Whata about teams 2.0 and beyond

[je-vv]

Hello !

This is more sort of a question rather than a query for action or something. Its purpose is to understand what will be the teams-for-linux status now that teams 2.0 is out. Teams 2.0 is not electron based, and although they stopped supporting the electron Team for gnu+linux some time ago, the windows/mac desktop app was still electron.

The thing is that teams 2.0 is now based on webView 2.0 instead of electron, and react instead of angular. The big part of it is not developing for electron:

• Teams 2.0 Moves Away from Electron to Embrace Edge WebView2
• Stop saying Microsoft Teams is being rewritten from Electron to React
• Electron to WebView2 – What does it really mean for the Teams desktop client, and for a Client SDK?

Now, there's hope to eventually, with really low priority webview2 gets support for gnu+linux, and there's a linux support issue about it. Mac already gained support, and actually the windows report at the beginning shows that the recently release teams 2.0 includes Mac clients, and there's also a mac support issue on which it's mentioned the support for Mac is there. All this just to say, as usual for MS stuff, gnu+linux is not part of their priorities.

Coming back to teams-for-linux, as it's based on electron, what's the status and plan? Will teams-for-linux support only pre 2.0 teams technology, components and/or webapp? I guess at some point being based on old versions on teams stuff might become difficult, given compatibility issues and the like, but can't really tell.

So just wondering what'll happen with teams-for-linux. Not sure if we'll be able to use web browser (we should), but so far, at least for me, on Firefox, Librewolf and ungoogled chromium, there's no way to connect to meetings, whether something just fails (Firefox/Librewolf), or I get into an infinite loop without connecting (ungoogled chromium). So I really enjoy teams-for-linux being available...

Greetings !

[LinAGKar]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but this app basically wraps the web version. So as long as the web version keeps working in Chrome, it should keep working in this app.

[jijojosephk]

Like @LinAGKar said, it would work as long as the web version stays in angular. But as soon as they release the react version to web, this would possibly break. We all anticipate the problem. So keeping our fingers crossed. Be a part of this chat group in matrix https://matrix.to/#/#teams-for-linux_community:gitter.im as soon as you find issues, kindly report. We'll try to make it up and running.

[LinAGKar]

I have actually gotten the "new Teams" toggle (which I assume switches to the React version) in this app since yesterday, and I haven't noticed any issues so far. But I'll be on the lookout.

[je-vv]

Well, if you look at the teams 2.0 changes, they are doing both:

• Moving from electron to webview2
• Moving from angular to react

And I guess the web version will still work, but I can't really tell. All those changes on teams 2.0 for sure affect the web app, not just the desktop app, but I wasn't able to foresee if that would affect 3rd party electron based apps. Perhaps not.

If you feel like the question doesn't make sense, and eventually a new issue can be filed if something goes wrong, please feel free to close this issue.

Thanks !

[Thaodan]

I've looked into the situation regarding WebView2 vs Electron. I wonder how can teams 2.0 replace this app really? Teams isn't foss, you can't just package and drop it into your favorite distro.
Even if you ignore that factor usually with Electron apps you can use your own Electron with some effort, you can't do that with WebView2 it's closed source..

[jorgeperezlara]

I'm sorry, but WebView2 is basically Edgium instead of Chromium. I don't understand how or why would a move between frameworks and rendering engines make it any less possible to have Teams 2.0 on Linux. You just repackage it again, and given WebView2 is Chromium, unless there's some extensions for which we require workarounds, it should work. In the end, there's Edge on Linux as well...

[cs96and]

Like @LinAGKar said, it would work as long as the web version stays in angular. But as soon as they release the react version to web, this would possibly break.

Why would it break? If it can run in a browser then it can run in Electron can't it?

[jijojosephk]

I'm not saying it won't function. Of course it will, but we had written some code that uses angular modules. Ex: Notification count. Like small things that used to work might stop all of a sudden.

