Neue iOS-Mobile-App-Beta zur Testung verfügbar

[pmusaraj (Penar Musaraj)]

Im Anschluss an Delegated authentication for Discourse Mobile app haben wir an einer neuen Version der DiscourseHub-App für iOS gearbeitet. Diese neue Version enthält mehrere Änderungen unter der Haube, die einige langjährige Probleme mit der iOS-App beheben. Sie können diese neue Version sofort testen, indem Sie den untenstehenden Link auf Ihrem iOS-Gerät öffnen und die App über TestFlight installieren:

https://testflight.apple.com/join/NkdBQgmg

Hinweise zur neuen Version

Es gibt zwei wesentliche Änderungen in der neuen Version der App:

1. Die App verwendet Safari zur Authentifizierung.
2. SafariViewController wurde nun durch eine Webansicht ersetzt.

Die erste Änderung bedeutet, dass die Authentifizierung in der App nun einfacher ist und besser in iOS integriert ist. Benutzer können nun gespeicherte Passwörter, bestehende SSO-Sitzungen oder die Anmeldung per E-Mail nutzen, wenn sie eine Site in der App authentifizieren. Diese Änderung bedeutet jedoch auch, dass Benutzer sich erneut bei allen Sites anmelden müssen, die sie bereits in ihrer App konfiguriert haben. Dies ist eine einmalige Anforderung. (Wenn der Benutzer bereits in Safari angemeldet ist, muss er/sie nur noch den API-Zugriff der App autorisieren.)

Die zweite Änderung, der neue Webansicht-Browser, ermöglicht ein besseres und schnelleres UI-Erlebnis in der App und behebt mehrere Probleme, die wir mit SafariViewController hatten.

Einige weitere Verbesserungen, die in dieser Beta-Version enthalten sind:

• Die Behandlung von Push-Benachrichtigungen wurde verbessert: Benutzer sehen nun Benachrichtigungsabzeichen, wenn sie eine Push-Benachrichtigung erhalten, während die App im Vordergrund ist.
• Sitzungen aus der App werden nun in Discourse unter dem Abschnitt „Zuletzt verwendete Geräte" im Benutzerprofil korrekt als solche identifiziert.
• In der Webansicht haben wir eine neue Navigationsleiste eingeführt. Auf iPhones befindet sich diese Leiste unten und blendet sich automatisch aus (wie die Navigationsleiste von Safari); auf iPads ist sie statisch und oben im Viewport platziert. Das Styling der Leiste verwendet automatisch das Farbschema des aktiven Themes.
• Die App prüft nun regelmäßig auf Änderungen an der API-Version und dem Logo einer Site, sodass Änderungen im Branding und Aktualisierungen der Discourse-API in der App berücksichtigt werden (und es behebt auch ein Problem mit verschwindenden Logos).

Um diese neuen Funktionen zu testen, müssen Ihre Discourse-Sites auf dem neuesten tests-passed-Zweig oder auf der neuesten Beta (v2.3.0.beta9) sein. Alle Sites, die nicht kürzlich aktualisiert wurden, fallen in der App auf die veraltete Authentifizierung und SafariViewController zurück.

[codinghorror (Jeff Atwood)]

Awesome work on this @pmusaraj and @sam, major improvements!

[Stephen]

One immediate thing I’ve noticed is that while the new app got straight into Meta after re-authorizing, a bunch of sites on b9+7 needed me to reauthenticate.

[Cozdabuch (cosmo)]

Odd display issue on xsmax.

The app “back” rendering is cutoff on left side of notch.

[sam (Sam Saffron)]

Can you paste a screenshot?

[Cozdabuch (cosmo)]

It’s minor, and no issue when displaying normal layout, only when previous app link is displayed

[pmusaraj (Penar Musaraj)]

I think I see what you mean (but I’m not sure), the button to go back to TestFlight is halfway between the two background colors. In the app, we have added some logic to change the background color behind the status bar in the iOS app. It will follow the background of your Discourse header. For example, here is how the header would look on the Fakebook theme:

On your site you have a custom header above the Discourse header, with a different background color (blue). I will look to find a way to cover these cases as well, but it might be a tiny bit tricky, there are multiple ways to add a custom header above the Discourse header.

[Stephen]

Is there another caveat for preserving credentials beyond beta 9?

[pmusaraj (Penar Musaraj)]

Credentials from SafariViewController can’t be preserved. SVC runs in an isolated context, the app has no access to any of the sessions/cookies in it. So, this one-time re-authentication is necessary for all users that have no sessions in Safari. I think in your case, you had a Safari session for meta, but not for the other sites in the app.

