[UIFe] Don't show GNOME Books by default

Bug #1584522 reported by Jeremy Bícha
16
This bug affects 2 people
Affects Status Importance Assigned to Milestone
One Hundred Papercuts
Fix Released
Medium
Unassigned
Ubuntu GNOME
Fix Released
Undecided
Unassigned
gnome-documents (Debian)
Fix Released
Unknown
gnome-documents (Ubuntu)
Fix Released
Medium
Unassigned
Xenial
Fix Released
Medium
Unassigned

Bug Description

User Interface Freeze Exception Justification
=============================================
To avoid getting bug reports and negative feedback from an app that does almost nothing, I propose we hide GNOME Books for Ubuntu (GNOME) 16.04 LTS.
gnome-documents (and therefore gnome-books) is included by default in Ubuntu GNOME but not other official Ubuntu flavors.

This change was made in Debian and Ubuntu yakkety-proposed 3.20.0-3 (not built on yakkety because it's depwaiting on GTK 3.20 but that will be cleared up one way or the other later in the yakkety release cycle).

$ seeded-in-ubuntu -b gnome-documents
gnome-documents is seeded in:
  ubuntu-gnome: daily-live

List Notifications
==================
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-doc/2016-May/019925.html
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-translators/2016-May/007173.html
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-gnome/2016-May/004025.html

Original Bug Description
========================
I think the "Books" app included in GNOME is so incomplete that it
would be better to set NoDisplay=True for it.

What happens when you launch GNOME Books
===

Books opens, showing you the .cbr, .cbz, .djvu, .mobi, .epub files it finds in your tracker-searched folders.

The only file type it lets you actually view though is .cbr and .cbz (which are usually used for comic books). For everything else, it displays an uphelpful error message:

https://git.gnome.org/browse/gnome-documents/commit/?id=9c5cf3e98c15c17736bacda1aa2eea9458cbf4ce

Since the evince "Document Viewer" can also display .cbr and .cbz files just fine, GNOME Books is redundant.

Worse, "Books" implies that it will let you read commonly used ebook formats such as .epub or .mobi but it cannot.

GNOME Books development is slow. The initial Books feature is a year and a half old and the "coming soon" message is a year old.

https://git.gnome.org/browse/gnome-documents/log/?qt=grep&q=books

Once Books gets epub support, we should probably show the Books app again. You can follow the progress of that effort at https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=740971

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 16.10
Package: gnome-documents 3.20.0-2~xenial2 [origin: LP-PPA-gnome3-team-gnome3-staging]
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 4.4.0-22.40-generic 4.4.8
Uname: Linux 4.4.0-22-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.20.1-0ubuntu4
Architecture: amd64
CurrentDesktop: GNOME
Date: Sun May 22 16:13:59 2016
EcryptfsInUse: Yes
InstallationDate: Installed on 2016-04-09 (42 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu-GNOME 16.04 LTS "Xenial Xerus" - Beta amd64 (20160408)
SourcePackage: gnome-documents
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

Revision history for this message
Jeremy Bícha (jbicha) wrote :
Changed in gnome-documents (Debian):
status: Unknown → New
Revision history for this message
Tim Lunn (darkxst) wrote :

I am fine with this change, if you prepare the change I will sponsor it for you.

Jeremy Bícha (jbicha)
summary: - Don't show GNOME Books by default
+ [UIFe] Don't show GNOME Books by default
Jeremy Bícha (jbicha)
description: updated
Changed in gnome-documents (Debian):
status: New → Fix Released
Revision history for this message
Jeremy Bícha (jbicha) wrote :

For completeness, I should also mention that it is possible to have GNOME Books fully show .djvu files also. This feature was added in GNOME Books 3.20 (Ubuntu 16.04 LTS uses GNOME Books 3.18) but it didn't actually work. I have a proposed patch at https://bugzilla.gnome.org/766781 that makes it work. The patch (or patches) for Ubuntu 16.04 LTS are fairly short since gnome-documents actually just uses Evince to display files and Evince already supported .djvu. It's just a matter of telling gnome-documents it's ok to show the file.

Why not add the .djvu feature instead of hiding GNOME Books?
====

1. Technically, it may need a FFe anyway, depending on whether enabling a (new) basic book type is considered a new feature or a bugfix.

2. The .djvu format is fairly obscure. (Anecdotally, before working on this bug, I had never used the format.) GNOME Books still can't open the very popular .epub, .mobi, or .azw formats, and displays PDFs in the GNOME Documents viewer instead. Therefore, even with .djvu support, the average person with lots of e-books probably still won't have anything show up in GNOME Books.