[cs96and]

I'm not saying it won't function. Of course it will, but we had written some code that uses angular modules. Ex: Notification count. Like small things that used to work might stop all of a sudden.

Ah OK. Thanks for the explanation.

[Thaodan]

Jorge Pérez Lara ***@***.***> writes:

I'm sorry, but WebView2 is basically Edgium instead of Chromium. I don't understand how or why would a move between frameworks and rendering engines make it any less possible to have Teams 2.0 on Linux. You just repackage it again, and given WebView2 is Chromium, unless there's some extensions for which we require workarounds, it should work. In the end, there's Edge on Linux as well...

WebView2 is closed source you don't know what extension are there, besides WebView2 doesn't work like the Java Runtime in the way Electron does as the app can use WebView2 in a way that first calls C++ code and then JavaScript and not just pure JavaScript that can have native NodeJS modules.

[jorgeperezlara]

Jorge Pérez Lara @.***> writes:
I'm sorry, but WebView2 is basically Edgium instead of Chromium. I don't understand how or why would a move between frameworks and rendering engines make it any less possible to have Teams 2.0 on Linux. You just repackage it again, and given WebView2 is Chromium, unless there's some extensions for which we require workarounds, it should work. In the end, there's Edge on Linux as well...
WebView2 is closed source you don't know what extension are there, besides WebView2 doesn't work like the Java Runtime in the way Electron does as the app can use WebView2 in a way that first calls C++ code and then JavaScript and not just pure JavaScript that can have native NodeJS modules.

I agree we don't know what's exactly in WebView2, but I honestly would be very surprised if there's any kind of native code running in there apart from a pure Electron in-house alternative that could easily be replaced. I don't even think they're using any kind of especial, native code for calls at all...

I might be wrong, though.

[jijojosephk]

https://www.electronjs.org/blog/webview2

[IsmaelMartinez]

To be honest, the move from angular to react is the only main issue we got, and as @jijojosephk points out, is not a huge amount of logic we got on that are. I don't expect big issues happening from the electron to webview2 move, as we wrap around the browser version. If they remove the web version then we are screwed, but I doubt that will happen any time soon (if ever)

[cs96and]

It wouldn't surprise me if they make the web version Edge only at some point in the future.

[jorgeperezlara]

That'd be solved with some kind of user-agent faking...

@IsmaelMartinez gracias por tu trabajo, Ismael! If I can be of any help repackaging Teams 2.0, I'm not super proficient, but we can get in touch and I will do my best.

[IsmaelMartinez]

The fixes are starting to arrive. If anyone is experiencing an "away" state issue, can you test the pre-release https://github.com/IsmaelMartinez/teams-for-linux/releases/tag/v1.4.16 ?

[IsmaelMartinez]

Looks like the theme preferences stuff in under:

document.getElementById('app')._reactRootContainer._internalRoot?.current?.updateQueue?.baseState?.element?.props.coreServices.clientPreferences.clientPreferences

That should fix the "theme" and I suspect some of the "settings" (if not all) will be around that area.

For the badge count we could go back to the old hack (getting the count from the title :)) as that should work again.. but wasn't that great at refreshing.

document.getElementsByClassName('fui-CounterBadge')[0].innerHTML

It would be ideal if we can subscribe to all events MS emits and see what we want/like. It could allow us to hook in scripts around to extend/modify the some of the system and make it more bespoke.

Worth also exploring if we can use the

document.getElementById('app')._reactRootContainer._internalRoot?.current?.updateQueue?.baseState?.element?.props.coreServices.client.createApolloClient

As that might just be an apolo client for https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/graph/rest-api and maybe we can just hook into the events via it and/or using this > https://github.com/microsoftgraph/nodejs-webhooks-sample/tree/main/

I had a wee look at "what can be affected" and there are a few areas:

* [activityHub.js](https://github.com/IsmaelMartinez/teams-for-linux/blob/develop/app/browser/tools/activityHub.js) will not work once angular is gone. That does, quite a lot including incoming calls status, activities count updated, meeting started, change of status, setting the title, pretending we are running on windows, calendar events... and really a lot of thing I didn't know we where doing. So this will take some time and require some HELP!! But we will get there.

