Rachel 1:50 pm on October 4, 2016
Tags: Android ( 137 ), beta ( 47 ), needs-testing ( 32 ), wpandroid ( 34 )

Call for Testing: WordPress for Android 6.0

WordPress for Android version 6.0-rc-1 has been released in the Google Play Store. You can join the betaBeta A pre-release of software that is given out to a large group of users to trial under real conditions. Beta versions have gone through alpha testing in-house and are generally fairly close in look, feel and function to the final product; however, design changes often occur as part of the process. from the Google Play Store on your device (under “Become a beta tester”), and comment here or join the Google Plus beta community for more discussion with other testers.

New Feature:

Contextual actions on push notifications

Push notifications for comments now have quick actions based on the context. Test it out by triggering new comment notifications on your site(s), and make sure the correct quick actions appear and work as expected.

Moderated comments: If your site requires approval for a comment to be published, the push notification will display REPLY and APPROVE quick actions. Tapping on APPROVE will approve the comment, mark the APPROVE action in color, and show you the comment detail.
Non-moderated comments: If your site does not require approval for a comment to be published, the push notification will display REPLY and LIKE quick actions. Tapping on LIKE will like the comment, mark the LIKE action in color, and show you the comment detail.

Additional Testing:

In addition to testing new features, as beta testers we can give feedback about the flow through the WordPress app. (Not sure what I mean? Check out how the WordPress Flow team tests and what we mean by flow.)

Here are some things to consider or try out in this release:

Take a screenshot of each step as you test the new push notifications above. Upload your screenshots (you can create a gallery on Cloudup) and share them in a comment here.
After you do the quick action in the push notification, where does it take you? Is that what you expected? Describe how the process makes you feel and whether you were able to finish the entire task or process you started.
Is there anything missing from the notification itself, or in the steps that follow, that would make this flow make more sense or work better for you?
When you finish approving, replying to, or liking the comment, what do you want to do next? Is there a clear path to continue on to your next task?

Bugs & Feedback

Did you find a bug or come up with a feature request while testing? Did you try the additional flow testing? You can discuss it here, report it using the “Enter feedback about the app” form in the Google Play Store, or head straight to the Android Github repository and open a new issue.

#android, #beta, #needs-testing, #wpandroid

srstancil 4:32 pm on October 4, 2016

I’m really happy to see these new notification features on their way in. It’s always felt like a slightly missing part of my workflow on mobile. But I did have a couple problems, and a few thoughts/suggestions

In one case where a comment was pending moderation I still got the “Like” option on the notification, rather than the “Approve”. Clicking “Like” then opened the app with an error saying “Unable to open notification”. I wasn’t able to reproduce the problem, but I wrote Issue 4601 to document it in case others see the same thing.

As for the way the flow works, I wish that clicking Like wouldn’t open the notification in the app. I’d rather just get a toast message indicating success/failure rather than having the whole app open up and interrupt whatever else I’m doing. This can be especially jarring when I interact with the notification from my Android Wear watch, since then the next time I unlock my phone it’s in a different app from where I left it. Issue 4602.

I’m disappointed that I still can’t reply to the notification from my watch, but 4032 is still open for that. And 4401 will give better Android 7.0 support as well.

Overall, just having the comment text in the notification body is a huge improvement!
- Rachel 12:13 pm on October 5, 2016
  
  I completely agree with your assessment of the “Like” behavior. After I clicked Like, the app opened, I saw the comment and Like, and my immediate thought was, “Ok, what now?” I didn’t feel like there was any reason for me to be taken there. A less intrusive success message would definitely make sense to me.
  
  I also noticed that the action icons (e.g. checkmark for Approve, star for Like) didn’t appear for me. Not sure if that’s expected on Android 7.0 so I reported it in Issue 4605.
  - hoverduck 2:29 pm on October 5, 2016
    
    I replied on the GitHubGitHub GitHub is a website that offers online implementation of git repositories that can can easily be shared, copied and modified by other developers. Public repositories are free to host, private repositories require a paid subscription. GitHub introduced the concept of the ‘pull request’ where code changes done in branches by contributors can be reviewed and discussed before being merged be the repository owner. https://github.com/ ticket with more info, but the short answer is that the action icons are no longer shown on Android 7.0 for standard notifications
Brandon Kraft 1:55 pm on October 5, 2016

I saw the same issue as @srstancil with an in-moderation comment from a self-hosted site with Jetpack gave me “Reply” and “Like” options.

