Feature Request: Show work profile apps.

[dubwoc]

I am unable to see any of my work profile apps unfortunately making using KiSs impossible for work. Please add this feature.

[ntninja]

Are you able to see those from your device's pre-installed launcher? From what I can gather about device profiles on the internet:

1. The work profile is basically a separate user account that your boss and Google control
2. User accounts are isolated from each other so that apps from one account cannot interact with apps from another account

Are these observations correct? If yes, does KISS work if you also install it in your work profile (provided that the companies device administration policy allows you to do so)?

[dubwoc]

I am able to see the work profile only apps when using the system launcher (Google now launcher) as well as other third party launchers Ive installed (Nova launcher). The work profile is tied to a different account.

I am not allowed to install the majority of apps on the play store with this account as you suspected.

[ntninja]

I did some digging through Android's usual mess of limited documentation and I believe I've found the problem:
Currently we are using PackageManager.queryIntentActivities to list the app that are installed on the user's device. This API wasn't designed for launchers in particular and probably doesn't return work profile applications (since those are meant to mostly be treated as if they resided in their own separate profile).
On the other hand Android 5.0 introduced the new LauncherApps API, that is specifically designed for launchers and allows an app to query all applications associated with all profiles of the current user. We probably need to use this for work mode to be handled correctly.

Are you able to install apps from "unknown sources" / outside of Google Play Store on your device to aid in testing code for this? I believe you are the first motivated user with this kind of problem unfortunately…

[dubwoc]

I am and I am happy to be a guinea pig as long as I can see the branched code. Thank you for the quick turnaround.

[dubwoc]

Assuming the above is fine, no need for a binary, i'll build it on my end.

[ntninja]

Thanks for your help! I'm glad if you can build the binary yourself – less work for me 😉

Here is a very simple patch that should simply add enumeration of app from other profiles to KISS:
https://github.com/alexander255/kiss-launcher

Known limitations:

• Does not reload apps on ACTION_MANAGED_PROFILE_ADDED and [ACTION_MANAGED_PROFILE_REMOVED](https://developer.android.com/reference/android/content/Intent.html#ACTION_MANAGED_PROFILE_REMOVED)
• Does not use registerCallback to receive notifications when apps are added or removed (including possible optimized reloading behaviour)

Suspected issues (needs your confirmation!):

• Apps on work profile will not launch – instead the usual "Whoops, something went wrong…" error popup will be shown
• App icons will fail to load or load incorrectly
• App sorting in the application subscreen is currently broken on Android 5+
• App uninstallation will not work (May be a limitation of the Android APIs exposed) Uninstallation has been limited to same-profile apps

In any case I'd be very useful if you could also provide a logcat of everything logged to the KISS Apps channel (i.e.: adb logcat | grep "KISS Apps") and of any observed crashes.

Should look something like this (feel free to anonymous sensitive stuff):

