-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Dylan McCall wrote on 22/06/13 17:19: > > On Sat, Jun 22, 2013 at 7:12 AM, Matthew Paul Thomas >> >> In the next couple of weeks I will design the UI for apps to >> request privileges on Ubuntu Touch. > > Yay!
I've now published it, though the UI text still needs a little work. <https://wiki.ubuntu.com/AccountPrivileges#Phone> ("Other app access" is a dull title.) > ... >> >> On Ubuntu, an app will request a privilege during runtime. For >> example, a game might have a "find my friends who already play >> this game" function, that accesses your contacts. The game would >> work just fine if you don't use this function. But if you do use >> it, Ubuntu would then -- and only then -- ask you if you want to >> grant the app access to your contacts. > > I agree this is a good model. Still, I worry about the possibility > of having a lot of "are you sure" dialogs in a nicely integrated > application. That's a reasonable concern. But I haven't thought of a case where an app would needfully request more than one or two privileges at a time. Have you? > For the act of adding an online account, I think that should be as > simple as choosing an online account from the system Online > Accounts dialog. The interface will need to clearly communicate > that in choosing an account you are granting "Foo app" permission > to use it, but I don't think there's a reason to have anything else > on top. I'm not sure what you mean by "the system Online Accounts dialog". If you mean a dialog that appears mid-screen with the application still visible in the background, then absolutely. I've charted the flow. <https://wiki.ubuntu.com/OnlineAccounts#phone-access> If you mean the full "Online Accounts" screen of System Settings, then that would have some visual consistency between listing accounts prompted (when an app wants access) vs. unprompted (when browsing System Settings). However, it would hide the context of the app behind a full-screen Settings screen. And filtering the list to hide irrelevant accounts, then adding UI to explain why only a subset of accounts are being shown, would reduce the visual consistency almost beyond recognition anyway. > Similar deal with documents or contacts: there are some odd cases > where apps don't want to use the system's Contacts dialog, but I > think in most cases they should be able to trigger that dialog, and > have access to specific (selected) contacts granted implicitly. > MacOS X seems to be doing that nowadays, and Plash (which was an > intriguing idea that didn't seem to get anywhere) had that sort of > thing happening for file choosers: > http://plash.beasts.org/powerbox.html. It hadn't even occurred to me that an app might want access to a single contact! I was thinking of the sort of apps that go through all your contacts, looking for other people who have already registered with the app. Thanks for raising this. <https://wiki.ubuntu.com/AccountPrivileges?action=diff&rev2=12&rev1=11> > The other bit I wonder about is how this might affect something > like the "Recent Files" list in an application. Do you think that > sort of thing would work cleanly, or should we be thinking about a > replacement? (Or do people even use that?). I guess the list of recent items would have to be inside the "content picker" <https://blueprints.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+spec/client-1305-content-mgmt-picking> and nowhere else. An app couldn't provide its own UI for recent items that were created in other apps, though it could for items it created itself. That's what PC apps do anyway. > One thing that drives me mad with Android's approach is lots of > apps ask for permanent access to your contacts for a single thing > that they do, once, ever, but then iOS has driven me mad working in > the other direction, so I'm really excited to see what you have in > mind :) > > ... Right. I've mentioned this in the spec: "an app might need a privilege only for an uncommon function that you personally will never use". Cheers - -- mpt -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.12 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with undefined - http://www.enigmail.net/ iEYEARECAAYFAlHS+IQACgkQ6PUxNfU6ecqLmwCeMjkwOr4tEAJ8R3TmVzNKuFfE iVkAoLDIv5e5F2Nes+MP/KJqXvHzcZ5k =OBQ8 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
