We want to replace gjs' custom (and now legacy) imports system
with standard EcmaScript modules: JS developers are already
familiar with them, they have better tooling support and using
standard features over non-standard ones is generally the right
thing to do.
Our D-Bus services are separate from the main process, and thus
can be ported separately (except for the few imports that are
shared with the main process' code base).
Part-of: <https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-shell/-/merge_requests/2786>
If one of these libraries breaks its GIR API in future, then upgrading
packages unrelated to gnome-shell might pull in the newer version,
causing gnome-shell to crash when it gets a newer GIR API that is
incompatible with its expectations. For example, this seems to be
happening in Debian testing at the moment, when GNOME Shell 41.4
imports GWeather and can get version 4.0 instead of the version 3.0 that
it expected.
Adding explicit API versions at the time the newer version is released
is too late, because that will still let the newer version of the GIR API
break pre-existing GNOME Shell packages. Prevent similar crashes in
future by making the desired versions explicit.
This is done for all third-party libraries except GLib, similar to the
common practice in Python code; if GLib breaks API, then that will be
a disruptive change to the whole GLib/GObject ecosystem, regardless.
Gvc, Meta, Shell, Shew, St are not included because they're private
(only exist in a non-default search path entry).
Clutter and Cogl *are* included, because we need to import the fork of
them that comes with Meta, as opposed to their deprecated standalone
versions.
Signed-off-by: Simon McVittie <smcv@debian.org>
Bug-Debian: https://bugs.debian.org/1008926
Part-of: <https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-shell/-/merge_requests/2261>
Adapt the new GNOME platform API for the upcoming 42. This makes
sure that we get the latest version of the stylesheet, as well as
support for the new dark mode.
Using the dedicated preference API also gives extensions with more
complex preferences an easier and standardized way for implementing
multi-page preferences.
Part-of: <https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-shell/-/merge_requests/2012>
Like the main gnome-shell process, the extensions service loads code from
extensions. It therefore makes sense to prevent GType name clashes there
as well, just like we already to in the gnome-shell process.
This may break some extensions that use the old type name in .ui files,
but they can be fixed easily by specifying an explicit GTypeName.
Part-of: <https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-shell/-/merge_requests/2024>
With the previous preparations in place, it is time to take the plunge.
As both the app and the portal use the same small library for handling
external windows, port everything at once to avoid the hassle of building
and installing two versions of the library.
With the portal using GTK4 now, all extensions must port their preference
widgets as well.
Part-of: <https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-shell/-/merge_requests/1495>
As outlined earlier, in order to turn the Extensions app into a properly
sandboxed application, we need to split out the extension prefs dialog
and move it elsewhere.
With "elsewhere" being the new Extensions D-Bus service, effectively
turning it into a shell extensions portal.
https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-shell/-/merge_requests/1106
Similar to the previously added org.freedesktop.Notifications proxy,
this exposes the org.gnome.Shell.Extensions API and forwards any
request to the real implementation in gnome-shell.
The motivation differs though: We want to be able to package the
extension app as flatpak and distribute it separately, but the
extension prefs dialog is hard to impossible to sandbox:
- filenames need translating between host and sandbox, and we
can only do that in some cases (serializing/deserializing
extensions), but not others (extension settings that refer
to files)
- system extensions install their GSettings schemas in the system
path; the best we can do there is assume a host prefix of /usr
and set GSETTINGS_SCHEMA_DIR in the flatpak (eeks)
- extensions may rely on additional typelibs that are present on
the host (for example because gnome-shell itself depends on
them), but not inside the sandbox - unless we bundle all of
gnome-shell's dependencies
- if gjs/mozjs differ between host and sandbox, extensions must
handle different runtimes for the extension and its prefs
And all those issues occur despite a very permissive sandbox (full
host filesystem access, full dconf access, full org.gnome.Shell
access (including Eval()!)).
This new service will give us an alternative place for handling
the preference dialog:
- it runs outside of gnome-shell process, so can open windows
- it runs on the host, so the extension's prefs get to run
in the same namespace as the extension itself
That is, the service will provide portal-like functionality (albeit
not using the org.freedesktop.portal.* namespace, as extension
management is an inherently privileged operation).
https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-shell/-/merge_requests/1106
