rework notifications to work with new UX

Based on our conversation from the last UX Overhaul meeting, here's our conclusions based on my memory:

• only one notification to represent all install related events (update available, update downloaded, install downloaded)
• clicking on the notification opens My Apps, e.g. https://gitlab.com/fdroid/fdroidclient/issues/709#note_13739800
• if the notification is currently representing only a single action, then there is an action button in the notification, e.g. "Install" or "Update"
• index updates only show a notification while they are in progress (ultimately, this will totally disappear), and it will be distinct from the update/install notification
• F-Droid notifications should not show on the lock screen at all

@crwinfrey @pserwylo @commonsguy @relan @NicoAlt

With respect to the lockscreen, if desired, that could be configurable. The four main options: never on the lockscreen (VISIBILITY_SECRET), on the lockscreen but redacted (VISIBILITY_PRIVATE), on the lockscreen with the same content as inside the lockscreen (VISIBILITY_PUBLIC), or on the lockscreen but with custom content instead of auto-redaction (VISIBILITY_PRIVATE plus a separate attached Notification to be used on the lockscreen).

You also need to consider what to do about Wear. The default is for notifications to show up on Wear devices. You could make the notification local-only (i.e., only show up on the device), accept the default, or do something else to try to customize the Wear notification appearance to be more amenable to that form factor. IMHO, local-only would seem to be the right answer for F-Droid, but that's just me.

I agree, I think F-Droid notifications should also not show up on Android Wear.

@eighthave Thanks for posting the summary. It sounds on point. One question: When you talk about index updates, are you referring to the case when the user has opted in to automatic updates?

index updates only show a notification while they are in progress (ultimately, this will totally disappear), and it will be distinct from the update/install notification

I've attached a visual summary of our decisions. This version represents the case for manual updates. It doesn't include an instance for showing an app updating automatically.

@pserwylo

@crwinfrey the "index" is the list all of the available apps and related metadata. F-Droid downloads the index about once a day. your sketch looks good over all.

As a point of clarification, in the normal install mode, we don't need an "Update Complete" notification since the user has to click the install button on the system install screen for all updates and new installs. For root/system/priv-app mode, we'll need it since updates can happen in the background without user input.

Another thing I just thought: I think it could be confusing if the icon is different for single app versus multiple app. It makes it seem like the notifications are coming from different apps. Perhaps there is a way to always have the F-Droid icon there, but then in single app mode, it would also show the app-specific icon. Or maybe just reverse the icon pairing that you have so that F-Droid is the big one, and the app is the small one.

And another little detail: I think that "Update Complete" should be separate from the other notification. Or at least that's how I think Google Play does it. It has a joint notification for installs/updates in progress, then another joint notification for all the completed installs/updates.

Also, we're adding the possibility of server-based "push" installs and deletes. Those should have "Complete" notifications since they can happen without the user taking action. The question is whether they should be marked as something different than the regular "complete" notification. I think it would be good to have some marking to highlight that it was a push install/delete, but perhaps that specific info does not need to be especially visible.

https://material.google.com/patterns/notifications.html#notifications-guidelines

mentioned in issue #749 (closed)

mentioned in issue #751 (closed)

This sheet summarizes our decisions for notifications. @eighthave @pserwylo please review and let me know if there are any corrections.

!

Looks great overall!

• privileged is misspelled, its got an extra D
• Should the "Installing..." notification have a different icon? I'm not quite sure which, but the Downloader icon feels odd at first glance.
• In the intro blurb, it would be good to also include "queued installs", so cases like when the user clicked install while offline; or when in manual mode, the user clicks install, then navigates away from AppDetails while the app is downloading. The install process cannot be launched automatically since it would interrupt the user with a full screen install prompt.

Milestone changed to %0.102

Here's an update on the notifications design. Updates include:

• Cancel icon was removed from the install process
• Privileged is spelled correctly
• A note about queued installs in included in the intro blurb

mentioned in issue #720 (closed)

Milestone changed to %0.103 - UX Overhaul

Mentioned in issue #786 (closed)

mentioned in issue #815 (closed)

mentioned in issue #825 (closed)

mentioned in issue #823 (closed)

mentioned in issue privileged-extension#13 (closed)

mentioned in issue #709 (closed)

mentioned in issue #841 (closed)

Ok, I've made a lot of progress on this now.

@crwinfrey A couple of questions:

1. Under "updates" -> "Single update": to me it seems confusing that the title and status is swapped in the different states. In one "CameraV" is shown as the content, in the next as the title. Is this really what we want?

2. Also under "updates" -> "Single update". Do we want the separate icons for downloading and installing? Could you please send those to me in that case.

3. I guess the "Single update" column should also be used for first install? I mean, when you hit "install" on an app and we start downloading it, we want to show the "Downloading..." notification, but without "update", i.e. "Downloading cameraV..." as opposed to "Downloading update for CameraV"?

Hey @mvp76, here is some of the assets I created while working on the main screens. I believe the download-button/ic_download_progress_0.svg should be about what you're after for the notification icons.

download-button-svgs.tar.gz

@mvp76

1. Under "updates" -> "Single update": to me it seems confusing that the title and status is swapped in the different states. In one "CameraV" is shown as the content, in the next as the title. Is this really what we want?

Yes. The download icon is meant to be animated to show that the download is happening. This animated icon is currently used in F-Droid notifications.

2. Also under "updates" -> "Single update". Do we want the separate icons for downloading and installing? Could you please send those to me in that case.

Yes and yes. I've attached the download, cancel and install icons that are shown in the mockup above. @pserwylo Moving forward, is the artwork folder a good place to add icons?

3. I guess the "Single update" column should also be used for first install? I mean, when you hit "install" on an app and we start downloading it, we want to show the "Downloading..." notification, but without "update", i.e. "Downloading cameraV..." as opposed to "Downloading update for CameraV"?

When someone chooses to download an app while they have F-Droid open, I don't think we need to show a notification since they get feedback within the UI. We only need to show a notification if the user needs to take action on something, or if a download or install is happening in the background in privileged mode. So, no. Notifications would not be shown for first installs.

![ic_file_install.svg]

Here's the install icon. The first one I uploaded had a background color.

@crwinfrey:

Moving forward, is the artwork folder a good place to add icons?

I think so, but at the point of coming up with designs I don't have a problem with attaching to the relevant issue, then when finalised we can copy the original .svg assets into the relevant part of the artwork repository.

@crwinfrey About the animation: not sure this is a good idea, please see the attached screen shot. The small icon (next to "F-Droid") can easily be animated, the large one not so much (well, short of writing custom views or moving away from NotificationCompat).

mentioned in merge request !437 (closed)

@pserwylo I submitted merge request 437 for the initial implementation now, please have a look when you get a chance.

I am sure it needs tweaking and definitely a lot of testing, but would be good to get it out there to get some real-world testing and feedback.

@mvp76

Re: The small icon (next to "F-Droid") can easily be animated, the large one not so much (well, short of writing custom views or moving away from NotificationCompat).

Yeah, no need to write custom code for this. Let's do what we can. We are planning to run 'real world' tests toward the end of March, so I will include this on the list of things we need feedback on.

So I've been using this for a bit now, and it seems pretty finished to me. @mvp76: Is what got merged into master enough to close this issue? @crwinfrey: You can see it by downloading the apk linked to in the description of !444 (merged).

@pserwylo I think so. @crwinfrey Have you had a chance to test this out?

I'm going to close this. If there are specific concerns, we can raise a new issue.

closed