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postmarketOS settings UI

    • Closed Imported Issue created by Administrator @root

    How about we implement something similar to Android's settings menu, searchbar on top, multiple categories with settings inside, for postmarketOS specific settings.

    What we could put there:

    • audio settings (see my music player use case)
      • automatically resume playback when connecting headphones
      • invert the volume buttons (on the n900, these seem to be inverted compared to the Android phones?)
    • update settings
    • developer options
      • display dmesg/syslog (open a terminal and run dmesg/logread?)
      • enable/disable sshd
    • about dialog
      • display deviceinfo etc.

    The program would write all settings that differ from the defaults to /etc/postmarketos.conf. That file should be easy to edit by users (so something like the deviceinfo format). The file is not provided by any package, so we don't run into updating problems with that.

    Users could open the settings menu from the power button (#134 (closed)) or from the UI's application menu (we can provide a .desktop file so it fits in there).

    I would like to implement the UI in something like KDE's Kirigami. However, it should perform well on the N900 and on downstream kernel devices without gpu acceleration (not sure if that is the case with Kirigami).

    CC: @bshah

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    • Activity

    • Administrator mentioned in issue #134 (closed) · Imported

      mentioned in issue #134 (closed)

      By Oliver Smith on 2018-11-25T00:49:35

    • Administrator mentioned in issue #133 (closed) · Imported

      mentioned in issue #133 (closed)

      By Oliver Smith on 2018-11-25T00:50:18

    • Administrator
      Administrator @root · Imported
      Author Owner

      Plasma settings should be already able to do audio, and same for xfce4 if we are using pulse. I like the idea of having a settings app though, agree with disabling sshd option, options for reboot and logs. I think it should be a long press of power button also.

      By Craig Tatlor on 2018-11-25T09:14:10

    • Administrator
      Administrator @root · Imported
      Author Owner

      I may sound dumb since I've almost no knowledge about Linux, but my thoughts are that there should be a command-line tool (pmconf, pmconfig, another name?) to edit settings in the first place. Then graphical frontends could be developed. This way it should be easier to provide different GUIs depending on the device (example: kirigami-based for newer phones and gtk2 for N900).

      By HenriDellal on 2018-11-25T12:46:13

    • Administrator
      Administrator @root · Imported
      Author Owner

      Why postmarketOS specific? The options you listed are mostly either init system specific (enabling/disabling services (ssh), which is nice to be able to toggle though), or already handled by the DE (audio settings, in the case of Plasma Mobile anyway). Even an "about dialog" showing basic distro info already exists in Plasma, KInfocenter, although it's desktop only. I guess showing deviceinfo and displaying dmesg syslog are nice, but you can already get them by a simple cat /etc/deviceinfo, dmesg, and logread, so I'm not sure how useful those would be.

      By Bart Ribbers on 2018-11-25T13:37:27

      Edited by Administrator
    • Administrator
      Administrator @root · Imported
      Author Owner

      there should be a command-line tool (pmconf, pmconfig, another name?) to edit settings in the first place. Then graphical frontends could be developed. This way it should be easier to provide different GUIs depending on the device (example: kirigami-based for newer phones and gtk2 for N900).

      I'd rather avoid implementing and maintaining multiple GUIs that do the same thing. If we write it from scratch anyway, we could use a toolkit that does work properly for all devices and avoid the overhead. The commandline program could be useful for terminal usage though.

      The options you listed are mostly either init system specific (enabling/disabling services (ssh), which is nice to be able to toggle though)

      I don't see where the argument against a postmarketOS settings gui is in that. Isn't such a gui a nice, userfriendly way to toggle this?

      or already handled by the DE (audio settings, in the case of Plasma Mobile anyway).

      I might be just about the only one using this feature, but I really like "automatically resume playback when connecting headphones". In the VLC and AntennaPod Android apps, it is possible to do this, and I would like to have this feature working on postmarketOS as well. But not as setting for each app, but in one settings menu where it can be set for all apps at once.

