AppBox

[coyoteclan]

Hey @ivan-hc, I have been busy because of my exams but I have continued working on GUI frontend for AM.
I am calling it AppBox for now. Can I post progress here in this discussion?

[ivan-hc]

hi, sure... thank you

[coyoteclan]

@ivan-hc can you explain the difference between <arch>-appimages, <arch>-apps and <arch>-portable?

[ivan-hc]

with my collaborator @Samueru-sama , I'm also trying to convert "portable" apps into AppImages, either by contacting upstream developers or creating our own unofficial ones, to ensure delta updates, isolation, sandboxing, and all the benefits that only AppImages offer.

Below is a typical use case for the above-mentioned lists:

[coyoteclan]

understood

[coyoteclan]

are you using xfce4-terminal with semi-transparent background btw? 😄

[ivan-hc]

are you using xfce4-terminal with semi-transparent background btw? 😄

yep, since 2011, the day I switched from the new born GNOME3 to XFCE

[coyoteclan]

since 2011

😮

XFCE is my second and probably last DE. First was jwm + rox filer on puppy.
I also created a theme based on materia focused on XFCE. If you wanna try:
https://github.com/Wolf-Pack-Clan/kOS-theme/

[coyoteclan]

I had started with plain gtk4 bindings in rust (gtk4-rs) but it was really hard. Then it was a long pause because of other things in life.
In the meantime, I learnt about Relm4. It provides a declarative style-like syntax and other abstractions which make creating gtk apps a lot easier.
So, I first converted a simple egui app of mine because it would be blank on some systems.
I really liked it so I started writing AppBox with relm4. I made progess on a lot faster pace. But the challenge is that relying on am's output is really slow compared to do the same tasks in rust (20-50 millisecs in rust vs 150-250 millisecs in bash).
I don't know much bash. I was able to replicate the am list functionality in rust which was easy. Now current objective is to recreate am files.
You can see progress in the commits here but I think I should create a roadmap 🙂

[coyoteclan]

Alright, here it is:
https://github.com/coyoteclan/gtktest/milestone/1

[coyoteclan]

Recreated the repo because the old one wasn't being indexed on search engines after renaming.
https://github.com/coyoteclan/AppBox/milestone/1

[coyoteclan]

@ivan-hc
https://github.com/coyoteclan/#info
https://gitlab.com/kazam0180/AppBox

[ivan-hc]

hi, out of curiosity, I'm not an expert. Why you moved to gitlab? What are the advantages of gitlab over github (except Microsoft)?

[coyoteclan]

https://www.theverge.com/news/757461/microsoft-github-thomas-dohmke-resignation-coreai-team-transition

Summary: GitHub's CEO has resigned and it won't be as independant as it was before and it will operate under Microsoft's CoreAI team.

[ivan-hc]

thank you

[coyoteclan]

@ivan-hc can you tell me every way am checks for the app version? I am having hard time understanding the scripts.
You don't need to go in details, just tell me what places to check for

[ivan-hc]

@coyoteclan all functions are in the middle of APP-MANAGER

from

AM/APP-MANAGER

Line 680 in 4c153c3

# VERSION OF THE INSTALLED APPS

to line 790

see all functions starting with _check_version starting from line 791, I named them in a way you can understand what they do

AM/APP-MANAGER

Line 691 in 4c153c3

# Versions

the function that lists and collects all that functions is named only _check_version (in brief, this name works as header of all others that will be used in the main one)

as you can see, there are 5+1 cases

_check_version() {
	rm -f "$AMCACHEDIR"/version-args
	_determine_args
	for arg in $ARGS; do
		argpath=$(echo "$ARGPATHS" | grep "/$arg$")
		if [ -f "$argpath"/remove ]; then
			if [ -f "$argpath"/version ]; then
				_check_version_if_version_file_exists
			elif [ "$arg" = "$AMCLI" ]; then
				APPVERSION="$AMVERSION"
			elif echo "$arg" | grep -q "ffwa-"; then
				APPVERSION="WebApp"
			elif grep -q "usr/local/lib" "$argpath"/remove 2>/dev/null; then
				_check_version_if_library
			elif [ -f "$argpath"/updater ] || grep -qi "version=" "$argpath"/*; then
				_check_version_if_any_version_reference_is_somewhere
			else
				APPVERSION="unknown"
			fi
			if [ -z "$APPVERSION" ]; then
				[ -f "$argpath"/"$arg" ] && _check_version_if_binary_in_place || APPVERSION="unknown"
			fi
			echo " ◆ $arg	|	$APPVERSION" >> "$AMCACHEDIR"/version-args
		fi
	done
}

