Maintain Android app screenshots for app stores upstream

For automated adding of screenshots (and metadata) to app stores, several mechanisms exist such as metadata and Fastlane. This saves the maintainer a lot of manual work uploading screenshots to app stores when new screenshots are available. This is a widely used mechanism help release new versions of apps.

For the F-Droid app store, screenshots and metadata have been created to facilitate this. These can be found at https://gitlab.com/fdroid/fdroiddata/tree/master/metadata/org.videolan.vlc/en-US See featureGraphic.png and contents of phoneScreenshots.

The request is to move these screenshots upstream from the F-Droid repo to this repo. This will move screenshots to a more generic location allowing maintenance in one place for the benefit of all app stores.

This issue is part of an effort to remove custom screenshots from the F-Droid data repo, see also https://gitlab.com/fdroid/fdroiddata/issues/1413#note_193403754

added Design buildsystem labels

Help needed.

What help do you need?

Where is the documentation on this?

Here is an example https://github.com/y20k/transistor/tree/master/metadata See also https://f-droid.org/en/docs/All_About_Descriptions_Graphics_and_Screenshots/ on fastlane and https://fastlane.tools/ Does that help?

Yes it is: https://f-droid.org/en/docs/All_About_Descriptions_Graphics_and_Screenshots/

I have 2 points about it:

• Can we put the metadata folder in a subfolder?
• master is the development branch, we do branches for releases (and tag releases on this branches), how do we trigger f-droid releases?

Unfortunately not, it has to be in the top folder.

A new release will be picked up automatically, see https://gitlab.com/fdroid/fdroiddata/blob/master/metadata/org.videolan.vlc.yml but please let me know before you do one, so that on the side of F-Droid, the following folder https://gitlab.com/fdroid/fdroiddata/tree/master/metadata/org.videolan.vlc is removed before the build is being done there.

Please, use as much of the data which is already available there as the summary has been translated into many languages. Note that the graphics are only needed in en-US. Let me know if you have more questions.

Unfortunately not, it has to be in the top folder.

This won't happen, though.

Ah, see also https://gitlab.com/fdroid/fdroiddata/issues/1872

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Can we put the metadata folder in a subfolder?

I believe the Triple-T structure https://f-droid.org/en/docs/All_About_Descriptions_Graphics_and_Screenshots/#triple-t-structure may be placed in a directory named play at https://code.videolan.org/videolan/vlc-android/-/tree/master/application/app/src/main.

Would that work for you?

I'd gladly send a patch adding the structure and the metadata from Google Play, in case that is of any help.

Internally, we already use the fastlane structure. So no need for the Triple-T one.

We don't commit those files though because our last round of screenshots (that doesn't include Android TV) is 1.2GB. I don't think we want to bloat our repository with such a large amount of data.

Thanks for the blazing fast response!

We don't commit those files though because our last round of screenshots (that doesn't include Android TV) is 1.2GB.

Wow!

Do you see any way of improving the current state of VLC metadata in the main F-Droid repository (that doesn't include adding images to fdroiddata)?

For instance, is providing screenshots of only one locale and device size an option for you?

If it isn't, I feel like that is a very very strong argument for the need for other options of providing metadata to the main F-Droid repository.

If it is, that'd be nice! Though, I feel like it'd be a strong argument for the need for other options nonetheless.

As you can see here, we recently updated our screenshot generation.

It's now localized, so we generate 8 screenshots for 3 form factors (4 when we'll add the for Android TV support) for 30 languages. And we generate them in the largest resolution accepted by the Play Store. That explains the size and this figure is only for 26 languages as I did not backup 4 of them.

1. One solution would indeed to commit only one language and a limited amount of form factor (en with phones and 10" tablets is currently 29MB).

2. Another would be to have a submodule dedicated to that but:

• I'll have to check with our adminsys if I am allowed to push this amount of data on our server
• The structure wouldn't probably be located at the root of the repo (but in any case we don't want to put anything on the root)
• F-droid should support initializing a submodule before pulling those files

3. Finally, the easiest one, on our part would be to provide a link somewhere to a zip file that contains all of this metadata

One solution would indeed to commit only one language and a limited amount of form factor (en with phones and 10" tablets is currently 29MB).

At least currently I feel like this is probably the best option.

Though if you don't want to add anything to the root of the repository, the only option I see is Triple-T as mentioned above.

Is that a possibility?

Another would be to have a submodule dedicated to that but:

This approach is already being used by some apps, so it should work.

Finally, the easiest one, on our part would be to provide a link somewhere to a zip file that contains all of this metadata

Yes, I feel like support for something along these lines should be added. I'll have a chat with the F-Droid developers.

Though, on another note, I'm not sure how well the main F-Droid repository can deal with such a large amount of image metadata.

The size of all image metadata is currently around 9GB ^^

I think the best solution for us right now is the submodule one. I'll have to check internally if it's feasible and if it need a migration from the fastlane structure to Triple-T as well.

But in the long term, the zip one is probably a better solution. It could be an empty Triple-T structure with only a link to the zip. On your side, you could in fact filter what languages and/or form factors are the most relevant for you. You could also resize/re-encode the images to gain some storage.

As it hasn't explicitly been mentioned in this issue:

Could the submodule also contain the other metadata listed at https://f-droid.org/en/docs/All_About_Descriptions_Graphics_and_Screenshots/#triple-t-structure, such as the app icon, feature graphic, short description, and full description? As for the screenshots, the preferred location of this metadata is in the source code repository (in this case potentially a submodule).

Sorry for not mentioning this earlier.

When we find a solution, we'll add all the descriptions, icons and so on. For now, we're still thinking about the best solution. Submodules won't allow us to put the files outside the root we want to keep clean.

When we find a solution, we'll add all the descriptions, icons and so on.

Great!

For now, we're still thinking about the best solution.

No pressure.

Submodules won't allow us to put the files outside the root we want to keep clean.

Hm. I'll try and talk to the F-Droid developers later.

On your side, you could in fact filter what languages and/or form factors are the most relevant for you. You could also resize/re-encode the images to gain some storage.

I forgot to mention in my previous message: just to make sure there's no misunderstanding, I'm not an F-Droid developer or core member. Apologies if it seemed that way.