Open .espass files

[rugk]

PassAndroid does support this type (at least when exporting), Catima does not seem to.

Proposed feature

• Open that file and allow importing it.
• Maybe also register as a share target, so it can be imported there, too.
• This also allows transfering/migrating from PassAndroid

Edit

Ah saw #48, but indeed PassAndroid shared as a .espass file, which is probably something different? I exported it just via the share feature of PassAndroid…

[TheLastProject]

I looked up esPass and noticed it's listed as "a standard under construction" with PassAndroid being the only app supporting it. Looking at the GitHub, it seems one of the PassAndroid devs is involved (and the logo is eerily similar). The website also seems to not have been updated for several years, and the last news updates were from 2017 (a lot of them being crypto-adjacent).

I've never actually seen esPass in the wild, so this seems to be an attempt at a new standard that didn't take off. Looking at the format documentation it seems to be built for Ethereum. Given Catima's focus on being an offline-first privacy-protecting app that seems like an especially poor fit. However, if you ignore the crypto part, it's just a simple .zip file with a main.json file and some images similar to PKPASS.

I'm really not interested in the crypto space, but it seems easy enough to implement it to aid in helping users migrate away from PassAndroid if they want. Although I'm wondering how useful it'll be given event tickets tend to expire, so not being able to migrate the data is not as bad for events as for loyalty cards. Aside from migration away from PassAndroid it doesn't seem to have any real use due to its low adoption.

So I'd say... maybe we should implement this in a way where tapping an .espass file or sharing it to Catima should open it up, but leave it at that to keep the UI simple?

Whatever we do, #48 needs to be finished first so that we can actually share full cards to Catima with images and everything. I'm busy with that in #2038, the size of that MR got quite huge with all the refactoring that was needed, but I'm hoping I'm at the final stretch there now. After #2038 is merged it should be possible for someone to pick this up.

[rugk]

Thanks yeah! Did not know about that background and I agree it looks suspicious.

I should clarify my use case and yes it is as you suspected: I actually want to migrate my data away from PassAndroid to here.

Although I'm wondering how useful it'll be given event tickets tend to expire, so not being able to migrate the data is not as bad for events as for loyalty cards

Well. That is the point kinda. Because before I knew this app, I have used PassAndroid for loyalty cards too and saved them there (you can create custom entries/passes/tickets with a little bit more effort than in Catima though). And I see no easer migration path than sharing them to a new app. (except of manually copying the number or so out there and recreating them, which is more cumbersome)

As acuusations rose here FYI it is imho fair to ping the two involved people in the standard @kvbik and @ligi so they can comment if they wish to say anything about that. Ratjer talk with people than about them y'know.

[papayavice]

I should clarify my use case and yes it is as you suspected: I actually want to migrate my data away from PassAndroid to here.

As a workaround, export all of them as espass, just rename them as pkpass and they should open with Catima. I tried with one of mine and it worked.

By the way, I too am looking for an alternative to PassAndroid (slow development) and even I'm glad Catima is a great app and I use it for loyalty cards, it is still a long way for plane tickets and that stuff. It doesn't tell you the time or location, it doesn't show the most important info like Google Wallet or Apple Wallet (or even PassAndroid) do...

I have been looking for an open source Wallet app for years. I always have to come back to PassAndroid. With all its perks.

[rugk]

It doesn't tell you the time or location, it doesn't show the most important info like Google Wallet or Apple Wallet (or even PassAndroid) do...

If there are not issues for the specific things you ask for, I'd say open an issue for them with references/examples to how it may be shown in other wallets or (implemented in) PassAndroid, then.

[erAck]

Saving the PassAndroid share.espass as file it can be directly imported as Passbook while creating a new card.

Renaming the file to share.pkpass it then can be tapped to open in Catima; though this does not work in all file managers, i.e. it does in Material Files but not in a stock LineageOS one where Catima was not offered (seems to be issue #2220).

All info is preserved as if the original .pkpass file was imported. The only difference in the zip seems to be an additional main.json partly duplicating info of pass.json and a 0 bytes length source.obj file in my case.

It should be possible to register Catima as share target for .espass

[erAck]

it is still a long way for plane tickets and that stuff. It doesn't tell you the time or location, it doesn't show the most important info like Google Wallet or Apple Wallet (or even PassAndroid) do

? It's all in Options Note, isn't it? And while viewing the card you can tap the circled i at bottom left to get info.

[TheLastProject]

After several comments and testing it myself I can confirm the formats are extremely similar indeed. So I've created #2289 to treat espass files as pkpass files. I don't think it's a real fix, but I do think it's enough to help in most cases and treat this as lower priority. It would be good to properly research just how similar/different the format is and see what breakage may happen when treating it as a pkpass file.