      Correct me if I'm wrong, but AFAIK no UI has implemented something like that yet. So if it needs to be done from scratch, why not implement it in a way that works for all UIs?

      (Remember that my use case is i3 and mpd.)

      Even an "about dialog" showing basic distro info already exists in Plasma, KInfocenter, although it's desktop only.

      So even if it existed in plasma mobile, what about the other UIs, wouldn't it be nice if we could open an about dialog from any UI?

      I guess showing deviceinfo and displaying dmesg syslog are nice, but you can already get them by a simple cat /etc/deviceinfo, dmesg, and logread, so I'm not sure how useful those would be.

      Well, you wouldn't need to open a terminal and type in commands. postmarketOS is supposed to be touch friendly after all, so I think this would be a good improvement.

      But even if you disagree with the points above - there are some really important settings, that we need to be able to set, no matter which UI is currently active:

      • update settings
      • default UI

      (And I think we'll figure out more settings that belong in this UI on the way of making this more end-user friendly.)

      By Oliver Smith on 2018-11-26T08:54:55

    • Administrator
      Administrator @root · Imported
      Author Owner

      I don't see where the argument against a postmarketOS settings gui is in that.

      It's an argument against a postmarketOS specific one, rather than a general OpenRC one.

      I might be just about the only one using this feature, but I really like "automatically resume playback when connecting headphones"

      No you're definitely not the only one, I love it too. I'm just not sure what the right place would be to have this implemented.

      So even if it existed in plasma mobile, what about the other UIs, wouldn't it be nice if we could open an about dialog from any UI?

      Sure, I guess that one would be ok to have distro specific.

      Well, you wouldn't need to open a terminal and type in commands. postmarketOS is supposed to be touch friendly after all, so I think this would be a good improvement.

      You're right there. It should probably be a separate tool though, and optional to install.

      By Bart Ribbers on 2018-11-26T11:35:30

    • Administrator
      Administrator @root · Imported
      Author Owner

      I don't see where the argument against a postmarketOS settings gui is in that.

      It's an argument against a postmarketOS specific one, rather than a general OpenRC one.

      Having a generic "OpenRC settings" UI that allows you to toggle all services doesn't seem to be that useful for me. End users don't need to be able to toggle each and every service (e.g. NetworkManager) via GUI, it would be more userfriendly to have this abstracted into a flight mode or other concepts. And power users can still change all services on the command line, they don't need a GUI for that either.

      @PureTryOut, I'm trying to understand your point of view. What is it that you don't like about a postmarketOS settings GUI in general and where else would one configure the default UI?

      By Oliver Smith on 2018-11-27T08:01:37

      Edited by Administrator
    • Administrator
      Administrator @root · Imported
      Author Owner

      What is it that you don't like about a postmarketOS settings GUI in general and where else would one configure the default UI?

      I just dislike distro specific stuff when it can be done otherwise, and prefer to offload tasks to other places when possible (e.g. audio control to a DE's audio manager). Don't let me be a blocker for this though, I'll go with the majority :wink:

      where else would one configure the default UI?

      Preferably in some display manager like UI before the DE is booted. That one can be made by us though, I just prefer to not brand it as postmarketOS specific.

      By Bart Ribbers on 2018-11-27T19:49:58

    • Administrator
      Administrator @root · Imported
      Author Owner

      I just played around with Kirigami's applicationitemapp demo, and I'm really impressed. The app is super simple, yet it features nice animations of menus fading in- and out, and menu items getting highlighted as one touches them. So it looks professional. And the best part is, it works fast, even in software rendering mode - I just ran it on the N900 (on i3) with QT_QUICK_BACKEND=software and it was not just usable, but something I'd actually like to use performance wise! So this would be my framework of choice for creating something like a postmarketOS settings menu. :smiley:

      By Oliver Smith on 2018-12-17T19:08:50

    • Administrator
      Administrator @root · Imported
      Author Owner

      Not relevant anymore, closing.

      By Oliver Smith on 2020-10-10T20:11:12

    • Administrator closed · Imported

      closed

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