App Directory Discussion group - Tuesday 3rd May 2022

[kriswest]

Group overview

Discussion group to develop proposals for the improvement of the App Directory as part of the FDC3 standard. The group will examine the role/value/necessity of the AppD as part of the FDC3 specification and a compliance requirement for use of the FDC3 API, in addition to working on proposals to improve the description and functionality of the App Directory.

Relevant tags

Current open issues and PRs that relate to the above concepts with the label:

A github discussion is also available for this group (may be used to arrange meetings, agenda ask questions etc.)

Meeting Date

Tuesday 03 May 2022 - 9am EDT / 2pm BST

WebEx info

• Meeting Link: (https://finos.webex.com/finos/j.php?MTID=m2316d45da678d0203fd86f9342ff63ab)
• Meeting number: 2551 735 2618

More ways to join

• Join by video system:
  • Dial 25517352618@finos.webex.com
  • You can also dial 173.243.2.68 and enter your meeting number
• Join by phone
  • +1-415-655-0003 US Toll
  • +44-20319-88141 UK Toll
• Access code: 2551 735 2618

Meeting notices

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• A Discussion Group has no direct decision-making power regarding the FDC3 standard - rather it is intended that anything they propose or work on will result in proposals (via Github issues and PRs) for the Standards Working Group participants to consider and vote on for inclusion in the standard. As such, participation in a Discussion group is not required for contributing to any particular issue or FDC 2.0 as a whole.

Agenda

• Convene & roll call, review meeting notices (5mins)
• Review action items from previous meeting (10mins)
  • App Directory Discussion group - Tuesday 19th April 2022 #664
  • Overview of progress on PRs
• Support any App Definition so long has it has an 'fdc3' property #550 (close if no further activity or interest) (5mins)
• Discuss issues relating to 'Improving the AppD API' (30mins):
  • Improve the AppD's search function and documentation #370
  • Introduce a new fdc3.applications() method #311
  • Make it possible to retrieve all applications in an AppD #565
  • Add pagination support to AppD APIs #557
  • Endpoints for adding an app to an appD will often be implementation dependent and should not be required for compliance #566
  • Provide better documentation and examples for AppD auth support #559
• Discuss other issues (if time):
  • Revist proposals for Extend AppD application definition to support describing an app's use of interop (App Channels, User Channels & Intents) #247
    • Extend AppD application definition to support describing an app's use of interop (App Channels, User Channels & Intents) #247 (comment)
  • Allow an AppD application record to reference other apps that are *required* for it to run #674
  • The AppIntent interface incorrectly describes an intent #312
  • Create an AppD reference implementation #563
• Adjourn

