plash-pkg: Application installer and launcher

Status: implemented

The package installer should put installed applications into the GNOME/KDE applications menu and register the application as able to handle file types. This involves creating a .desktop file.

Provide a script that ties together the choose/fetch/unpack steps of Story1 in order to acquire the application package and its dependencies. It should also output a .desktop file. The .desktop file's Exec field will run a helper script that sets up a sandbox, including an FsObjCopyOnWrite directory as the root directory, and launches the application, possibly granting it access to any files it was launched to edit.

This story covers:

plash-pkg-launch: launch an installed application in a sandbox
- plash-pkg-deb-inst: run Debian preinst/postinst scripts
plash-pkg-install:
- Joins up the components in Story1
- Writes out a .desktop file for launching the app through plash-pkg-launch
- Controlled via a config file

Config file

The install script will take as input a config file with the following fields:

Depends: list of packages to install, in the format of a Debian "Depends" field. Passed to "choose".
Exec: command to execute inside the sandbox in order to launch the application.
Pet-name: name of application, to use in Name field of desktop entry.
Pet-id: short name of application, to put into filename of desktop entry. Not displayed to user.
Icon (optional): filename of icon, used in Icon field of desktop entry.
MimeType (optional): list of file types handled by the application, put into Icon field of desktop entry.

Example:

Depends: leafpad
Pet-name: Leafpad text editor (sandboxed)
Pet-id: leafpad
Icon: leafpad.png
Exec: LD_PRELOAD=powerbox-for-gtk.so leafpad "$@"
MimeType: text/plain;

Usage

plash-pkg-install <app-dir> [-c <config-file>]

State associated with the application is stored in <app-dir>. When the -c option is given, the tool will create <app-dir>, copy in the given config file, acquire and unpack the Debian packages (the choose/fetch/unpack steps), and install the application by creating a .desktop file.

When no -c option is given, <app-dir> must already exist, and the config file it contains is used.

Example output .desktop file

[Desktop Entry]
Version=1.0
Type=Application
Name=Leafpad text editor (sandboxed)
Icon=leafpad.png
Exec=plash-pkg-launch --app-dir /home/user/.pet-apps/apps/leafpad --open-file %f
MimeType=text/plain;
Categories=SandboxedApps;

Tasks

Rewrite Perl code in Python (also in Story1)
Grant access to /etc/localtime by default
Change plash-pkg-launch to clean out the environment first
- This will stop X apps taking a long time to start up because SESSION_MANAGER is defined but the socket in inaccessible
Make plash-pkg-deb-inst quieter: reduce output
Run plash-pkg-deb-inst from plash-pkg-install
Provide a simple way to create a "Sandboxed apps" submenu in the GNOME/KDE menu

plash-pkg: Application installer and launcher

Config file

Usage

Example output .desktop file

See also

How to create a menu for sandboxed applications

Tasks