11-15 21:44:00.117 24617 24643 W KISS Apps: Found profile: UserHandle{0}
11-15 21:44:00.156 24617 24643 W KISS Apps: Found app: ApplicationInfo{e981f84 com.android.contacts}
11-15 21:44:00.180 24617 24643 W KISS Apps: Found app: ApplicationInfo{477d36d com.android.dialer}
11-15 21:44:00.217 24617 24643 W KISS Apps: Found app: ApplicationInfo{cbe6ba2 com.android.settings}
11-15 21:44:00.276 24617 24643 W KISS Apps: Found app: ApplicationInfo{32b6033 com.android.browser}
11-15 21:44:00.287 24617 24643 W KISS Apps: Found app: ApplicationInfo{b39aff0 com.cyanogenmod.filemanager}
11-15 21:44:00.303 24617 24643 W KISS Apps: Found app: ApplicationInfo{ecb3969 com.android.calendar}
11-15 21:44:00.317 24617 24643 W KISS Apps: Found app: ApplicationInfo{83b9fee com.android.camera2}
11-15 21:44:00.329 24617 24643 W KISS Apps: Found app: ApplicationInfo{c31cc8f com.cyanogenmod.eleven}
11-15 21:44:00.339 24617 24643 W KISS Apps: Found app: ApplicationInfo{321db1c com.android.deskclock}
11-15 21:44:00.358 24617 24643 W KISS Apps: Found app: ApplicationInfo{9d50325 com.android.email}
11-15 21:44:00.372 24617 24643 W KISS Apps: Found app: ApplicationInfo{a45ccfa com.android.gallery3d}
11-15 21:44:00.383 24617 24643 W KISS Apps: Found app: ApplicationInfo{788a2ab com.android.soundrecorder}
11-15 21:44:00.391 24617 24643 W KISS Apps: Found app: ApplicationInfo{1ff8d08 com.android.messaging}
11-15 21:44:00.404 24617 24643 W KISS Apps: Found app: ApplicationInfo{2f7aca1 fr.neamar.kiss}
11-15 21:44:00.405 24617 24643 W KISS Apps: Found app: ApplicationInfo{f93bec6 org.cyanogenmod.audiofx}
11-15 21:44:00.413 24617 24643 W KISS Apps: Found app: ApplicationInfo{92cbe87 com.ota.updates}
11-15 21:44:00.423 24617 24643 W KISS Apps: Found app: ApplicationInfo{d8471b4 org.cyanogenmod.screencast}
11-15 21:44:00.431 24617 24643 W KISS Apps: Found app: ApplicationInfo{14171dd org.cyanogenmod.theme.chooser2}
11-15 21:44:00.440 24617 24643 W KISS Apps: Found app: ApplicationInfo{77d0152 com.android.providers.downloads.ui}
11-15 21:44:00.448 24617 24643 W KISS Apps: Found app: ApplicationInfo{e0cbc23 com.android.calculator2}
11-15 21:44:00.456 24617 24643 W KISS Apps: Found app: ApplicationInfo{2d0f520 org.fdroid.fdroid}

[dubwoc]

Alright I gave the updated version a try and the following is what happened:

When I search for Apps that are available in both profiles, e.g. Play store, I see two icons where as before I would only see one. However, regardless of which one I touch it launches the same non-work profile App. Also, with other launchers work profile apps have a little briefcase icon added to them in the corner so that one can distinguish which profile the app applies to but in KISS this does not currently happen.

When I search for apps only in the work profile they show up as you predicted without an icon and again as you predicted they fail to load with the "Whoops, something went wrong…" popup.

I've attached the log you requested below.

kiss_log.txt

[ntninja]

Thanks for your feedback! This is exactly the kind of behaviour I hoped that would happen!

I've created another patch that should now allow to launch foreign-profile apps and view their settings page. Looking at the Android documentation it seems that a direct uninstall button is not possible for these apps through.

Some homework for you: 😉

• Please verify that work profile apps now launch correctly.
• Please also check whether long-pressing on work-profile and non work-profile apps their "App-Details" menu correctly leads to the app's settings page.
• Please also try uninstalling an app that is only available on the work-profile – It will probably not work, but I need your feedback on this.

Icon loading is still broken ATM.

[ntninja]

Attribution: Credit also goes to Nöme launcher, that ships some example code on how to use startMainActivity correctly: slvn/nome@b4b03c5

[dubwoc]

I hit a compile error. I poked around a bit but my Android/Java foo is weak :(

Compile Error:
/Users/dubwoc/kiss-launcher/app/src/main/java/fr/neamar/kiss/result/AppResult.java:148: error: cannot find symbol
launcher.startAppDetailsActivity(className, (UserHandle) appPojo.userHandle, v.getClipBounds(), null);
^
symbol: variable v
location: class AppResult

[ntninja]

Yes sorry I just quickly did some changes, before leaving and, of course, forgot to actually test the last code change…

Anyway, it's fixed (and tested) now…

[ntninja]

Another update! Icon loading for foreign-profile apps should now be working (and if the Android docs didn't lie this will also include a nice "work" badge being displayed for apps from the "work" profile 🙂).