[coyoteclan]

if i knew bash like you, i wouldn't be asking this rn ^^

[ivan-hc]

if [ -f "$argpath"/version ]; then
	_check_version_if_version_file_exists

this take account of "version" files

elif [ "$arg" = "$AMCLI" ]; then
	APPVERSION="$AMVERSION"

this is the version of AM/AppMan

elif echo "$arg" | grep -q "ffwa-"; then
	APPVERSION="WebApp"

this is not really a version, but it is common for all firefox profiles installable via AM (the ones starting with ffwa- in the name)

elif grep -q "usr/local/lib" "$argpath"/remove 2>/dev/null; then
	_check_version_if_library

this is for libraries (AM/AppMan can install libfuse2)

elif [ -f "$argpath"/updater ] || grep -qi "version=" "$argpath"/*; then
	_check_version_if_any_version_reference_is_somewhere

tries to find a "version=" reference (there are few portable programs that are autoupdateable, for example all firefox, thunderbird and tor-browser official releases (not the appimages)

else
	APPVERSION="unknown"

it is rare that a version is unknown btw

if [ -z "$APPVERSION" ]; then
	[ -f "$argpath"/"$arg" ] && _check_version_if_binary_in_place || APPVERSION="unknown"
fi

if all the previous ones fail, this will try to date the program and use this as a value

[ivan-hc]

# Filters
_check_version_filters() {
	sed -E "s/$ARCH|amd64|x86-64|x64|basic|standard|full|help|Qt[0-9]//g; s/-/\n/g; s/_/\n/g;" |\
	grep -vi "appimage\|$arg\|?\|tar." | grep "[0-9]" | head -1 | sed 's/^v//g; s/^\.//g; s/\.$//g;'
}

_check_version_grep_numbers() {
	grep -Eo "([0-9]{1,}\.)+[0-9]{1,}" | head -1
}

as the header says, these two are just filters, they are wrote to extract any reliable value from version files of the apps

this is the most used function, the one that uses the filters above

_check_version_if_version_file_exists() {
	APPVERSION=$(sort "$argpath"/version | head -1 | sed 's:.*/::' | _check_version_filters)
	if [ -z "$APPVERSION" ]; then
		if grep -q "download$" "$argpath"/version; then
			APPVERSION=$(sort "$argpath"/version | tr '/' '\n' | _check_version_filters)
		elif grep -q "://" "$argpath"/version; then
			APPVERSION=$(sort "$argpath"/version | tr '/' '\n' | _check_version_grep_numbers)
		elif grep -q "/v[0-9]*" "$argpath"/version; then
			APPVERSION=$(sort "$argpath"/version | tr '/' '\n' | grep "^v[0-9]" | head -1 | sed 's/^v//g')
		elif [ "$(sort "$argpath"/version | wc -w | sed 's/ //g')" = 1 ]; then
			APPVERSION=$(sort "$argpath"/version | head -1)
		fi
	fi
	if [ -z "$APPVERSION" ]; then
		if grep -q "http.*download/.*[0-9].*/" "$argpath"/version; then
			APPVERSION=$(sort "$argpath"/version | tr '/-' '\n' | grep "[0-9]" | _check_version_filters | tail -1)
		fi
	fi
}

only works with "version" files

[ivan-hc]

do you remember when i talked about official portable firefox, thunderbird and tor-browser? This is the function that updates thei version if they update themself

