Offline support

[zubozrout]

Hi,
Hangups are currently unusable offline and any attempt to send a message in such way ends up with an error. Usually this would not be an issue, but sometimes I can't get around such situation, especially in the underground (Prague), with mobile network signal only covering stations.

This is probably not the only issue with the app being offline. As far as I know we can't even start the app offline - a little caching could manage that - which would be great for example for accessing old messages even offline, or preparing a message to be sent later.

However, we all know Hangups is a work in progress and just begun its journey. This is just a suggestion which would severally improve the overall user experience. Also, Telegram on Ubuntu Phone is here for a long time now and can't manage this either ... messages sent offline with Telegram gets stuck and nothing can persuade them to be sent later on except copying, deleting and trying again.

Thank you

[zubozrout]

Here is the message, parsed using OCR, but I think it is better than posting the screenshot of the dialogue itself:

An error has occured: Return value
of PyObject call is NULL: Traceback
(most recent call last):

File "/opt/click.ubuntu.com/
ubuntu-hangups.timsueberkrueb/
0.1.6/backend/_init_.py", line 410,
in set_typing
call_threadsaFe(conv_controllers[
conv_id].set_typing, typing);

File "/opt/click.ubuntu.com/
ubuntu-hangups.timsueberkrueb/
0.1.6/backend/_init_.py", line 440,
in call_threadsafe
loop.call_soon_threadsafe(callbac
k, *args)

File "/usr/lib/python3.4/asyncio/
base_events.py", line 462, in
call_soon_threadsafe
handle = self._call_soon(callback,
args)

File "/usr/lib/python3.4/asyncio/
base_events.py", line 436, in
_call_soon
self._check_closed()

File "/usr/lib/python3.4/asyncio/
base_events.py", line 265, in
_check_closed
raise RuntimeError(‘Event loop is
closed')

RuntimeError: Event loop is Closed

[StuntsPT]

I think this should be filed upstream, since it is also a problem in hangups itself.

[timsueberkrueb]

@StuntsPT Hmm, I think this should be handled app-side. If this problem also exists in the command line Hangups I think you can create a feature request there.

[tdryer]

Opened a hangups issue: tdryer/hangups#164.

[timsueberkrueb]

I'll move this to v0.4. An maintenance update for the current store version is required (as e.g. image sending doesn't work any more in v0.2) and thus I'll release v0.3 soon. I'll implement this feature as soon as it's implemented upstream :)

[bittner]

I'd like to move this feature onto the top of the list of the current milestone, haha! 😃 There's no voting on GitHub for an entire ticket, so ...

@tim-sueberkrueb Do you have any preference to change priorities now that OTA-13 is out?

[timsueberkrueb]

@bittner first priority is #66 right now :)

[StuntsPT]

There is a possible workaround for this issue:
tdryer/hangups#272
At the very least this should avoid the ugly error we get when off-line.