[ntninja]

Final update for today: App sorting in the application list section should now be working again. Please check this on your end (particularly with regards to work vs non-work apps).

[dubwoc]

Alright. I loaded up the latest changes and apps are sorted properly. I see icons with the brief case and I am able to properly launch work apps. The only thing that doesn't appear to be working on my end is what you hypothesized. When I go to uninstall a work only app it acts like it is uninstalling it but the app is still installed/launchable. Let me know if you need me to test/confirm anything else

[ntninja]

Thanks for your feedback once again! This should hopefully be the final patch!

Please test, in particular that:

• … adding and removing apps to/from favourites works as expected (in particular: adding a work-mode app shouldn't add its non-work-mode counterpart, or even both apps).
• … hiding and removing apps from history works without problems (similar issues to those of favourites may occur)

Also, and I fear that you might not be authorized to help my out on this final one:

• If possible please exclude some work-mode apps (provided they behave correctly as per the previous points), then remove the work profile all together and verify whether they are correctly removed from the Excluded apps list in the settings
• Then add the work-mode profile again (maybe add some extra apps) and check without restarting KISS whether the show up in search or not

[ntninja]

@dubwoc: Are you still around? It'd be a shame to let all this code go to waste because we couldn't get the final testing done. If you can't test the work mode removal and adding, please just say so; it's not a huge deal.

[dubwoc]

Sorry about that I was on vacation. I went ahead and built the latest code and unfortunately I am unable to test any further as all work profile apps have disappeared.

Also, your suspicions are correct with respect to my ability to removing my work profile. I'll see once we get beyond the current problem if there is something I can do about that but I think my options are quite limited there.

[ntninja]

Thanks for responding!
Just for clarification: With "all work profile apps have disappeared" you mean "…are not showing up in KISS anymore", right?

[ntninja]

Update: Just did a quick review of the current patchset and fixed a bug that would have affected excluding foreign-profile apps, also all commits have been rebased onto the current master.

[dubwoc]

Apologies for the slow update. The next couple of days should allow for a tighter feedback loop. I pulled the latest code and tried out the apk and I still have the same problem where no work profile apps are showing up anymore.

What can I provide on my end to help you out there?

[ntninja]

I apologize for the long radio-silence, but, truth to be told, I totally clueless what the issue might be. Could you please remove your current KISS source directory and do a clean checkout of "https://github.com/alexander255/kiss-launcher.git" and do a clean compile?

I know this may seem like a waste of time (and I fear it might actually be), but please try anyways, as I simply cannot think of anything other than user-error that may cause this issue. (Sorry again if this offends you in any way.)
Once you've tested it please include an adb logcat again. I've added the change that prints the list of apps as they are loaded again, so an output like the one in my comment from Nov 15th should be dumped into the log.
Thanks for your feedback and help on this. It is highly appreciated! 🙂

[squgeim]

I don't know if this is still relevant but I just tried this on my phone and work profiles are working good. Please let me know if there is anything specific you want to test. This launcher had been my default for a long time now and this issue recently became a deal breaker for me so I'm happy to help in any way necessary.

[ntninja]

Thanks for the feedback @squgeim!

Here's a list of things I'd like to have tested:

• Do work-mode profiles launch correctly?
• Is the icon for work-mode profiles displayed correctly (briefcase symbol)?
• Can the app-details be viewed when doing Log-press → App-Details?
• Is the "Uninstall" menu entry properly hidden on work-mode profile apps (but still present on others)?
• Do the app sorting options in general work when visiting the applications subscreen (green circle)?
• Can work-mode profile apps be properly add to and removed from the favorites list?
• Can work-mode profile apps be properly excluded and added back?
• Does a work-mode profile app correct show up in KISS after installation (i.e.: Install app → Press Home button → Search for it)?
• Is a work-mode profile app correctly removed from KISS after uninstallation?
  • In particular: Are favorites / excluded app entries for the app also properly disposed of?