3. The already-installed Evince Document Viewer opens djvu files just fine so this isn't really needed.

Jeremy Bícha (jbicha)
description: updated
Changed in gnome-documents (Ubuntu):
status: New → Fix Committed
status: Fix Committed → New
Revision history for this message
Alfredo Hernández (aldomann) wrote :

I think that until GNOME Books doesn't support .epub files, there's not a big gain in displaying it. I think Evince should be used to open .djvu files, as the DJVU file format is usually used for compressed scanned books (or that's my experience, at least), so from a UX point of view, it should be handled by the same program that handles PDFs.

I personally do use Books for its amazing features regarding collections (inherited from Documents, of course), but as you said, it's not a good idea to have the app if it shows files it can't open.

Hopefully, this will be fixed soon when native ePub/MOBI support comes to GNOME Books.

Revision history for this message
Gunnar Hjalmarsson (gunnarhj) wrote :

UIFe approved. Can't recall that it's mentioned in any documentation.

Changed in gnome-documents (Ubuntu):
status: New → Triaged
importance: Undecided → Medium
Changed in gnome-documents (Ubuntu Xenial):
importance: Undecided → Medium
status: New → Triaged
Changed in ubuntu-gnome:
status: New → Confirmed
tags: added: xenial
Changed in hundredpapercuts:
status: New → Triaged
importance: Undecided → Medium
Revision history for this message
Jeremy Bícha (jbicha) wrote :

Alberto, I'm resetting the bug status to New. According to https://wiki.ubuntu.com/FreezeExceptionProcess#General_Instructions a member of ~ubuntu-release will then set the status accordingly. Yes, that's different than how bug status normally works.

Changed in gnome-documents (Ubuntu Xenial):
status: Triaged → New
Changed in gnome-documents (Ubuntu):
status: Triaged → New
Changed in ubuntu-gnome:
status: Confirmed → New
status: New → Triaged
Changed in gnome-documents (Ubuntu):
status: New → Fix Committed
Revision history for this message
Launchpad Janitor (janitor) wrote :

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

Changed in gnome-documents (Ubuntu Xenial):
status: New → Confirmed
Jeremy Bícha (jbicha)
Changed in gnome-documents (Ubuntu Xenial):
status: Confirmed → In Progress
Revision history for this message
Brian Murray (brian-murray) wrote : Please test proposed package

Hello Jeremy, or anyone else affected,

Accepted gnome-documents into xenial-proposed. The package will build now and be available at https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gnome-documents/3.18.3-0ubuntu0.16.04.1 in a few hours, and then in the -proposed repository.

Please help us by testing this new package. See https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Testing/EnableProposed for documentation how to enable and use -proposed. Your feedback will aid us getting this update out to other Ubuntu users.

If this package fixes the bug for you, please add a comment to this bug, mentioning the version of the package you tested, and change the tag from verification-needed to verification-done. If it does not fix the bug for you, please add a comment stating that, and change the tag to verification-failed. In either case, details of your testing will help us make a better decision.

Further information regarding the verification process can be found at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/QATeam/PerformingSRUVerification . Thank you in advance!

Changed in gnome-documents (Ubuntu Xenial):
status: In Progress → Fix Committed
tags: added: verification-needed
Revision history for this message
Jeremy Bícha (jbicha) wrote :

Books apps is hidden in Ubuntu GNOME 16.04 after installing proposed update.

tags: added: verification-done
removed: verification-needed
Martin Pitt (pitti)
Changed in gnome-documents (Ubuntu):
status: Fix Committed → Fix Released
Revision history for this message
Launchpad Janitor (janitor) wrote :

This bug was fixed in the package gnome-documents - 3.18.3-0ubuntu0.16.04.1

---------------
gnome-documents (3.18.3-0ubuntu0.16.04.1) xenial; urgency=medium

  * New upstream bugfix release (LP: #1588913)
    - Unbreak going back from preview when launched from search provider
    - Disable Print menu item when unsupported
    - Try not to open PDFs in GIMP
  * 91_hide-gnome-books.patch:
    - Don't show GNOME Books by default since it does almost nothing
      currently (LP: #1584522)

 -- Jeremy Bicha <email address hidden> Fri, 03 Jun 2016 12:10:35 -0400

Changed in gnome-documents (Ubuntu Xenial):
status: Fix Committed → Fix Released
Revision history for this message
Martin Pitt (pitti) wrote : Update Released

The verification of the Stable Release Update for gnome-documents has completed successfully and the package has now been released to -updates. Subsequently, the Ubuntu Stable Release Updates Team is being unsubscribed and will not receive messages about this bug report. In the event that you encounter a regression using the package from -updates please report a new bug using ubuntu-bug and tag the bug report regression-update so we can easily find any regressions.

Jeremy Bícha (jbicha)
Changed in ubuntu-gnome:
status: Triaged → Fix Released
Changed in hundredpapercuts:
status: Triaged → Fix Released
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