Screenshots don't show up in client using gradle-play-publisher

cemrich · July 28, 2017, 6:02pm

I use the Triple-T gradle-play-publisher layout to add screenshots and other metadata to the Zapp repository. The apps descriptions, whatsnew info and even the feature graphic does show up as expected for my tagged releases. The screenshots however do not.

Is there a tool I can use to check my metadata before releasing (that would be awesome!)? And has anyone a hint on what I did wrong and how I can fix it?

sorenstoutner · August 4, 2017, 6:47pm

I have the same problem with Privacy Browser.

In my case, I have included the screenshots using the Fastlane format (I don’t not use Fastlane, I just populated the directories they use). I reported a bug on GitLab:

rugk · August 17, 2017, 9:22am

The app StreetComplete has the same or a similar issue. Nothing is showing up there. Using a Triple-T-like directory structure. See

github.com/streetcomplete/StreetComplete

F-Droid screenshots etc. do not show up

opened 10:03PM - 15 Aug 17 UTC

closed 06:25PM - 25 Aug 17 UTC

rugk

help wanted

Follow-up of https://github.com/westnordost/StreetComplete/issues/241 Viewing… the current version (last published: v1.1) in F-Droid I do not see the screenshots or even the header image. Note that I see similar issues with other apps: * https://github.com/cemrich/zapp/issues/54 * https://forum.f-droid.org/t/screenshots-dont-show-up-in-client-using-gradle-play-publisher/881 * https://gitlab.com/fdroid/fdroidserver/issues/357

hans · September 6, 2017, 11:53am

We haven’t found a gradle parser for Python, and running gradle itself to parse project files is far too slow. So currently fdroid update cannot parse the gradle settings to find out the location of the Triple-T files. Currently only the most standard location is checked: app/src/main/play. Fastlane makes this easier since there is only two standard locations.

cemrich · September 7, 2017, 2:40pm

I see the problem in implementing this, but Zapp uses the most standard android layout and the metadata files are stored at app/src/main/play. I would really like to debug this problem but without any tool to help me I’m lost.

Can you point me to the code which is looking for the screenshots and other metadata? Maybe I can spot my mistake (or a mistake in the documentation).

hans · September 11, 2017, 9:27am

gitlab.com

fdroid/fdroidserver/blob/0.8/fdroidserver/update.py#L657

    
      
          
          
          def _set_author_entry(app, key, f):
              limit = config['char_limits']['author']
              with open(f) as fp:
                  text = fp.read()[:limit]
                  if len(text) > 0:
                      app[key] = text
          
          
          def copy_triple_t_store_metadata(apps):
              """Include store metadata from the app's source repo
          
              The Triple-T Gradle Play Publisher is a plugin that has a standard
              file layout for all of the metadata and graphics that the Google
              Play Store accepts.  Since F-Droid has the git repo, it can just
              pluck those files directly.  This method reads any text files into
              the app dict, then copies any graphics into the fdroid repo
              directory structure.
          
              This needs to be run before insert_localized_app_metadata() so that

cemrich · September 11, 2017, 6:34pm

Thank you! I’ll take a look as soon as I have some spare time.

cemrich · September 12, 2017, 3:18pm

Okay, I tried to debug the problem but without success. The screenshots are not showing up inside the index-v1 json file.Other localized data like the feature graphic is listed correctly (which explains why it is displayed correctly inside the client).

The server side code looks fine to me, but I cannot test it, so I’m not absolutely sure. One last step I’ll try is renaming the screenshots without underscores. If this does not work I’ll have to drop this issue

hans · October 10, 2017, 8:29am

any luck with this? I’d love to incorporate any fixes

hotlittlewhitedog · October 10, 2017, 8:44am

@hans, please check my 2 commits for the client

hans · October 10, 2017, 9:53am

I found a fix for the Triple-T layout for the screenshots, that’ll be in an upcoming merge request

hans · October 10, 2017, 10:48am

Follow the fixes here: 1.0 fixes (!353) · Merge requests · F-Droid / fdroidserver · GitLab

cemrich · October 10, 2017, 11:19am

@hans, nice, I’m looking forward to the fix!

I didn’t investigate further because I didn’t release anything the last few weeks and I can’t update the metadata without making a release. That is what makes the issue so hard to debug.

cemrich · October 31, 2017, 9:34am

The screenshots now show up correctly without any changes on my part! Thanks everyone for your help