Minutes

• A summary of PRs resolving previously discussed issues was provided by @kriswest
  • All appD PRs can be found here
  • A consolidated update PR is being added to as most of the PRs update the same YAML document and will often conflict:
    • AppD consolidated update PR #668
    • Currently incorporates PRs:
      • 555 556 558 re-write of the AppD overview page #570
      • 560 Defining a term for a single appD record #658
      • 553 Support v1 and v2 URLs in AppD spec #666
      • 567 AppD more info #669
      • 622 AppD lang and translations #670
    • Open PRs due to be merged into it:
      • 562 AppD vendor agnostic native apps #671
      • 369 AppD app categories #673
      • 561 Appd better align with web application manifest #675
• Support any App Definition so long has it has an 'fdc3' property #550
  • @openfin-johans requested that we bump this to next meeting and he will discuss with @openfin-gavin
    • As many of the underlying issues have now been resolved they may decide to close the issue without further discussion
• Discuss issues relating to 'Improving the AppD API':
  • Improve the AppD's search function and documentation #370
    • There was generally consensus that the current search API parameters are not what most developers/users would expect and hence standardizing this API is not helping anyone.
      • appId parameter is redundant with the GET retrieval method
      • there are separate search parameters for text fields: description, title, tooltip
      • search by the version or manifest URL is unlikely to be useful
      • there are 3 separate fields for searching intents - usage is poorly described
    • A proposal should be raised to update the definition of this API such that:
      • a more conventional 'keyword' search is provided, where multiple text fields are searched including title, description, tooltip etc.
      • you can filter by category (with or without a keyword search)
      • search by intent name could/should be retained
        • however it was noted that this is severely limited by the inability to list all intents (and contexts) found in the app directory
        • @kriswest@ we've seen a number of appD implementations add endpoints to list intents and contexts (including electron-fdc3 and the demo Citi provided)
          • An issue should be raised to add these endpoints to the standard to support filtering.
          • This also supports the use case for Extend AppD application definition to support describing an app's use of interop (App Channels, User Channels & Intents) #247 (as contexts are regularly used through the broadcast API and intents may be raised rather than resolved, so the current config doesn't reference all intents and contexts that may be used)
  • Introduce a new fdc3.applications() method #311
    • The main use case that this function would support is building a launcher application - which is often considered the province of the Desktop Agent itself, rather than an application
    • @nkolba App Directories support authentication and this API call would bypass that (to a certain extent) by forwarding on the information gathered under the auth that the Destkop Agent had used. This risks leaking data about the apps available in the desktop that might not otherwise be available
    • @kriswest We could consider an alternative proposal:: add an API call to retrieve the list of App Directories that are in use.
      • That would resolve the question about authentication, but it probably also negates any utility (where auth is in use) as an app that retrieves the list of directories and queries them directly can't expect to receive the same data as the desktop agent did.
    • There was no consensus that this issue should move forward. The group resolved to take the discussion to the issue and to remove it from the 2.0 milestone until consensus is achieved.
  • Make it possible to retrieve all applications in an AppD #565
    • Currently handled through the search API with no parameters by most implementations
    • PR to be raised to improve documentation and possibly to introduce a dedicated call.
  • Add pagination support to AppD APIs #557
    • There was general consensus that:
      • Pagination controls are somewhat anachronistic
      • "This would be a nice problem to have!" - referring to there being so many apps in an appD that pagination is needed.
      • We should close the issue and re-open it again if there are reports of issues with too large responses in future.
  • Endpoints for adding an app to an appD will often be implementation dependent and should not be required for compliance #566
    • There seem few use cases for dynamically adding to an appD at present and hence there was general consensus that standardizing this API call is unnecessary. It should be removed for the timebeing.
  • Provide better documentation and examples for AppD auth support #559
    • Not discussed due to time constraints.

Action Items

• @kriswest Create next meeting agenda around PR prep and review (to prepare consolidated PR for next SWG meeting)
  • Future meetings beyond 2.0 should consider remaining issues:
    • Provide better documentation and examples for AppD auth support #559
    • Allow an AppD application record to reference other apps that are *required* for it to run #674
    • The AppIntent interface incorrectly describes an intent #312
    • Create an AppD reference implementation #563
• @kriswest Add an 'other' category to categories PR and merge into consolidated PR.
• @kriswest raise an issue for adding /intents and /contexts endpoints to appD API
  • Add /intents and /contexts endpoints to the AppD API #719
• @kriswest raise a PR to resolve Make it possible to retrieve all applications in an AppD #565
  • add an endpoint for retrieving all apps from an appD (a primary use case) #694
• @kriswest raise a PR to resolve Endpoints for adding an app to an appD will often be implementation dependent and should not be required for compliance #566
  • 566 remove appd create application endpoint #695
• @kriswest close Add pagination support to AppD APIs #557

Untracked attendees

Full name	Affiliation	GitHub username

[Julia-Ritter]

Julia / FINOS

[kriswest]

Kris West / Cosaic 🚀

[robmoffat]

Rob / FINOS

[thorsent]

Terry / Cosaic

[chedzoir]

Malcolm / Citi

[mistryvinay]

Vinay / Symphony

[openfin-johans]

Johan / OpenFin / First half only...

[MichaelMCoates]

Michael Coates / OpenFin

[nkolba]

Nick Kolba

[mcleo-d]

👋🏻

[Julia-Ritter]

Untracked Attendees:

Derek / Proton Mail
Frank Bader / Wellington
Dimiter Georgiev / Symphony