Additionally the following things would be nice to have tested as well, but it's OK if you can't / don't want to do this:

• If possible please exclude some work-mode apps (provided they behave correctly as per the previous points), then remove the work profile all together and verify whether they are correctly removed from the Excluded apps list in the settings
• Then add the work-mode profile again (maybe add some extra apps) and check without restarting KISS whether the show up in search or not

In all of the above cases please make sure that if you have the same app installed twice (once in work-mode, once in user-mode), that indeed the correct one of the two is launched / interacted with.

Thanks for your help! Looking forward to finally open a MR on this! 😁

[ntninja]

BTW, you will have to clone the repository again since rebased to latest master.

[squgeim]

• Do work-mode profiles launch correctly?
  Work profiles apps are opening correctly.

• Is the icon for work-mode profiles displayed correctly (briefcase symbol)?
  I have noticed that the icons depend on the current system icon theme. I changed the theme icons in KISS settings and the briefcase symbol only works for some icon themes (it works for the default system icon theme).

• Can the app-details be viewed when doing Log-press → App-Details?
  The app-details work correctly.

• Is the "Uninstall" menu entry properly hidden on work-mode profile apps (but still present on others)?
  The "Uninstall" icon is not visible for the workprofile apps. I don't know why this is necessary though. I can uninstall the apps from the app-details page and the app correctly disappears from KISS.

• Do the app sorting options in general work when visiting the applications subscreen (green circle)?
  The sorting is correct (I tried both A-Z and Z-A). The only thing I have noticed is with the calendar apps. I have four calender apps (cyanogen os calendar and google calendar, and a work profile counterpart for each). They all show up on the launcher as "Calender", and the order is Google Calendar, Cyanogen Calendar, Google Calendar - work, Cyanogen Calendar - work. I had expected the "normal" and the work app would appear next to each other. It's probably because they all have the same name. Not an issue, just something I noticed.

• Can work-mode profile apps be properly add to and removed from the favorites list?
  Long pressing on an app in the favorites list crashes the launcher.
  Here is the stack trace:

01-21 10:13:13.100 19530-19530/fr.neamar.kiss E/AndroidRuntime: FATAL EXCEPTION: main
                                                                Process: fr.neamar.kiss, PID: 19530
                                                                Theme: themes:{default=overlay:com.baranovgroup.nstyledark, iconPack:com.baranovgroup.nstyledark, com.android.systemui=overlay:com.baranovgroup.nstyledark, com.android.systemui.navbar=overlay:com.baranovgroup.nstyledark}
                                                                java.lang.IllegalStateException: Could not execute method for android:onClick
                                                                    at android.view.View$DeclaredOnClickListener.onClick(View.java:4458)
                                                                    at android.view.View.performClick(View.java:5204)
                                                                    at android.view.View$PerformClick.run(View.java:21158)
                                                                    at android.os.Handler.handleCallback(Handler.java:739)
                                                                    at android.os.Handler.dispatchMessage(Handler.java:95)
                                                                    at android.os.Looper.loop(Looper.java:148)
                                                                    at android.app.ActivityThread.main(ActivityThread.java:5461)
                                                                    at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Native Method)
                                                                    at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit$MethodAndArgsCaller.run(ZygoteInit.java:726)
                                                                    at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit.main(ZygoteInit.java:616)
                                                                 Caused by: java.lang.reflect.InvocationTargetException
                                                                    at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Native Method)
                                                                    at android.view.View$DeclaredOnClickListener.onClick(View.java:4453)
                                                                    at android.view.View.performClick(View.java:5204) 
                                                                    at android.view.View$PerformClick.run(View.java:21158) 
                                                                    at android.os.Handler.handleCallback(Handler.java:739) 
                                                                    at android.os.Handler.dispatchMessage(Handler.java:95) 
                                                                    at android.os.Looper.loop(Looper.java:148) 
                                                                    at android.app.ActivityThread.main(ActivityThread.java:5461) 
                                                                    at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Native Method) 
                                                                    at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit$MethodAndArgsCaller.run(ZygoteInit.java:726) 
                                                                    at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit.main(ZygoteInit.java:616) 
                                                                 Caused by: java.lang.NullPointerException: Attempt to invoke virtual method 'android.graphics.Rect android.view.View.getClipBounds()' on a null object reference
                                                                    at fr.neamar.kiss.result.AppResult.doLaunch(AppResult.java:259)
                                                                    at fr.neamar.kiss.result.Result.launch(Result.java:165)
                                                                    at fr.neamar.kiss.result.Result.fastLaunch(Result.java:183)
                                                                    at fr.neamar.kiss.MainActivity.onFavoriteButtonClicked(MainActivity.java:575)
                                                                    at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Native Method) 
                                                                    at android.view.View$DeclaredOnClickListener.onClick(View.java:4453) 
                                                                    at android.view.View.performClick(View.java:5204) 
                                                                    at android.view.View$PerformClick.run(View.java:21158) 
                                                                    at android.os.Handler.handleCallback(Handler.java:739) 
                                                                    at android.os.Handler.dispatchMessage(Handler.java:95) 
                                                                    at android.os.Looper.loop(Looper.java:148) 
                                                                    at android.app.ActivityThread.main(ActivityThread.java:5461) 
                                                                    at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Native Method) 
                                                                    at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit$MethodAndArgsCaller.run(ZygoteInit.java:726) 
                                                                    at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit.main(ZygoteInit.java:616) 

