Clickable – “template” is no longer a valid configuration option

Recently, while playing around with a new to me used phone, I tested out UBports Ubuntu Touch again. I was pleasantly surprised to see that it worked really well on this particular phone, but I noticed a stark lack of any SIP related apps. Long story short, Linphone was the only SIP app I could find online ( https://gitlab.com/ubports-linphone/linphone-simple ), but the files were from several years ago, and trying to build it gave me an error:

$ clickable desktop
"template" is no longer a valid configuration option

I scoured the internet, but my search-fu is apparently weak, because I couldn’t find any reference anywhere as to what this means or what to do about it. There are several files in this particular apps directory that contain the word “template” in quotes, and I couldn’t figure out which one (or if all) needed to be changed.

Finally, I figured it out by reviewing other, published, active apps on the OpenStore. I started reviewing random apps, and then realized I should review apps that also use cmake. This lead me to ExPhone ( https://github.com/jmlich/exphone/blob/master/clickable.yaml ) where I found this code:

clickable_minimum_required: 8.0.0
framework: ubuntu-sdk-20.04
builder: cmake
build_args:
- -DFLAVOR=uuitk
kill: exphone
prebuild: git submodule update --init
ignore_review_errors: true
dependencies_target:
- libtelepathy-qt5-dev

While the Linphone app did not have a clickable.yaml file, it did have a clickable.json file, which I found in the Clickable documentation is the same thing, just different formats ( https://clickable-ut.dev/en/latest/usage.html#configuration ). So, based on all that, I decided to try changing the clickable.json from “template” to “builder”, and that appeared to work!

Then, I realized that someone else had forked the original Linphone Simple app, and I could see all the changes they used to update an app with that error. You can read their changes here ( https://gitlab.com/rubencarneiro/linphone-simple/-/commits/master?ref_type=HEADS ) if you want all the details.

Hopefully this little blog post will save someone else a few hours of pounding their head against the wall.

Linux – keep it simple.