* [customBackgrounds.js](https://github.com/IsmaelMartinez/teams-for-linux/blob/develop/app/browser/tools/customBackgrounds.js): custom background functionality ain't gonna work until we move away from angular

* [instance.js](https://github.com/IsmaelMartinez/teams-for-linux/blob/develop/app/browser/tools/instance.js) will not work. We probably can refactor it out.

* [settings.js](https://github.com/IsmaelMartinez/teams-for-linux/blob/develop/app/browser/tools/settings.js) is also broken.

* [theme.js](https://github.com/IsmaelMartinez/teams-for-linux/blob/develop/app/browser/tools/theme.js) is also kaput. so the follow dark of light theme will need a tweak. (this might be a small job)

The positives:

* [chromeApi.js](https://github.com/IsmaelMartinez/teams-for-linux/blob/develop/app/browser/tools/chromeApi.js) the video calls should work as well as the [disableAutogain.js](https://github.com/IsmaelMartinez/teams-for-linux/blob/develop/app/browser/tools/disableAutogain.js)

* [shortcuts.js](https://github.com/IsmaelMartinez/teams-for-linux/blob/develop/app/browser/tools/shortcuts.js) should also still working.

* [trayIconChooser.js](https://github.com/IsmaelMartinez/teams-for-linux/blob/develop/app/browser/tools/trayIconChooser.js) and [trayIconRenderer.js](https://github.com/IsmaelMartinez/teams-for-linux/blob/develop/app/browser/tools/trayIconRenderer.js) should still work.

* [wakeLock](https://github.com/IsmaelMartinez/teams-for-linux/blob/develop/app/browser/tools/wakeLock.js) and [zoom.js](https://github.com/IsmaelMartinez/teams-for-linux/blob/develop/app/browser/tools/zoom.js) functionalities should still be working.

So quite a bit of work but I think the essential and some extras should be working. I will see first if having that effectively dead code might be creating problems with memory and see if we can, at least, start by fixing that part.

[IsmaelMartinez]

The theme and settings options should be now fixed in https://github.com/IsmaelMartinez/teams-for-linux/releases/tag/v1.4.18 pre-release . If people can test it that would be lovely.

[IsmaelMartinez]

pre-release in https://github.com/IsmaelMartinez/teams-for-linux/releases/tag/v1.4.19 that should hopefully fix the tray icon number. You will need to use the --useMutationTitleLogic config option. Some parts of the activityHub are going to be really difficult to fix and/or might need a longer invistigation, as we don't have access to the events ms emits, but there is an apolo client what means we might be able to trigger/query the ms graphql api... maybe.

[IsmaelMartinez]

#1226 is fixing the customBackground part, so if anyone can test it in that branch then we can release.

#1243 is fixing the idle tracking that looks like MS have changed internally. This has been released under https://github.com/IsmaelMartinez/teams-for-linux/releases/tag/v1.4.35

[RolandRosenfeld]

Just gave #1226 a try and it looks good to me.

[IsmaelMartinez]

Released under https://github.com/IsmaelMartinez/teams-for-linux/releases/tag/v1.4.36 (do check the docs as there are a few changes and is now disabled by default). Thanks for checking @RolandRosenfeld !

The "only" parts missing are in the activityHub (as far as I am aware)

activityHub.js will not work once angular is gone. That does, quite a lot including incoming calls status, activities count updated, meeting started(?), change of status, setting the title, pretending we are running on windows(?), calendar events(?)... and really a lot of thing I didn't know we where doing. So this will take some time and require some HELP!! But we will get there.