• Can work-mode profile apps be properly excluded and added back?
  Excluding the app and adding it back from "View / edit your excluded apps" is working correctly.

• Does a work-mode profile app correct show up in KISS after installation (i.e.: Install app → Press Home button → Search for it)?
  This is working correctly.

• Is a work-mode profile app correctly removed from KISS after uninstallation?
  Yup.

• In particular: Are favorites / excluded app entries for the app also properly disposed of?
  The app is removed from the excluded app list after uninstall. I cannot test the favorites bar because I cannot remove the apps I already have there (as mentioned above).

[squgeim]

Apparently, clicking on the favorites bar itself, and not just the long press, crashes the launcher. Can not launch any application from the favorites bar.

[ntninja]

Thanks for your valuable feedback! The crash when interacting with the favourites bar should be fixed now (you can tell I never use that thing 😉). Also please note that long-pressing on favourite-bar entries does not actually do anything, to remove an app from the favourites bar you need to locate it in the history or app list instead. (Something to fix for another day…)

Some responses to your other comments:

I have noticed that the icons depend on the current system icon theme. I changed the theme icons in KISS settings and the briefcase symbol only works for some icon themes (it works for the default system icon theme).

Unfortunately there seems to be no obvious way of adding the briefcase symbol (or for even determining that a foreign user profile is indeed a work-mode profile) when custom icon themes are used, so it will stay in the current state for the foreseeable future.

The "Uninstall" icon is not visible for the workprofile apps. I don't know why this is necessary though. I can uninstall the apps from the app-details page and the app correctly disappears from KISS.

The LauncherApps API, that must be used to interact with foreign-profile apps, only offers methods to launch an application or to show it's details page. It is not possible to trigger an app uninstallation using this API.

The sorting is correct (I tried both A-Z and Z-A). The only thing I have noticed is with the calendar apps. I have four calender apps (cyanogen os calendar and google calendar, and a work profile counterpart for each). They all show up on the launcher as "Calender", and the order is Google Calendar, Cyanogen Calendar, Google Calendar - work, Cyanogen Calendar - work. I had expected the "normal" and the work app would appear next to each other. It's probably because they all have the same name. Not an issue, just something I noticed.

I've tweaked the code to fall back to sorting the apps by their ID if their names are identical. Hopefully that should result in the more logical sorting behaviour that you have described.

Thanks again for your feedback! If you can confirm that all the issues (except for the briefcase-on-custom-icon-theme thing) have been fixed. I'd finally feel comfortable enough about this code to get it merged.

[squgeim]

Everything looks fine now. Good work. Thanks for this awesome product.

