How to deal with applications "shipped" with Solid Nextcloud?

[Potherca]

When Solid Nextcloud was created, an App Launcher UI was also implemented. The goal was to provide the user with some Solid apps, so they could start using their Pod straight away. Otherwise things felt a bit empty.

At the time (and for some subsequent versions) the provided applications where manually tested to work. However, as time and most notably the Solid specicifation, marched on, some (or all?) of the provided apps stopped working with modern pods.

This issue is not unique to Solid Nextcloud, those apps also stopped working with other pods.

However, those other pods don't "Ship" such apps, but we do.

So we need to do "something" to make sure that whichever apps are shipped with the plugin, actually work.

Providing users with an empty both may not be nice, but providing them with broken apps is even worse...

This goal of this discussion is to come up with a viable plan (and implementation) to allow shipping apps with Solid Nextcloud, with some form of validation that those apps actually work.

[Potherca]

One of the idea's @ylebre and I where discussing was to create an automated test-suite for each of the added apps.

This would take an investement of time for each app, but would avoid the need for manual testing after each release.

It might also be a good basis for a more generic test-suite for Solid applications (as the only test suites currently available all for the servers, not the clients).

[bourgeoa]

Do you know where I could find the list of shipped app ?
Are you shipping SolidOS ?

[Potherca]

The list of which apps are shipped with Solid Nextcloud is defined in: https://github.com/pdsinterop/solid-nextcloud/blob/HEAD/solid/lib/solid-app-list.json

Currently the list is:

• Notepod
• Poddit
• Generator demo
• App demo
• Focus

[ylebre]

Our initial idea for the apps in Solid Nextcloud are 'simple utility' apps that are built on top of Solid. Things like notes, bookmarks and the like - something that a user could pick up, that has a clear and focused use case.

We should absolutely take a stab at adding SolidOS, if only to find out where we still have compatibility issues.

[sjoerdvangroning]

The included applications are key to engagement and onboarding for Solid Nextcloud.

It is important there are a number of applications and even more important that they work. I would suggest to remove all non working applications as that really scares off users.

I think we should include at least a pod inspector app, which allows you to browse your pod. Maybe podpro? Usefull for debugging and nice to brows your pod and see what is happening.

[bourgeoa]

My 2 cents.
Do not embed a list of apps but a link to a web page where you could update that list.
This is much easier to maintain and not dependent on Solid Nextcloud package distribution.

Some examples of apps that are available and actually working with NSS and CSS :

• hello world https://hello.0data.app/solid/solid-file-client/
• podpro
• https://solidcryptpad.github.io/solidcryptpad/
• https://umai.noeldemartin.com/
• https://github.com/NoelDeMartin/media-kraken
• pod-chat : https://pod-chat.com/

and SolidOS webApp : https://solidos.github.io/mashlib/dist/browse.html

[Potherca]

One the one hand I am uncertain if using an external file might lead to unexpected behaviour (what happens if an app that the user actively uses is removed from the list when it no longer works?) on the other hand, I think it might be the direction we want to go in, for several reasons.

One reason for using an external file is that we might also be able to provide a yay/nay test for more than just Solid Nextcloud.

Another is that it would also make it a lot easier for application developers to get their apps added to the list.
This would also make it easier for users to receive suggestions for new and exciting apps.

Similarly, it could be a good starting point to allow app developers to check whether their app works across the Solid Pod landscape.

@ylebre Do you have opinions regarding the app launcher remaining locked inside Nextcloud vs. being pulled from an outside source?

[ylebre]

For the time being, I would prefer we ship this locked inside Nextcloud until we figure out what the end result should look like - the main goal here is to provide a couple of example applications for a more user friendly experience with Solid. Pulling the list from an outside source opens up a route for tracking Solid-Nextcloud instances, as well as requiring an outside service to host the app launcher content.

I'm not against the idea, but it will need some deliberate consideration before we move that forward. Top of my head:

• 'what goes in the list for which user' - does the nextcloud admin determine what apps are there?
• Or can the user add their own entries to the list?
• Or a combination of mandatory applications combined with applications from the user?
• Do we need to allow any app, or do they have to come from a curated list?
• Who curates that list?
• What will the definition of a 'custom' apps look like?

[sjoerdvangroning]

• Though POD's are meant as Personal data stores, I think it is a good idea to leave room for a Nextcloud admin to include a number of applications. This makes very good use in organisational Nextcloud implementations. Think schools, companies. This list could come from another POD, as in, a pod maintaned by the admin.
• Users should be able to maintain the applications themselves. So I think the main source of the list should be a file in the datapod of a users. Maybe also give the ability to remove the admin list of applicatons. At the first account creation, I think it would be a good idea to create a list of these applications.
• I think it should be possible to have a curated list for organisational Nextcloud implementations (see first) The list should come from a pod maintained by the admin.

More general, I think Nextcloud is a very good option for organisational solid servers, companies, school, familie server etc. When you have a more public Nexctloud instance with a lot of users, I would expect less "interference" of the server maintainer.

[bourgeoa]

@ylebre I am not sure to understand. Does that mean that a user cannot run any app on solid nextcloud except the ones approved by the admin ?

[ylebre]

No, you would be able to use any app you wanted, just like you would with any other Solid server. The list is just there to provide an easier experience with the first steps. Maybe it should not be there at all, but that leaves the user with a 'now what?' after getting their account. So the idea was to provide a couple of useful example Solid apps to help with that.

[dounoit]

firstly - i love the idea of solid pods in nextcloud
I'm trying to get it to work - i've installed nss - had more success with that working - then moved on to nextcloud
installed nextcloud:latest - v27 - enabled the untested and installed - didn't work - ok - saw the message about it not working in latest versions - i deployed v25 - enabled the plugin - different error but kinda works sometimes - still pretty broken - i saw the announcements of solid pods use in AIO nextcloud - thought - ok - cool - i installed that v26 is all you could go back to - didn't work - i reinstalled AIO with v27 - the redirect auth seems to work but them it barfs on the endpoint or something.

I desperately wanna get this working - i've tried downloading from src and reinstalling - it was giving some deprecation error - any help would be totally appreciated - i'm happy to be a guinea pig - i'd like to get this moving - i wanna get some installs done for some people leveraging this - kinda ASAP! ;-) hope this all makes sense! tyvm and great work on the idea! this solid spec and ecosystem seems to have some serious teething pains :-)

-daveK aka chefboyrdave2.1

[Potherca]

Hi @dounoit! Great to hear your enthousiasm! As you have noticed, things aren't quite there yet...

Could you open an issue so we can see what we can do get you up and running?

[dounoit]

@Potherca - 100% i will - apologies for the delayed response - i had to pivot and install nss in the meantime for development to move fwd - i didn't have my notifications turned on for this project! newbie mistake! again, my intention is get this running via nextcloud - i'm pushing for a demo next week with whatever rudimentary functionality i can pull off at the time! :-) thanks for your swift response friend :-) - daveK

[dounoit]

i opened pdsinterop/solid-nextcloud#131 for this - thanks! -daveK