[jkrysakowski]

@IsmaelMartinez

I see that I can access the new version of Teams by entering this address: https://teams.cloud.microsoft/
Is it possible to switch teams-for-linux to wrap this version?

[IsmaelMartinez]

that doesn't seem to be the right URL. While it loads the teams interface that URL is designed for apps, not people login in, and it will be live in June (not just now). Please just use https://teams.microsoft.com/v2 instead.

[IsmaelMartinez]

You can use the config option (URL) either as a command line option or ina config file. Check the config section (there is a readme)

[jkrysakowski]

Thanks, it works, but I see some first problems, for example Join button in the calendar does not work.

Error in the console:

Unhandled error/rejection {"isTrusted":true}
(index):3

[IsmaelMartinez]

Can you open another issue with as much detail as possible? It is nearly impossible to track multiple issues in one issue. I will probably close this issue and we can start tackling them individually. Ta

…

On Fri, 29 Mar 2024, 12:17 Jakub Krysakowski, ***@***.***> wrote: Thanks, it works, but I see some first problems, for example Join button in the calendar does not work. Error in the console: Unhandled error/rejection {"isTrusted":true} (index):3 — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#1006 (comment)>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AADJHEEFNPEVCEHW7ABN2HLY2VEVTAVCNFSM6AAAAAA6Z6HSJCVHI2DSMVQWIX3LMV43OSLTON2WKQ3PNVWWK3TUHMZDAMRXGE3TCNJVGI> . You are receiving this because you were mentioned.Message ID: ***@***.***>

[jkrysakowski]

#1162

[IsmaelMartinez]

I am going to convert this into a discussion

[je-vv]

Hello, @IsmaelMartinez thanks a lot for your recent pre-release v1.4.17. I'll have to test it Tomorrow. Got news from the office that Today Classic Teams was, or is to be removed. And from Today on, only the new Teams will be available (the message was meant for windows users, so it says that Teams Classic was to be uninstalled, and new Teams is installed instead). So it seems I'll have no other option than moving to Teams 2.

I don't have anything to test any ways, so it'll be Tomorrow, hopefully the experience won't be as traumatic, :).

@IsmaelMartinez, perhaps you can keep posting about both pre-releases and releases in here, so we can keep up to date with those, if they little by little improve the V2 experience. I was trying to avoid moving to V2, even though I posted this as an issue back in Nov. 1st last year, since I wanted to experience the least disruption possible. But it seems it's unavoidable moving forward, at least for me. So again, please keep informed here about something improving such experience, even though not an official release, that'd be great. Also, when a "final" release is achieved, when all V2 changes and objectives are achieved, and from that point on regular updates are expected, that would be awesome to know as well.

Many thanks for the great work and support.

[IsmaelMartinez]

I will try to keep this discussion up to date, but there is plenty of things to do. I would appreciate any help as lately I have just been able to reply to issues and messages and link issues with already closed issues.

[Cybso]

@IsmaelMartinez Can you write a short text on how teams-for-linux works and (possibly with a small example) how to debug the JS code in a meaningful way to process the open tickets?

[IsmaelMartinez]

Adding it as a note in the bug report #1176

[Zahrun]

In case anyone missed it, from version 1.4.17, the PR #1160 adds the "optInTeamsV2" configuration option.
So you can use it at commandline with teams-for-linux --optInTeamsV2 true
or add

{
    "optInTeamsV2": true
}

in ~/.config/teams-for-linux/config.json. For Snap installations, the file is located in ~/snap/teams-for-linux/current/.config/teams-for-linux/config.json and for Flatpak it is located in ~/.var/app/com.github.IsmaelMartinez.teams_for_linux/config/teams-for-linux/config.json.

See https://github.com/IsmaelMartinez/teams-for-linux/blob/develop/app/config/README.md

[Vagrantin]

Was wondering how things are doing for everyone on my side this morning I had no choice but to switch to what I believe is Team 2.0.
Got a big switch button and then switch to the new UI ( New Teams ).

