, which indicates who produced the software in the first place.)

Richard: can you clarify who exactly provides these web applications? Is it GNOME or a downstream distributor?
Comment 8 Richard Hughes 2014-04-23 13:26:32 UTC
(In reply to comment #7)
> Richard: can you clarify who exactly provides these web applications? Is it
> GNOME or a downstream distributor?

In this instance it's supplied by fedora, but that's only because the .xml file lives in fedora-appstream rather than gnome-software. It could equally live in any other package, or even upstream.
Comment 9 Matthew Miller 2014-04-23 13:43:56 UTC
To clarify Richard's answer.... What's supplied by Fedora is metadata about the application. Basically, bookmarks. The actual "application" is a combination of javascript/html rendered by Gnome Web plus server-side content and processing.

The source (and selection) of the metadata isn't the issue here (although it is an important separate discussion, I don't think it is a design one and probably not really even a Gnome one).
Comment 10 Matthias Clasen 2014-04-23 23:30:40 UTC
Created attachment 275011 [details] [review]
Describe webapps more clearly

Append 'Webapp' to the name for webapps, and add a paragraph to
the description that explains that GNOME Web will be launched.
Comment 11 Richard Hughes 2014-04-24 07:48:50 UTC
Works for me; Bill, is this okay with you?
Comment 12 Allan Day 2014-04-24 08:34:17 UTC
(In reply to comment #9)
> To clarify Richard's answer.... What's supplied by Fedora is metadata about the
> application. Basically, bookmarks. The actual "application" is a combination of
> javascript/html rendered by Gnome Web plus server-side content and processing.
> 
> The source (and selection) of the metadata isn't the issue here (although it is
> an important separate discussion, I don't think it is a design one and probably
> not really even a Gnome one).

OK, I see now. The original report talked about sources, which I understood as meaning "repository" or similar. It seems that what you are concerned about is less the fact of where the "bookmark" came from, and more the fact that the application's running code is hosted remotely rather than locally.

I think we can indicate this without resorting to labelling "web apps" as such - we rejected this approach in previous discussions, since it's a potentially ambiguous label. We want to focus on what the consequences are for the user rather than using terminology that people probably won't be familiar with.

It seems to me that the critical distinction we're trying to communicate is that the application is hosted elsewhere. So, what about changing "Internet Only Application" to "Internet Hosted Application"?

We could also change the banner body text to something like: "This application is remotely provided, and can only be used when there is an active internet connection."
Comment 13 Allan Day 2014-04-24 08:37:30 UTC
(In reply to comment #10)
> Created an attachment (id=275011) [details] [review]
> Describe webapps more clearly
> 
> Append 'Webapp' to the name for webapps, and add a paragraph to
> the description that explains that GNOME Web will be launched.

From that patch:

"This webapp provides a quick way to launch the GNOME Web browser to access Devdocs.io."

I don't think we should be explaining technical details in the descriptions. People don't care which browser it is, and that's not the issue here. We actually make an effort to de-brand the browser in this case: it's just part of the platform.

Saying exactly how the app works isn't interesting, will distract users from what they are interested in, and could cause confusion ("What is the GNOME Web browser? Is that something I want?")
Comment 14 Matthew Miller 2014-04-24 11:34:32 UTC
(In reply to comment #13)
> Saying exactly how the app works isn't interesting, will distract users from
> what they are interested in, and could cause confusion ("What is the GNOME Web
> browser? Is that something I want?")

I understand the idea behind hiding the implementation details, but the fact that the remote site is loaded in _a_ web browser is exactly what we need to make clear. So maybe:

"This webapp provides a quick way to launch a Web browser to access Devdocs.io."

or something like

"This application link provides a quick way to launch a Web browser to access Devdocs.io."

People understand what a web browser is and the basics of how it works, and being clear about that reduces rather than causes confusion.

(In reply to comment #12)
> It seems to me that the critical distinction we're trying to communicate is
> that the application is hosted elsewhere. So, what about changing "Internet
> Only Application" to "Internet Hosted Application"?

I don't think that's quite it. Hosting implies a third party (possibly even Fedora Project). It's not the hosting that we want to clarify, but, really, the opposite: this is an easy "direct connection" from your desktop to a
remote service provided by someone else.
Comment 15 Allan Day 2014-04-24 11:44:45 UTC
(In reply to comment #14)
...
> I understand the idea behind hiding the implementation details, but the fact
> that the remote site is loaded in _a_ web browser is exactly what we need to
> make clear. So maybe:
> 
> "This webapp provides a quick way to launch a Web browser to access
> Devdocs.io."
> 
> or something like
> 
> "This application link provides a quick way to launch a Web browser to access
> Devdocs.io."
> 
> People understand what a web browser is and the basics of how it works, and
> being clear about that reduces rather than causes confusion.

The whole point of web apps is that the website is the application - the goal is to take the browser out of the picture, at least as far as the browser as desktop application is concerned. If you start talking about browsers the concept falls apart.

> (In reply to comment #12)
> > It seems to me that the critical distinction we're trying to communicate is
> > that the application is hosted elsewhere. So, what about changing "Internet
> > Only Application" to "Internet Hosted Application"?
> 
> I don't think that's quite it. Hosting implies a third party (possibly even
> Fedora Project). It's not the hosting that we want to clarify, but, really, the
> opposite: this is an easy "direct connection" from your desktop to a
> remote service provided by someone else.

We can indicate that the app is provided by a particular site:

"This application is remotely provided by <website>, and can only be used when there is an active internet connection."
Comment 16 Matthias Clasen 2014-04-24 14:34:27 UTC
It is not just technical details. It is important to be able to differentiate. Or do you want to have a list containing

Twitter
Twitter
Twitter

for the web, chrome and firefox webapps ?
Comment 17 Matthew Miller 2014-07-16 13:58:55 UTC
"This application is remotely provided by <website>, and can only be used when
there is an active internet connection."

That seems okay to me.

My personal opinion is that it'd be nice to have a graphical indication of some sort to accompany this, particularly in Shell search results. But I don't see that as a mandate.

I also notice that in Gnome Software right now, there is a License field and that is currently set to "Unknown" for Facebook, Twitter, etc. There might be an opportunity to put something constructive there? (Webapps which are AGPL or otherwise run 100% free software, could be recognized specially as well.)
Comment 18 Richard Hughes 2014-09-01 09:51:45 UTC
I've applied this to fedora-appstream:

commit d974cbd45b29b6724c748b63032eca3cb3630841
Author: Matthias Clasen <mclasen@redhat.com>
Date:   Mon Sep 1 10:50:24 2014 +0100

    Describe webapps more clearly
    
    Add a paragraph to the description that explains that the browser will be
    launched.
    
    Resolves: https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=728454
    Signed-off-by: Richard Hughes <richard@hughsie.com>