Add invite-link to xstore bot to the menu or contact list

[adbenitez]

users struggle to get in contact with the xstore bot (the webxdc store bot) most users don't even know this bot exist, most of the ones that realize it exist, try to add the address manually and it fails for chatmail servers, so they end up downloading apps manually from the webxdc.org page

we could add the bot's invite link to the delta chat main menu like on DeltaLab or alternatively the bot's contact could be included by core similar to how it is done for the Statistics bot (in this case when user creates chat with the bot they still need to send a message to get the webxdc app)

[iequidoo]

Maybe just add the bot's https://i.delta.chat invite link to https://webxdc.org/apps/? Or even to https://webxdc.org/? I'd expect to have it somewhere there.

[adbenitez]

having a "open in Delta Chat" button there makes sense, but most people don't even know such site exist so it still makes sense to have a way to discover inside the app

[r10s]

having sth like that seems to be needed as as simply adding [email protected] does no longer work because of deltachat/deltachat-android#3166 - therefore, adding this PR also became part of https://github.com/orgs/deltachat/projects/71

[adbenitez]

so after some discussion we decided to add the xstore bot as a predefined contact similar to the self-reporting bot

bot flag should be set for the added bot contact

[iequidoo]

Btw, won't this be considered by app stores as "embedding" external apps into Delta Chat? Afair, some app stores forbid this. I hope i mistake here though

[hpk42]

On Mon, Aug 05, 2024 at 14:54 -0700, iequidoo wrote: Btw, won't this be considered by app stores as "embedding" external apps into Delta Chat? Afair, some app stores forbid this. I hope i mistake here though

The main problem was/is iOS probably but it seems that Telegram, for example, has no problems offering "mini-apps" (web apps + bot -- not the same as webxdc) these days. So let's not worry too much.

[link2xt]

So at #6096 there is an attempt to just add contact to the contact list. But the contact is simply named "xstore" and is not discoverable, you need to also know that you have to write to it first.

Embedding invite link into the UI without core changes could work, this will also trigger the app sending the store.xdc back.

Another idea was to add an API to import vCard as verified, so user immediately gets verified contact and vCard is embedded into the UI side rather than the core.

[adbenitez]

see my comment at #6096 (comment)

But anyway, the original issue is about adding "invite link" because it should result into sending the message back immediately when you scan the QR code. Having a contact "xstore" in the contact list without any explanation that has empty chat does not help, users will likely not write to such bot first.

I think it still helps to have the contact added (with avatar and all) what about this solution that would not require any UI changes:
when the user clicks in the contact in the contact list, and the UI calls createChat() for this contact because there is no chat yet, core then will cause a secure join link scan for this contact and create the chat that way instead the normal chat creation

[adbenitez]

btw, in case the bot's key changed even if secure-join fails, it is still useful if the bot could get the "secure join event failed" event and anyways reply with the introduction to the user, otherwise the bot will silently ignore the secure-join and never reply back to the user automatically, and in this case the secure join is used as "start bot" command similar to the Telegram bots

[iequidoo]

btw, in case the bot's key changed even if secure-join fails, it is still useful if the bot could get the "secure join event failed" event and anyways reply with the introduction to the user

And this introduction will be smth like "Please go to https://webxdc.org/apps/ and scan my QR code there" (why isn't it there btw?), otherwise the user won't trust the bot. Then probably better to add this URL to Device Messages as a fallback and tell the user to look there if SecureJoin fails.