_check_version_for_auto_updatable_apps() {
	_determine_args
	for arg in $ARGS; do
		argpath=$(echo "$ARGPATHS" | grep "/$arg$")
		if [ -f "$argpath"/updater ]; then
			_check_version_if_any_version_reference_is_somewhere
			if [ "$AMCLI" = am ] && [ -d "$CACHEDIR"/am ] && grep -q " ◆ $arg	|" "$CACHEDIR"/am/version-args; then
				OLDAPPVERSION=$(grep " ◆ $arg	|" "$CACHEDIR"/am/version-args | awk 'END {print $NF}')
				sed -i "/ ◆ $arg	|/s#$OLDAPPVERSION#$APPVERSION#" "$CACHEDIR"/am/*args*
			fi
			if [ -d "$CACHEDIR"/appman ] && grep -q " ◆ $arg	|" "$CACHEDIR"/appman/version-args; then
				OLDAPPVERSION=$(grep " ◆ $arg	|" "$CACHEDIR"/appman/version-args | awk 'END {print $NF}')
				sed -i "/ ◆ $arg	|/s#$OLDAPPVERSION#$APPVERSION#" "$CACHEDIR"/appman/*args*
			fi
		fi
	done
}

[ivan-hc]

finally, this checks if versions already exist, not to create them every time

if [ -f "$AMCACHEDIR"/version-args ]; then
	_check_version_for_auto_updatable_apps 2>/dev/null
fi

[ivan-hc]

if you have other questions I'm here

[coyoteclan]

its this:
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Progressive_web_apps/Guides/Installing
right?

[ivan-hc]

if i am correct, ffwa apps are the website shortcuts?

yes, i also started a poll asking if i should drop the support #1428 but it seems people prefer that these profiles are managed by me

[ivan-hc]

on the catalogue, the webapps are 9 of the 79 items not included in the count

the other 70 are "metapackages", scripts with an easy to remember keyword to use to install something else, for example adb or fastboot installs both and much more trough platform-tools, and kpat, knetwalk or any other name og a KDE game installs the whole suite of 40 games, trough kdegames

all the above are not included in the count, e4ccept the 4 single main scripts that metapackaqges are referenced at: platform-tools, node, kdegames and kdeutils

[shuvashish76]

Questions:

• Do you have any plans to support firefox forks? I'm using LibreWolf.
• What is the criteria to add web apps to the official list? (I know I can add my local webapps, I'm asking about public list)
  Few useful foss sites (that I personally use):
  • https://app.addy.io/ (primarily use this email aliases for various websites:: Free Tier- Unlimited aliases (on their domain), Bandwidth- Limited (10MB Free / 100MB Lite))
  • https://app.simplelogin.io/ (similar service:: Free Tier- 10 aliases (strict), Bandwidth- Unlimited)
  • https://www.newsblur.com/ (RSS service:: Free Tier- Follow up to 64 sites as real time updates)

[ivan-hc]

@shuvashish76 ffwa profiles are something I was panning to remove, so I did a poll (where I voted YES), and the NO is winning instead

#1428

NOTE, in the count of apps I do not include these and metascripts of platform-tools, node, kdegames and kdeutils I have talked previously.

[coyoteclan]

local installation of appman doesn't show appman in appman files output. I guess that's intentional.

[ivan-hc]

local installation of appman doesn't show appman in appman files output. I guess that's intentional.

yes, while normal installation of AM has a fixed path in /opt near the other apps, AppMan doesn't, because it is portable. You can put AppMan in any RW directory, not just ~/.local/bin, and it will work the same. Also, it can update itself on place, and the mechanism is really simple.

Try to run any command (for example, ./appman -v to see the version) using this AppMan https://github.com/ivan-hc/AppMan/blob/main/appman , and then read the content of the script. You can see the magic.

[coyoteclan]

https://gitlab.com/kazam0180/AppBox/-/milestones/1#tab-issues
1 down:
https://gitlab.com/kazam0180/AppBox/-/issues/1

[coyoteclan]

its not that great but thanks. should i use grid view and show the apps like cards?

[ivan-hc]

its not that great but thanks. should i use grid view and show the apps like cards?

the way you think is better, its ok. Its your app after all :-)

[ivan-hc]

its not that great but thanks.

it is really cool instead, I'm serious, I shared the screenshot and repo on Discord

also, I think that once it is ready, you should submit it to Flathub, to get more attention

[coyoteclan]

can you share discord server invite link?

[ivan-hc]

I'm a member of the Pkgforge community on Discord https://discord.gg/djJUs48Zbu you will find me as "ivan-hc", same profile picture.