Here is the version I have :

And this is the Teams-for-linux client version.

[Vagrantin]

Update

After rebooting Teams was stuck at start up.
So I quit it and cleared the local storage, then got back to the same screenshot to switch again.

• Next step update my Teams-for-linux client.

[Vagrantin]

So I have now updated teams-for-linux

Added the config in the json file

And at startup I'm having this message now.

Clicked the continue button and got back here.

Clicked switch now and got this

Clicked restart and I'm back in teams.

Let see how it handle a reboot.

[jijojosephk]

Try not using optInTeamsV2. Remove the property from config.json.

[IsmaelMartinez]

if your company has moved to teams-v2 it might be worth changing the url config option to be the https://teams.microsoft.com/v2 otherwise it will be switching back and forwards every time you close and open the app.

[elhennig]

Could it be that the incomingCallCommand option is not working correctly with V2?

[IsmaelMartinez]

it is highly possible as part of it relies on the activityHub as described in #1163 (comment)

[elhennig]

Is that true for 1.4.18, too?

[IsmaelMartinez]

I am afraid this is still the case, but the list is getting shorter. See #1163 (reply in thread)

[mozo78]

How can I install the latest version on Arch? Why there's no appimage for x86_x84 and is the compiling the only option?

[jijojosephk]

Arch has pre-built binaries it's maintained by @frealgagu

[mozo78]

Arch has pre-built binaries it's maintained by @frealgagu

Thanks, but I'm already using it but it's out of date:
1.3.12-1

[jijojosephk]

You must mark it as out-of-date in the repo.

[mozo78]

I really don't know how. I googled it but I don't found anything useful.

[IT-ess]

https://aur.archlinux.org/pkgbase/teams-for-linux/flag

[je-vv]

The teams-for-linux AUR package is pretty easy to tweak, one just needs to change the version, and also the sha256 checksum...

As of now:

% diff -Naur laur/teams-for-linux/PKGBUILD others/teams-for-linux/PKGBUILD
--- laur/teams-for-linux/PKGBUILD       2024-03-13 13:50:06.657251893 -0600
+++ others/teams-for-linux/PKGBUILD     2024-04-04 18:44:43.967719696 -0600
@@ -3,7 +3,7 @@
 # Contributor: Ivelin Velkov <ivelin dot velkov at gmail dot com>

 pkgname=teams-for-linux
-pkgver=1.4.14
+pkgver=1.4.18
 pkgrel=1
 pkgdesc="Unofficial Microsoft Teams client for Linux using Electron."
 arch=("aarch64" "armv7h" "i686" "x86_64")
@@ -15,7 +15,7 @@
   "${pkgname}-${pkgver}.tar.gz::https://github.com/IsmaelMartinez/${pkgname}/archive/v${pkgver}.tar.gz"
   "${pkgname}.desktop"
 )
-sha256sums=('2aacf5ab28da580a66d517fda93f52c8d59812ac3e45fe9623001bb2578e8e8a'
+sha256sums=('bcf4812c82d254287a1df6e451ab07b2716b67486d00db2172f6d9ef584cd47e'
             '4aa7c4aa178ba4e0f97f9ff4a514764a03b332978495d5e7f2dc1ce3f74db615')

 build() {

To me this is the easiest way to keep up with pre-releases, particularly if I don't wan to deal with the right git SHA checksums and the like, and pretty much prefer tarball releases any ways. I'm really glad we're getting pre-releases in the tarballs way...

[dserv-nh]

You can just change the version in the PKGBUILD then run updpkgsums from pacman-contrib and the makepkg that's how I do it

[crankycyclops]

I tried the debug fix (Entering document.location.href = 'https://teams.microsoft.com/v2/' in the debugger), but that doesn't seem to work anymore. It just redirects me back to Classic and says that the browser doesn't meet the minimum requirements.