I haven't tested removing work profile altogether. I'll probable do it some other time. Enabling it was a long process so I'm guessing I need to take some time out for this.

So, when can I expect to see it in the Play Store version?

[ntninja]

Don't worry about the work-mode profile removal / adding too much. It's very likely that it works at this point and even if it doesn't it really isn't that huge of an issue (adding/removing a profile tends to be something one does ~1 per device!?). I'm not saying that it wouldn't be a useful information to have, just that if it's too much work for you to test, the impact shouldn't be all that dramatic either 😁. Remember that we're all doing this on a voluntary bases and none of us devs actually has such a setup.

As you may have noticed I (a) forgot to press "Comment" on this message 9 days ago (b) have submitted the current code for inclusion into the next version of KISS. Depending on when @Neamar goes on his next "merging spree" it should then land in the next KISS beta/F-Droid version within the next 1 to 4 weeks (unless a major issue is found with the code before that). Official Google-Store versions are then promoted from the Beta-Version some time after.

[Neamar]

@Alexander255 is absolutely right.
Next merging spree... soon? ;)

[licaon-kter]

Looks like it's working ok with Island as far as I can test.

[ntninja]

@licaon-kter Man, I really would have wished to have that thing during development! 😁
Thanks for the feedback! Did you also test adding & removing a profile?

@Neamar: I don't want to be annoying or anything, but… could you please respond to my latest inquiry and on the PR and possibly get the code review done (or maybe assign on of the other devs, as a work-sharing option)? I don't want to have to rebase my code for months every time I try to submit any non-trivial change.
Truth to be told I (and I suspect others as well) am not motivated to attempt any more significant changes to the KISS code base anymore, because I know that by the time it receives some feedback I will have forgotten half of the previously written code myself. I'm not trying to be mean here or anything, but the current maintenance situation simply is not benefiting the project in any way. I can also totally understand if you don't want spend all you spare time guiding this project, but simply letting things rot like this is not something that should become the norm! This is not a one-man, works-for-me, spare-time project that cannot afford any serious maintenance anymore! Wasn't there some discussion about having a second maintainer helping out? What happened to that idea? We need really need to fix this if the project isn't supposed to stall into immobility…
Again: I'm simply giving feedback on something that has been a major demotivater to me for quite some time and that I simply cannot ignore anymore for the sake for being able to contribute to a pretty awesome android launcher I happen to love using!
Oh and thanks for all the time you've already invested into this! You totally didn't do a bad job keeping all us devs with our crazy ideas at bay! 😉

[Neamar]

@Alexander255 you're not annoying at all.

You make very good points, and an obvious solution for me is the OPEN Open source model. You've contributed more than your fair share of PR, so are you interested in joining the core contributors to help with the review, maintenance and future of KISS?

I've sent you an invite to join Flowdock, where we have live discussions about KISS. No hard commitments from you, just help as you can and maintain parts of the code you've written ;)

(which is one of the reason I'm slow at merging, I want to be sure I understand everything because all too often the burden of maintenance would fall on me and I had some experiences where it was quite hard to understand "what is going on" on complex features ;))

[licaon-kter]

Looks like I misunderstood the whole thing and did not realise the apps should appear in duplicates and that I needed @Alexander255 's branch to test Island. I'll get that asap and come back with feedback.

[ntninja]

I don't have any problems maintaining the parts of code that I've written or modified (and sometimes out other stuff like the phone matching thing as well). I actually try to do that already where possible, it just happens that stuff I write usually tends to be too low-level for it to receive lots of updates once it's released and stable. People want mostly features after all 😉. I tend to respond to those issues/code only if I think I can actually can meaningfully guide them to some kind of result (like a merge or maybe even close if has-to-be), that's why I, and hardly anybody else I suppose, am not that often responding to new issues.
So short answer to your question: Yes, I would have done it even without you asking! 🙂

[ntninja]

This should be fixed in latest master as #609 has now been merged. Feel free to comment/reopen if you still experience issue with this when using the latest master!