On self-hosted sites, “Like” shouldn’t be an option at all since it doesn’t exist in CoreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. and Jetpack does not have Comment Likes able to be activated at this time.
- Rachel 2:06 pm on October 12, 2016
  
  Good point about self-hosted sites. Self-hosted sites should only generate notifications if they are using Jetpack (unless I’m mistaken about that, in which case please correct me), so it should only be an issue for Jetpack-connected sites.
  
  We’ve been showing “like” as an option for comments on Jetpack sites on the notifications tab, too, so we’ll need to address this both on the notifications tab and in push notifications. I opened an issue about that here:
  
  https://github.com/wordpress-mobile/WordPress-Android/issues/4642
Brandon Kraft 1:57 pm on October 5, 2016

Clicking Reply took me to the app with the “Unable to open notification” too, but the notification loaded behind the error after a quick moment. It feels like the notifications aren’t actually synced in-app until it is open, or at least not as quickly as the push notification itself comes in. I’ve seen this type of thing before with other types of push notifs.
- daniloercoli 10:03 am on October 6, 2016
  
  This has been tracked here https://github.com/wordpress-mobile/WordPress-Android/issues/4571 and it should be fixed in the next RCRelease Candidate A beta version of software with the potential to be a final product, which is ready to release unless significant bugs emerge..
Lance Willett 4:32 pm on October 5, 2016

Tested things with Nexus 5 (Android 6.0.1) and WP app version alpha-23. Didn’t find anything out of place — also did some posting, uploading, Reader actions, commenting, and such in the app to try to break things.

Visual record here of trying out the comment notifications: https://cloudup.com/c_934OJiVF4
Alister Scott 4:38 am on October 6, 2016

I went through some scenarios on my Samsung Galaxy Tab A (Android 5.0.2)

Initially I couldn’t work out how to see the action buttons, but I had to pull down on the notifications, this is probably just a lack of understanding of Android on my behalf.

Once I found these actions they worked without issue. They opened up the comment and showed it as approved or liked. I guess this is what I was expecting: perhaps I didn’t even need to open the app but this probably isn’t possible as the app needs to do the action, so I’m happy with what it did.

Some screenshots from my tab: https://cloudup.com/cBQ2AP4MAX4
Gaurav Pareek 12:45 pm on October 6, 2016

I tested this, and if I sometimes get ‘Like’ and ‘Reply’ for unapproved comments.

After some testing, I found that this happens if I manually ‘Force Stop’ the app, or swipe it away from Recents, or restart my phone. Once I have opened up the app, the notifications have the correct actions for unapproved comments.
designsimply 4:31 pm on October 7, 2016

I tested with WPAndroid 6.0-rc-1 on a Samsung Galaxy Tab4 (SM-T330NU) Android 5.1.1.

Like Alister, I had trouble figuring out how to find the actions since they didn’t show by default on the tablet. Fair warning: I am a new Android user.

Here’s how they look at first on the Galaxy Tab4:

Here’s how they look if you tap on the specific notification and drag down a little:
designsimply 4:35 pm on October 7, 2016

At first, I found the main notifications screen confusing because I didn’t understand that a super light gray background meant the comment had not been viewed direction in notifications (unread) and a colored comment icon meant the comment was still unapproved. Those two things are strange to me, gray background means unread but gray icon means approved.

See more screenshots at https://cloudup.com/cD20xBdGLH4
designsimply 4:39 pm on October 7, 2016

When I tapped “REPLY” on the push notification, I expected the keyboard to open but it didn’t (WPAndroid 6.0-rc-1 on Galaxy Tab4 & Android 5.1.1). It took me a minute to figure out that I had to tap at the far bottom left to trigger the keyboard to start writing a reply.

See screenshots for my reply flow at https://cloudup.com/cOgIixMmupa
- Rachel 2:25 pm on October 12, 2016
  
  Really good point. I’ve opened an enhancement issue about that here:
  
  https://github.com/wordpress-mobile/WordPress-Android/issues/4643
designsimply 4:40 pm on October 7, 2016

Aside: I didn’t expect to see htmlHTML HTML is an acronym for Hyper Text Markup Language. It is a markup language that is used in the development of web pages and websites. tags after tapping the “Edit comments” button.

Also see https://cloudup.com/cz5pFGX2u9y

WordPress.org

New Feature:

Contextual actions on push notifications

Additional Testing:

Bugs & Feedback