The free association Privacy Toggle thread

Design
21

The VPN situation between sailfish and AAS ca be a bit tricky (even more if we consider all the parameters like counties etc), but I would really like to work on a solution that at least connects both sfos and android spaces on a specific server.
One flip of the switch and anything I do on the phone is routed through a vpn. Switch off and back to default.

This is what intrigues me for now at least.

1 Like
22

Yes for me I often (but irregulary) have to wake up at a certain time. When going to sleep I would just flip the switch and be set without the need to open the clock app.

2 Likes
23

I second this.

A bit of preamble
We now have a few overlapping ways to put the phone in different modes:

  • Ambiances, which are a bit limited
  • the Situations app, which is a real power tool
  • the Privacy/Convenience switch, which is conveniently located and fast to flip

I quite like Ambiances, because they are easy to apply and make it so very clear which mode (set of active options) the phone is in.

Situations knows about Ambiances, and the combination is very powerful (to the point where I don’t think I fully understand how my rules interact). Situations compensates for the most obvious omissions in the Ambiances and then some.

Example: One glance tells me that I’m in silent+flightmode* , ready to watch a play at the theatre. No need to check an array of small indicators. And when I leave, one glance tells me if I forgot to go back to my connected&available mode*.

*Controlling flightmode currently has to be done from Situations

My suggestions

  1. For the simple cases, where the switch is just a convenient way to toggle a single thing, I think all the toggles we can have in the top menu should be controllable by the switch.
  2. I would like an option for the Privacy Switch to set a specific Ambiance. This implies that the previous Ambiance is remembered, so that it can be restored when turning the Privacy Switch off.
  3. I would prefer all the various toggles (WiFi, mobile network/data, location, …) to be part of the Ambiance system. That would reuse an already established part of Sailfish OS. It would also provide much better UI than an expanding-yet-insufficient list of things controlled by the Privacy Switch, because people can pick any combination of toggles and sounds to suit their specific needs.
  4. I would like an option for the switch to do nothing, except send a signal (edge triggered) that e.g. Situations can use as input. (Edit: This is apparently already the case.)

Edit to add:
Disabling Top menu toggles controlled by the Privacy switch

While the Privacy switch is enabled, phone state must guaranteed to stick with the selected settings for the switch.

In the simple case, where the switch controls a single toggle, it could work like this:

  1. Top menu toggles could be made unresponsive to touch, leaving for the user to understand that they engaged the Privacy switch.
  2. As an improvement, toggles could have an Unavailable mode. This would show an indication that they controlled by the Privacy switch and can’t be changed, in addition to the current state (on or off).
  3. The internal state of toggles must be protected from all avenues of change, except the Privacy switch. That would include other places where toggles occur, e.g. Settings, and DBus methods.

For the case where the Privacy switch selects an Ambiance, this Unavailable mode applies both to the set of toggles controlled by the ambiance and to any means of changing Ambiance, except for the Privacy switch.

TOH considerations
Given Jolla’s ideas about TOH controlling the phone’s mode of operation, there is also a problem space to research, where Privacy switch actions interfere with TOH actions. My tentative suggestion:

  1. Let TOH name/identify a suggested Ambiance for general use, and an enforced Ambiance when the Privacy switch is enabled.
  2. TOH could potentially store the definitions of these two Ambiances in its onboard memory, so that they are available only with TOH attached.
  3. This takes away some freedom to define the precise meaning of the Privacy switch. Letting the user edit the settings of the suggested and enforced Ambiance would still let people have the final say.
  4. When the general-use Ambiance is active, toggles should be changeable by the user, like when any Ambiance is selected by the user.
  5. The TOH overrides the phone’s setting for the Privacy switch; when the switch is enabled, the enforced Ambiance becomes active. While it’s active, the Ambiance and toggles are locked the same way they would without the presence of TOH.
8 Likes
24

@nephros should this be in the new TOH category instead of, or in addition to, the Design category?

25

On my XA2 is use double press of the power button to

  • disable fingerprint sensor
  • disable sshd
  • lock the phone.

To log back in you now need a long alphanumeric passphrase.

4 Likes
26

Or just turning the flashlight on and off?

2 Likes
27

Ooh, nice idea. That would make it a real privacy switch.

28

Thanks for the suggestion, but I want rotation lock enabled most of the time (to avoid movement causing unexpected rotations), but occasionally (when needed) disable the lock.

I really want something I can seamlessly access, which that doesn’t (and Android offers something similar).

29

Wow that’s useful, I didn’t know this!

Still learning new things after a couple years of Sailfish hahah. Thanks!

1 Like
30

…and in Automagic | OpenRepos.net — Community Repository System

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31

Exactly.

Makes sense too.

That’s what the entire ambiance concept actually was meant for, but so far it unfortunately never got past switching background images, colour palettes and ringtones/notification sounds. IIRC, back in old times there was also the idea of additionally launching and quitting specific sets of apps when the ambience is switched (think of work and leisure ambiances for example).

Why not have both? An edge-triggered signal when the switch is toggled and some variable containing its current state.

1 Like
32

Great suggestion.

I think a lot of the ideas here are in the ‘fun to try out’ area, but long-term I really just want to slide the switch to go from whatever setup I have to a ‘silent running’ one, no notifications/vibrations etc.

Although the idea that it jumps into an entirely different setup (like going from ttyl1 to 2) is really cool. Have ambience 1 on, X apps open etc, and then slide the switch and the phone toggles to a new instance (ambience 2, another suite of apps open) and back again.

That’s basically what I have on my laptop, Fn-ctrl-Alt 1/2/3… switching between Niri/Sway etc. Sounds complicated though.

3 Likes
33

Upboating “flashlight switch” and “toggle for specific ambience”. I’ll go as far as to say that most of the currently-available toggles feel like they could have been integrated into ambiences, even.

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34

I didn’t know that. Controlling toggles from an ambiance is more important to me, but picking apps to run also sounds useful. (Starting to look like a roadmap :wink: )

Makes total sense to me.

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35

Flashlight is the only toggle I can think of, that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense in an ambiance - but it would be perfect for the Privacy (Convenience) switch.

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36

Would love to have it toggle hotspot!

3 Likes
37

Well it doesn’t really deal with ToH, so no?

38

See the edit of the OP.
Both are already there in the form of a DBus API.

1 Like
39

Eh, you’re right of course :slight_smile: I have no idea where I got that from.

40

As there is a DBus interface for querying the switch state, this should already be possible today.

Therefore, I guess, AutoMagic being as powerful (if complicated) as it is, many of the things proposed in this thread can be tried using that.

4 Likes