Feature: Provide an app picker similar to mobile apps

[nicodh]

Data is available as JSON here https://apps.testrun.org/xdcget-lock.json

Picker in desktop might be implemented like the Emoji picker to avoid duplicate implementations for Browser, Electron, Tauri.

• when an app is selected it should be shown as draft.

• we could provide an additional tab with "recently seen" apps with already used apps from chats

tbd: should we provide a "detail view" like on Android (which is basically https://webxdc.org/apps in a web view) or minimal view like on IOS

This is how it looks like in Android.

This the IOS view:

[r10s]

tbd: should we provide a "detail view" like on Android (which is basically https://webxdc.org/apps in a web view) or minimal view like on IOS

ftr, there is no AppPicker on iOS yet, the mentioned view is the "most recently used apps", this is unrelated to the store and exist for some time, longer than xstore bot even. for first iteration, that old will be replaced by a view as on android, deltachat/deltachat-ios#2499 - later on, we consider to bring back a tab with the "most recently used apps".

there are no direct plans to have "alternative views" on Android/iOS. would probably be fine, however, as long as the configurable URL does not require a compatible json - that would make the configuration far more complex for the users as they cannot just throw some .xdc and let apache or nginx render the directory

[nicodh]

there are no direct plans to have "alternative views" on Android/iOS

But there is a setting for the APP-Picker-URL ??

[nicodh]

If the JSON has a defined format it could be provided by "anyone"...

[r10s]

But there is a setting for the APP-Picker-URL ??

yes. at "Settings / Advanced":

it can be any website that is rendered then, it is assumed, users changing that, trust the website. downloads of .xdc are intercepted. Android/iOS do not deal with json currently

[nicodh]

yes. at "Settings / Advanced":

Yes I knew there is one :-) - sorry my question was not clear

So for now I would say we skip that on desktop. We can add it once there is a need or a request for that

[r10s]

So for now I would say we skip that on desktop. We can add it once there is a need or a request for that

yeah, makes sense to skip that for now.

at some point things are a bit more settled and we'll know if we want to go for "website" or "json", both have their advantages and disadvantages. having in between two standard would be pretty bad

btw, this is how it looks like when adding an "alternative store", which, as said, was also needed for f-droid:

works nicely, and is just using https://apps.testrun.org as the URL