[bts (Brendan Schlagel)]

Not sure if this might be fixable or not, but I just tried this and mostly works great but the login / authentication was slightly roundabout for sites w/ SSO using WP Discourse. After logging in through the WordPress site I’m taken back to the forum, but not the authentication page for the app. So I click “cancel”, go back to the app home screen, then click back to the forum and (since I’m now logged in) hit the screen where I can authorize access. Not a big issue but perhaps there’s a way to save a step here.

[pmusaraj (Penar Musaraj)]

@bts

After logging in through the WordPress site I’m taken back to the forum, but not the authentication page for the app.

I’ll look into why this is, it should redirect back to the authorization screen. Thanks for the report.

[bts (Brendan Schlagel)]

Totally unrelated to my previous comment but I also just thought of an idea for a small UX enhancement:

I like the new bottom nav bar (much easier than reaching to the top on a large phone; thanks!) but notice it only appears on scroll up. This makes total sense for the main topic list view where it’s infinite scroll, but for individual topics (where there is an “end of page”) I would suggest also showing the nav bar upon scrolling to page bottom.

See the Pocket iOS app for a great example of this — also a bottom action/nav bar, hidden on scroll down; shows on scroll up or upon reaching the bottom of an article.

I think this makes a lot of sense for my typical Discourse mobile use flow as well; I’m on three forums regularly and (if multiple have updates) typically right after I finish catching up on the last new topic is when I want to close out of that forum view and switch to another.

[pmusaraj (Penar Musaraj)]

@bts

I would suggest also showing the nav bar upon scrolling to page bottom

We have implemented something like this, you need to scroll twice to the bottom of the page for the nav bar to show up again. It’s very similar to what Safari does upon hitting the bottom of a page.

[bts (Brendan Schlagel)]

Ah cool I see that now! Did not occur to me to try that, good to know

[justin (Justin DiRose)]

If possible, could the icon circled in the screenshot match the icon conventionally used to launch the share sheet on iOS? It being a link is a little ambiguous until you click on it.

Current icon:

Conventional iOS share sheet icon:

[Stephen]

I’ve just realised we’ve lost the old refresh button which was previously top-right.

Appreciate that it shouldn’t be necessary, but it’s definitely useful on occasion. Is there any plan to implement pull-to-refresh?

[pmusaraj (Penar Musaraj)]

@justin I also find the link icon sub-optimal when it comes to sharing. I chose it because it’s the same icon we use when sharing a post in Discourse. FontAwesome doesn’t have a direct equivalent to the conventional iOS share icon, the closest icons to the conventional iOS icon are share-square and external-link-alt, both of which I’m not particularly fond of. That said, we don’t have to stick to FontAwesome, we could use iOS-style icons for all four of the bottom bar actions…

@Stephen we don’t currently have plans to add a refresh button or to support pull-to-refresh. In fact, pulling from the title bar downwards currently dismisses the webview, which is useful, sometimes.

[tomtjes (Thomas Reintjes)]

The app works fine with Meta, but not with my own Discourse instance.
This is what I see in the error log:

Message

Failed to handle exception in exception app middleware : PG::UniqueViolation: ERROR:  duplicate key value violates unique constraint "index_user_api_keys_on_client_id"
DETAIL:  Key (client_id)=(42c39dc...) already exists.
: INSERT INTO "user_api_keys" ("user_id", "client_id", "key", "application_name", "push_url", "created_at", "updated_at", "scopes") VALUES (4, '42c39dc...', '19eaf98...', 'Discourse - iPhone', 'https://api.discourse.org/api/publish_ios', '2019-04-30 15:05:35.056396', '2019-04-30 15:05:35.056396', '{notifications,session_info,one_time_password}') RETURNING "id"

[pmusaraj (Penar Musaraj)]

I have seen this error on my dev instance (in your case, it’s likely related to an old auth token that hasn’t been removed properly). Have you tried removing the site from the app (swipe right-to-left and then delete) and trying again? Alternately, in your Discourse instance, you can go to your user preferences and “Revoke Access” for the apps you have listed.

[tomtjes (Thomas Reintjes)]

I’ve tried both ways unsuccessfully. Although,

@pmusaraj

go to your user preferences and “Revoke Access” for the apps you have listed.

I couldn’t find this exact preference. What I did find is Recently Used Devices on my account preferences, where I could log out on my iPhone.