Seems like Phosh is in downgrade mode...

[ryo]

I saw older videos of Phosh where you had the ability to close windows using the X button on the top right of each application.
Then they moved it to just the app launcher.
Then they replaced the X button for swipe to close (for people coming from iOS or Android, it makes sense).

Now I did an update, and the home screen is no longer accessible.
You can now only see it for a few seconds between launching an app, and the app being launched.
You can't do much on the home screen, but it's still nice eye candy.
Even Android and iOS let you see the home screen while having apps open!
Why can't Phosh do that?

It's a bit frustrating if you're buying a PC-grade phone, only for it to move towards the smartphone crowds.
Is there a way to re-enable the ability to see the home screen? (gsettings or something?)

[Hiraghm]

I saw older videos of Phosh where you had the ability to close windows using the X button on the top right of each application.
Then they moved it to just the app launcher.
Then they replaced the X button for swipe to close (for people coming from iOS or Android, it makes sense).

Now I did an update, and the home screen is no longer accessible.
You can now only see it for a few seconds between launching an app, and the app being launched.
You can't do much on the home screen, but it's still nice eye candy.
Even Android and iOS let you see the home screen while having apps open!
Why can't Phosh do that?

It's a bit frustrating if you're buying a PC-grade phone, only for it to move towards the smartphone crowds.
Is there a way to re-enable the ability to see the home screen? (gsettings or something?)

I hope so; I would like to have a desktop on my phone. even older versions of Android had your application menu separate, and you could place icons for frequently used apps on the desktop.

[ryo]

I hope so; I would like to have a desktop on my phone. even older versions of Android had your application menu separate, and you could place icons for frequently used apps on the desktop.

You can do that on Phosh too actually.
In the Terminal:

Code:

mobian@mobian# gsettings get sm.puri.phosh favorites
['sm.puri.Calls.desktop', 'sm.puri.Chatty.desktop', 'org.gnome.Epiphany.desktop', 'org.gnome.Contacts.desktop']

mobian@mobian# gsettings set sm.puri.phosh favorites "['sm.puri.Calls.desktop', 'sm.puri.Chatty.desktop', 'firefox-esr.desktop', 'org.gnome.Contacts.desktop']"

mobian@mobian# gsettings get sm.puri.phosh favorites
['sm.puri.Calls.desktop', 'sm.puri.Chatty.desktop', 'firefox-esr.desktop', 'org.gnome.Contacts.desktop']

[lonze]

I actually think this is great design. I havn't actually used any desktop icons on linux ever. I like this phosh menu where running applications and installed applications are together similar to gnome desktop. There is this space for favourites which should be enough. I really hate the way on android where running apps, home screen and installed apps are all separated. SailfishOS home screen is really my favourite. There you have running apps and app laucher can be accessed by swiping up, notifications by swiping left or right and quick actions by swiping down. The whole consept of having just weird home screen feels quite weird and inconvenient for me after using SailfishOS for years. Still I feel phos needs more swipe gestures for being more usable on phone. Reaching all buttons feels really uncomfortable. Ofcourse everything could be customisable to suit everyone.

[ryo]

If everything could be customized, I'd re-enable desktop shortcuts.
Both Gnome and in some extend KDE have been getting rid of something this normal on desktops too, and iOS didn't have it in the first place.

[ryo]

Seems like it's going to be here to stay:
https://source.puri.sm/Librem5/phosh/-/issues/261

So I made my own fork of Phosh, and re-enabled it by myself.
It's just 2 small file edits, so not a big deal.
But I'll probably make some more changes before I go all public with this.

Edit:
Nevermind, I'll show the code already.
https://source.puri.sm/ryo/phosh

However, I have much more planned, from fixing bugs the Purism team will probably never notice, to adding Japanese localization strings (because it seems to be super outdated by now), to adding new features even.
The Phosh source code is surprisingly easy to understand if you ever programmed in GTK+ before.

[marcih]

Seems like it's going to be here to stay:
https://source.puri.sm/Librem5/phosh/-/issues/261

So I made my own fork of Phosh, and re-enabled it by myself.
It's just 2 small file edits, so not a big deal.
But I'll probably make some more changes before I go all public with this.

Edit:
Nevermind, I'll show the code already.
https://source.puri.sm/ryo/phosh

However, I have much more planned, from fixing bugs the Purism team will probably never notice, to adding Japanese localization strings (because it seems to be super outdated by now), to adding new features even.
The Phosh source code is surprisingly easy to understand if you ever programmed in GTK+ before.

Sounds great! Are you going to try to get your fixes and improvements upstreamed or is the fork going to be for your own personal use only?

[ryo]

Seems like it's going to be here to stay:
https://source.puri.sm/Librem5/phosh/-/issues/261

So I made my own fork of Phosh, and re-enabled it by myself.
It's just 2 small file edits, so not a big deal.
But I'll probably make some more changes before I go all public with this.

Edit:
Nevermind, I'll show the code already.
https://source.puri.sm/ryo/phosh

However, I have much more planned, from fixing bugs the Purism team will probably never notice, to adding Japanese localization strings (because it seems to be super outdated by now), to adding new features even.
The Phosh source code is surprisingly easy to understand if you ever programmed in GTK+ before.

Sounds great! Are you going to try to get your fixes and improvements upstreamed or is the fork going to be for your own personal use only?

Of course I'll upstream bug fixes and localization strings, but features would probably remain in my fork.
And if I don't and the Purism team notices bug fixes, they'll probably copy it into the upstream anyway.

And if they're interested in the new features, of course they're free to copy it over.
But since it looks like Purism wants to go more with the smartphone crowd while I want to make it more desktop-like, I don't think you can expect much to be cross copied over.

[ryo]

A little more tweaking before going big:
・Translated a lot of things to Japanese.
　Last time it got updated was 1.5 years ago, so much of the interface was left untranslated.
　Only trying to figure out why "Undocked" didn't get translated though.
・The Purism team is defaulting to the app menu being unfolded, I made it default to folded.
　It simply makes much more sense as a desktop user to start with the desktop, and having to activate the menu, instead of the other way around.
　As a rather desired side effect, closing all apps will automatically close the menu down

For those of you wanting to see the X button back in the activity switcher, I have a feeling that this is more of a theme specific issue rather than a function issue.
While running Phosh on my PC (Manjaro with Gnome, default Manjaro theme), the X buttons are there.

[kqlnut]

For those of you wanting to see the X button back in the activity switcher, I have a feeling that this is more of a theme specific issue rather than a function issue.
While running Phosh on my PC (Manjaro with Gnome, default Manjaro theme), the X buttons are there.

With the Phosh 0.6.0 release the X to close windows was changed to be visible only on hover, effectively making it only visible when there is a mouse pointer.