Hide Changelog Popup

[histefanhere]

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.

Upon opening the app after an update (which in most cases is automatic), the changelog of the update appears. This was an acceptable(ish) way of informing users of changes when the issue was brought up 3 years ago (#1162) and when the feature was introduced a year ago (#2195). Immediately after, a suggestion was made to make this behavior togglable (#2280), but it was denied. Since then, the target audience of Home Assistant has broadened and now covers the more general user - examples of this include the releases of HA Yellow and HA Green which are advertised as "plug and play" solutions with "seamless" mobile apps. Now, burdening all mobile users with the technical details of updates through their changelogs isn't acceptable, and there should be an option to disable this behavior.

The concern of making the application more accessible for friends and family members, especially those who are older with technical illiteracy and weak English (because it is by far not the only language in the world), still persists and is more important now than ever in the history of HA. The only chance my 80-year-old Grandma, whom I have to read out and explain emails for, has of using the app comes from its friendly, house-looking logo. Hell, I'm sure the great majority of people who aren't familiar with software development have never even heard of a "changelog" before because it's so irregular to be forced to see it. Google Home, for example, doesn't notify users of updates, especially complex technical ones. Even Home Assistant itself doesn't notify all users of the platform that there has been an update to it, and its breaking changes are arguably much more important than the apps.

The changelog should definitely not be hidden from sight for all users - I understand the arguments for why the changelog should appear as, I quote, "changes to the app impact every user and not just the admin" - but they do not necessarily concern all users. If anything happens to the companion app to my Grandma or any family member of mine, I am informed anyway in the same way that an issue with HA itself like cameras being down or sensors being unavailable get relayed back to me by confused relatives, regardless of if they were prompet with a changelog or not. I am a strong advocate for the transparency of applications, and I enjoy reading the changelogs for new features that I have been waiting on. However, not every user is in this boat and there is no reason why this cannot be accommodated for on a case-by-case basis.

Describe the solution you'd like

An opt-out toggle switch in the companion app settings that hides the changelog popup when the app is first turned on after an update. Consider warning the user that breaking changes may be introduced that produce unintended behavior in the app, and ask if the user is sure they want to hide the dialog from appearing following updates.

Describe alternatives you've considered, if any

1. Making the changelog dialog opt-in instead of the proposed opt-out would result in no one reading the changelog and more complaining on this repository that the application is broken, which the changelog was meant to prevent. An opt-out solution means most still see the changelog, but it's hidden from sight where it matters that it be so.
2. Instead of a large popup that covers most of the screen and blocks the behavior of the app until it's dismissed, how about a small toast message/popup from the top of the screen over the dashboard that says the app has been updated and that disappears after a set amount of time. Maybe a button to expand the full changelog or a link to the GitHub release notes?

Additional context

[barrelltitor]

I have older devices which work fine once they are loaded. It seems the pop up disables the loading of the dashboard, so the mounted devices are incredibly slow to load.

Family members just end up using the physical switch or their phones when this happens, causing quite a bit of frustration when these updates appear.

I don't believe the solution is replacing the tech as this is only an issue when the pop up appears.

It makes sense to show it on a phone, it's a personal device, but a mounted one does not "belong" to a user, so it doesn't make sense to display it there.

Moreover, there's not even a way to check the changelog after you close the pop up.

As I open HA when I need it, I almost always immediately close it without reading the changelog.

A home assistant notification would make much more sense rather than a pop up

[dshokouhi]

Moreover, there's not even a way to check the changelog after you close the pop up.

settings > companion app > show change log

[segfaultex]

With the amount of updates recently it feels like there is a change log every time I open the app.
I really don't care about changes unless they are breaking changes.
It's not like the web interface gives you a full screen change log every time you update the main HA instance.
This really needs a toggle option.

I fully agree with both alternatives above.

[dshokouhi]

With the amount of updates recently it feels like there is a change log every time I open the app.

Unless you are on the beta we had 2 updates in the past month. April release and a week later a hotfix for older devices. Last release before then was January. If you are on the beta its expected to see the prompt once a week.

It's not like the web interface gives you a full screen change log every time you update the main HA instance.

that is correct however one consideration we have that HA core does not is that the default Play Store update option is to auto update the app. We have had plenty of cases where users got bit by a breaking change because the app auto updated overnight. That is not something HA core would ever hit however apps need to consider that. We do try to avoid that as much as possible since we havent had a breaking change update in some time but the reality is that we can have them and most users will still have auto update left on by default.

We have not closed this request so if anyone wants to take this on feel free to submit a PR