Auto-connection request: learningml-desktop

juandalibaba · May 5, 2022, 11:07am

Hello, I’m developed an on-line educational platform intended to teach and learn Machine Learning fundamentals (https://learningml.org). Recently, I have ported the web app to a desktop app thanks to electron.js. I have build a snap package and uploaded to snapd repository (https://snapcraft.io/learningml-desktop).

The application is able to build Machine Learning models for image recognition and can get the training images from camera. On the other hand, it’s an application focused for children and newbie people which haven’t enough knowledge to enable the camera interface with snap command. So, I request an auto-connection of this application learningml-desktop with the camera plug.

Thanks in advance

alexmurray · May 6, 2022, 3:20am

Given you mention this is aimed at children I am a bit wary to grant auto-connect of the camera interface, given possible privacy concerns. Also the description of the snap doesn’t mention anything about the use of say a webcam or similar and so I suspect users may be surprised to find the snap auto-connected to the camera interface if this was granted as things currently stand.

As such I think if the description was updated to explicitly mention this use-case then perhaps it would more expected - ie. something like LearningML Desktop uses your computer's webcam to train and classify images or similar.

However I still think given the use-case of children I would be wary to vote for auto-connection - instead I think it may be better to try and have the application detect whether it is connected at startup (snapctl is-connected camera) and if not then prompt the user to connect the camera interface if they wish to use the webcam - or even better, do this prompting in a more context sensitive way by only doing this check and then asking when the webcam is about to be used.

juandalibaba · May 6, 2022, 5:25am

Thanks for you analysis @alexmurray, I understand your point of view. I will try to implement your solution. Anyway, if you know some documentation explaining how to do these snap checks from the application code, I would be very grateful.

Cheers

ogra · May 6, 2022, 8:52am

if you can not implement it in the application itself you can create a command-chain wrapper and use something like “yad” to show a popup message, here is an example:

github.com

ogra1/vlc-pi-snap/blob/master/scripts/checks.sh

#! /bin/sh

[ -e "$SNAP_USER_DATA/.check-complete" ] && exec "$@"

if ! id -Gn | grep -q video; then
  yad --text "<b>Error, can not open video playback device \!</b>\n\nThe user $LOGNAME is not in the "video" group.\nPlease execute:\n\n    <b>sudo usermod -a -G video $LOGNAME</b>\n\nIn a Terminal, afterwards log out and back in again." \
    --borders=5 --center --on-top --undecorated \
    --skip-taskbar && exit 0
fi

if ! snapctl is-connected hardware-observe; then
  yad --text "<b>Error, can not get status of video playback device \!</b>\n\nPlease connect the hardware-observe snap interface\nwith the command:\n\n    <b>sudo snap connect vlc-pi:hardware-observe</b>\n\nOr through the Permissions UI in the snap-store application" \
    --borders=5 --center --on-top --undecorated \
    --skip-taskbar && exit 0
fi

if [ ! -d "$SNAP_USER_COMMON/.local/lib/locale/$LANG" ]; then
  yad --text "\nGenerating VLC translations for:\n\n\t$LANG" \
    --borders=10 --no-buttons --center --on-top \
    --undecorated --skip-taskbar --timeout=10 \

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juandalibaba · May 13, 2022, 3:51pm

Thanks @ogra, I will consider this solution if I’m not able to control from the application.

alexmurray · May 30, 2022, 5:58am

@juandalibaba can you please update this thread on your progress? Thanks.

juandalibaba · May 30, 2022, 6:38am

Hello @alexmurray, I’m currently working on it. This is a project I develop in my spare time so I don’t have enough resources to fix problems quickly. Must I close this thread? I don’t know when I could deal with this work again.

Thanks very much

alexmurray · May 31, 2022, 1:44am

@juandalibaba no problem - I just wanted to make sure you weren’t blocked on anything from our side - please let me know if you need any further assistance.

alexmurray · June 16, 2022, 4:35am

FYI I am removing this request from our internal queue for now but please let us know if you still think auto-connect of camera is required and we can revisit it. Thanks.