Home tab becomes empty

[Madis0]

After some period, the Home tab will no longer load the app list, despite saying "Loading...". Maybe related to background sync/new log entries?

Can be worked around by clearing app data or updating the app. Tested v0.99 and v0.991.

[papjul]

What do you mean by "some period"? You just stare at the homepage and it empties itself?

[Madis0]

I don't know how to exactly reproduce it, hence my assumption it might be related to logs/syncing.

[papjul]

You just opened the app and the app list was empty and would not load?

[Madis0]

Correct.

[oldherl]

Same for me.

[papjul]

Never happened once on my side, so could you (each of you):

1. Tell me if you use "Show system apps" preference?
2. What's your Android version/custom ROM?
3. if a force stop and restart of the app works, or if clearing the app data is the only way to workaround the issue?

Thanks!

[bernaferrari]

I'm one step from rewriting this app in Flutter, I just need a bit of time.

…

On Sat, Jan 11, 2025, 04:56 Julien Papasian ***@***.***> wrote: Never happened once on my side, so could you (each of you): 1. Tell me if you use "Show system apps" preference? 2. What's your Android version/custom ROM? 3. if a force stop and restart of the app works, or if clearing the app data is the only way to workaround the issue? Thanks! — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#30 (comment)>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AACVXFPQMMZT6WPE5AWRKL32KDFDLAVCNFSM6AAAAABRPSM6UOVHI2DSMVQWIX3LMV43OSLTON2WKQ3PNVWWK3TUHMZDKOBVGEZTOOJVGM> . You are receiving this because you are subscribed to this thread.Message ID: ***@***.***>

[papjul]

I made 2 PR to fix a few issues. I believe they would be worth merging and making a release before your Flutter rewrite.

It may be useful to have a stable Kotlin version, if your Flutter rewrite is not feature-complete or has bugs in its initial version ;) (unless you plan to make a different applicationId so that both versions can be installed in parallel)

[oldherl]

I'm one step from rewriting this app in Flutter, I just need a bit of time.

Will your rewrite be able to read the history of the current app?

[bernaferrari]

I haven't even started :P but I would try to do so!

…

On Sat, Jan 11, 2025, 07:36 oldherl ***@***.***> wrote: I'm one step from rewriting this app in Flutter, I just need a bit of time. Will your rewrite be able to read the history of the current app? — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#30 (comment)>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AACVXFPWQJNIMDGAFHVI5232KDX35AVCNFSM6AAAAABRPSM6UOVHI2DSMVQWIX3LMV43OSLTON2WKQ3PNVWWK3TUHMZDKOBVGE4TQMJXG4> . You are receiving this because you commented.Message ID: ***@***.***>

[papjul]

If you haven't started, is there any benefit, or is it just a challenge for yourself?
I mean, since it's an app showing SDK versions of installed apps, being multiplatform isn't useful (you will only run it on Android) and it can be a lot of work.

[oldherl]

1. Tell me if you use "Show system apps" preference?

It's empty no matter it's enabled or not.

2. What's your Android version/custom ROM?

Android 13, last version of Pixel 4a, not modified.

3. if a force stop and restart of the app works, or if clearing the app data is the only way to workaround the issue?

No it won't work. I haven't tried clearing the app data since I don't want to lose that.

[bernaferrari]

You are finding some bugs and Android is impossible to maintain, everything changes all the time. It's been ~7 years since I last programmed in Android, and things only got worse since then. I would hope that with Flutter we could have less code, be more maintenable, and consequently less things breaking.

[papjul]

I thought the opposite: we didn't have that many bugs for something that wasn't updated for years and went through multiple major versions at once. Breaking changes and bugs are things that happen with all languages, especially when you choose to use third-party libraries, some of which are no longer maintained with the years.

The switch to Kotlin and Compose is probably a big jump indeed, but they have their reasons to exist (avoid NPE, write less code), and they are more fun to work with for the developer. There are automated tools for Java > Kotlin conversion. As for the bugs, there should be less with Kotlin (NPE) and they can probably be reduced by writing tests.

As for Flutter, it belongs to Google, so I don't think it will be very different regarding the governance. Although Flutter has the reputation of being less maintained. For example, some Material 3 are still not implemented in Flutter (that's also the case for Compose, but to a lesser extend). So yeah, it probably changes less than the Android SDK, but probably not for the good reasons.

You will however need to write additional (native) code whenever you want to access Android-specific features, so I'm not sure you will write less code in the end. I don't know if that's comparable, but I started working on Android apps through React Native which is another way to write multiplatform apps, and while it was fun at first with an easy learning curve, it was terrible to maintain on the long-term, and there weren't that many third-party libraries, even for the most basic stuff.

Regarding bugs, I'm only aware of one (this issue) that I wasn't able to fix. Probably related to the library it depends on (I remembered you wanted to rewrite it in Compose; that would have probably fixed it).

It's your personal project and you're free to not want to learn new Android stuff but a new tool/language, and I'm not a Flutter expert I encourage you to explore it by yourself, but I just wanted to disagree about the bugs (that I took care of, most of them being the developer (me) fault when rewriting) and that Android became worse than before ;)