Focus-android: Just-in time information and one-tap action – Default Browser

[Sdaswani]

Why/User Benefit/User Problem

• Allow users to quickly set Focus as their default browser

What / Requirements

• Provide intent sheet on a specific trigger (screen tip and/or settings page)

Acceptance Criteria (how do I know when I’m done?)

• Intent sheet showing up and working
• User can set Focus as their default browser without leaving the app

Success criteria/Telemetry

• Probe to track how many times/people initiated the intent sheet and selected Focus successfully

---

Per https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/focus-android/issues/2816#issuecomment-402697895 @brampitoyo should think of a nice contextual hint to ask users to set default browser.

[brampitoyo]

[Sdaswani]

Cool @brampitoyo - when do we show this toast / tip?

[brampitoyo]

@Sdaswani I think that the menu item should show up only when Focus isn’t set a default browser, but the toast and modal dialogue should show up whenever the menu item is tapped.

[Sdaswani]

@brampitoyo this toast only shows up in the settings screen right?

[brampitoyo]

Yes.

[Sdaswani]

Looking at the data, out of 400 million foregrounds, settings has only be accessed some 2 millions times. Not very many people will ever see this tip. https://sql.telemetry.mozilla.org/dashboard/android-focus

[kfontecilla]

@brampitoyo Is there an update here as well? See Susheel's last comment. Thx

[brampitoyo]

Hi @kfontecilla

“Set default browser” can be a start screen tip that will lead to a one-tap action:

This solves the problem that Susheel outlined.

However, labelling the Settings menu item clearly (the initial idea up above) is still a good idea. It won’t hurt us to do it in parallel to the start screen tip.

[Sdaswani]

@brampitoyo for the tips that can deep link straight to an action or a settings page, is the plan to demonstrate that by underlining the deep link, as above? If so, will this be the case for iOS and Android?

[brampitoyo]

@Sdaswani Yes. My current plan is to simply underline the deep link, which would apply to both iOS and Android.

(Obviously, if the deep link leads to SUMO, we want to say something along the lines of “Learn More”).

[bbinto]

@brampitoyo is this ready for eng-breakdown?

[brampitoyo]

Yes. This issue is now ready for engineering breakdown.

Just to clarify that this issue contains 2 separate moving parts:

1. A description under the Settings menu item (the menu item title remains unchanged):

   Set as default browser
   Open every link in Firefox Focus

2. A system dialogue that appears when the user taps on the Settings menu item, or on the start screen tip.

[Sdaswani]

@sblatz does the current default browser tip show the 'Open With' system modal dialogue? Or does it just link to settings?

[Sdaswani]

Also @brampitoyo any objection getting this into 8.0 instead of 7.0?

[brampitoyo]

[…] any objection getting this into 8.0 instead of 7.0?

No objection, for a few reasons:

• Currently, the start screen tip links to the Settings menu item, and the menu item links to the System Setting to change default browser. It’s less direct, so we’ll have a lower completion rate, but it will still get the user to the right destination at the end of the day.
• 7.0 already contains a lot of new features, and we’ll need time to test and squash all the issues.

[sblatz]

@Sdaswani @brampitoyo This is the current functionality of the "make default browser" tip. I was under the impression that all we could do is push them to settings where they could change it themselves. Do other apps provide this alternative to setting default? cc @ekager

[Sdaswani]

@sblatz I like the direct jump to changing the settings for 7.0. We can test conversion of course.

[brampitoyo]

@sblatz

[…] all we could do is push them to settings where they could change it themselves.

It’s awesome that we don’t have to go to our Settings, then have our users tap to go to the system’s Settings. This will help our conversion rate.

This is the clearly better option.

[sblatz]

I believe this needs closed since the tip has the deep linking and so does the settings option. @Sdaswani to confirm?

[Sdaswani]

@sblatz I think this is trying to use the technique described here https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/focus-android/issues/2896#issuecomment-416441863, which shows you don't need to even leave the app.

[brampitoyo]

@Sdaswani is correct.

Deep-linking to the system Settings.app is better than deep-linking to a menu item inside our own Settings.

But being able to set default browser without leaving Firefox Focus is even better than deep-linking. And this is the mechanism that we want to build in this issue.

[sblatz]

After quite a bit of investigation, I've determined that this functionality is not possible exactly as described.

There are three situations when the user toggles to make us default:

• No default app is set: in this case, we can display the desired menu where users can select a browser and set "always"

• User installed a new browser since setting their default: same behavior as above

• User has a default set: this is where we run into problems. There's no way for us to get this system prompt. In this case, for example, Opera Mini asks the user to clear the default (seen below) which then takes them to, in my opinion, a much more confusing screen than the one we're presenting now. We _could_ shove the user to the "defaults" section in this case like we're doing now, though.

@brampitoyo @Sdaswani thoughts on this?

[Sdaswani]

@sblatz thanks for the investigation. I look forward to @brampitoyo's feedback - I'm ok passing on this until we see how the current default browser formulation is performing in market.

[colintheshots]

It sounds like we could do a mix of the Opera Mini solution and what we're currently doing. I should note that the Intent we're currently opening (android.settings.MANAGE_DEFAULT_APPS_SETTINGS) is API 24+ and we fallback to opening the SUMO page.

[sblatz]

Yeah, at the very least we should implement this for API <24.

[brampitoyo]

@sblatz Thanks for your thorough research!

There are at least two ways out of this problem:

1. Instead of linking to the “Default apps” page inside system Settings, we always link directly to the “Browser app” sub-page. Then at least we’ll eliminate the need to find the correct sub-page to modify browser settings. Is there a way to do this?

2. Detect the user’s browser state, then offer the correct UI.

   • If there’s no default browser set, show desired menu
   • If a default browser is already set (which is most of the time), link to the “Default apps” page inside system Settings (it’s even better if we can link to the “Browser app” sub-page)

If we can’t do either of these, it seems like our current way of doing things (link to “Default apps”) is the least confusing compromise!

What do you think?

[sblatz]

While option 1 is obviously ideal, Android's API does not allow us to do it. The best we can do is link to the general "default management" settings page.

I will move forward with implementing option 2!

[sblatz]

New behavior:

[Sdaswani]

That’s pretty cool @sblatz!

[brampitoyo]

Looks great, @sblatz! This is exactly the functionality we wanted when there’s no default browser set.

[sblatz]

@vesta0 @Sdaswani do we want any sort of new Telemetry to distinguish between the ways in which a user enabled us as the default browser? Or should this continue to use the same ping?

[Sdaswani]

I think different named events for the various ways users enable / use a feature makes sense. But just go through data review.

[Sdaswani]

@sblatz @liuche is on PTO and i'm not sure who is covering for her on data review. but i think this can go in 8.0 right so we have time?

[vesta0]

@sblatz @Sdaswani yes this will go in 8.0

[pocmo]

I noticed an issue with the implementation: The "always" option doesn't appear the first time I click on the preference. I have to select Focus and then I will have to click again and then I see the "always" option. Is this expected?

[Sdaswani]

@sblatz? https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/focus-android/issues/2896#issuecomment-425009365

[sblatz]

@pocmo that’s odd... what version of android are you running? I’ll investigate this today!

[sblatz]

I've confirmed this is an issue if the user "opens with" another browser after focus is installed and have opened a ticket for this bug: #3504.