1982733 - Support Taskbar Tabs on Linux

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Firefox :: Web Apps, enhancement, P3)

Description

[Duncan McIntosh [:dmcintosh]]

...and other freedesktop-y systems (BSD).

General requirement is creating .desktop files and putting them in $XDG_DATA_HOME/applications, possibly with the dynamic launcher portal if supported. The WM_CLASS/app_id also needs to match the .desktop file.

Implementing pinning is more difficult, and might require reaching out to GNOME/KDE/etc. about an xdg-desktop-portal or similar for the purpose; some WMs/DEs don't even support pinning, so we'll have to work out what happens there.

Systems that don't support .desktop files will be out-of-scope.

Comment 1

[Duncan McIntosh [:dmcintosh]]

This can probably be done in a single patch stack, and Linux-related bugs should just be filed under 'Web Apps' with the Linux platform, so I don't think this needs to be a metabug anymore.

Comment 2

[Duncan McIntosh [:dmcintosh]]

Attachment: Bug 1982733 - Pre 1: Add ShellService.createLinuxDesktopEntry and matching ShellService.deleteLinuxShortcutEntry. r=nrishel,emilio

Comment 3

[Duncan McIntosh [:dmcintosh]]

Attachment: Bug 1982733 - Pre 2: Split TaskbarTabsPin tests between Windows-specific tests and cross-platform tests. r=nrishel

Comment 4

[Duncan McIntosh [:dmcintosh]]

Attachment: Bug 1982733 - Part 1: Set the windowclass attribute when opening a Taskbar Tab window. r=nrishel

This is picked up by Gecko as the application ID, which is used by Linux
desktops to determine which app the window belongs to.

Comment 5

[Duncan McIntosh [:dmcintosh]]

Attachment: Bug 1982733 - Part 2: Use ShellService.createLinuxDesktopEntry from TaskbarTabsPin.sys.mjs. r=nrishel

Comment 6

[Duncan McIntosh [:dmcintosh]]

Attachment: Bug 1982733 - Part 3: Show the Taskbar Tabs page action on Linux if browser.taskbartabs.enabled is true. r=nrishel

The pref is still disabled by default.

Comment 7

[Duncan McIntosh [:dmcintosh]]

Attachment: Bug 1982733 - Part 4: Only invoke Windows-specific functions if they are available. r=nrishel

Comment 8

[Duncan McIntosh [:dmcintosh]]

Attachment: Bug 1982733 - Part 5: Enable most Taskbar Tabs tests on Linux. r=nrishel

Comment 9

[Duncan McIntosh [:dmcintosh]]

Attachment: Bug 1982733 - Part 6: Use SimpleTest.promiseFocus in Taskbar Tabs tests instead of window.focus() directly. r=nrishel!,hsohaney

It seems like there isn't a guarantee that the 'focus' event is actually
sent when .focus is called. Linux (in my case, testing on GNOME) seems
to be more wary about giving up focus, so the test gets stuck waiting
for a 'focus' event. Since we only really want to check that our event
handlers work, just poke them (relatively) directly.

Comment 10

[Duncan McIntosh [:dmcintosh]]

Attachment: WIP: Bug 1982733 - Workaround: Avoid focusing TaskbarTabs windows on Linux after creation/ejection to avoid a frequent crash (bug to be filed).

Comment 11

[Duncan McIntosh [:dmcintosh]]

Attachment: Bug 1982733 - Post: Rename test_taskbarTabs_pin.js to test_taskbarTabs_pinWindows.js. r=nrishel!,hsohaney

Comment 12

[Duncan McIntosh [:dmcintosh]]

Attachment: Bug 1982733 - Enable Taskbar Tabs by default on Linux. r=nrishel!,hsohaney

Comment 13

[Kagami Rosylight [:saschanaz] (they/them)]

This is nice! Have you checked whether this works in snap/flatpak? https://phabricator.services.mozilla.com/D281292 seems to always write directly to the system path, contrary to what comment #0 says. Or maybe I missed the right patch for that?

Comment 14

[Duncan McIntosh [:dmcintosh]]

(In reply to Kagami Rosylight [:saschanaz] (they/them) from comment #13)

This is nice! Have you checked whether this works in snap/flatpak? https://phabricator.services.mozilla.com/D281292 seems to always write directly to the system path, contrary to what comment #0 says. Or maybe I missed the right patch for that?

I hadn't really tried in Flatpak, thanks for the reminder! It didn't work in Flatpak, and I'm 99% sure it doesn't work in Snap; reason being that (a) ~/.local/share/applications isn't available, and (b) the desktop entry doesn't point inside the sandbox, so it tries to run /app/... which doesn't work. I just filed followup bugs for those, and I've poked you on Slack around the approach for Flatpak in particular.

Hopefully it'll work on both, if not we can just keep the page action invisible where it doesn't work (namely Snap might have some delay).

Comment 15

[Duncan McIntosh [:dmcintosh]]

Attachment: Bug 1982733 - Post 2: Temporarily disable Taskbar Tabs for Flatpak and Snap installations. r=nrishel!,saschanaz

Those will still be addressed for Fx150, but I'd like to land the rest of
the stack so I don't have to worry about it.

Comment 16

[Pulsebot]

Pushed by [e-mail]:
https://github.com/mozilla-firefox/firefox/commit/48dd44a05e3f
https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/autoland/rev/e5fb30d23f22
Pre 1: Add ShellService.createLinuxDesktopEntry and matching ShellService.deleteLinuxShortcutEntry. r=nrishel,emilio,hsohaney
https://github.com/mozilla-firefox/firefox/commit/08adc6f3a72c
https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/autoland/rev/b022b7d28839
Pre 2: Split TaskbarTabsPin tests between Windows-specific tests and cross-platform tests. r=nrishel
https://github.com/mozilla-firefox/firefox/commit/226ec105e068
https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/autoland/rev/dc3ed76faa35
Part 1: Set the windowclass attribute when opening a Taskbar Tab window. r=nrishel
https://github.com/mozilla-firefox/firefox/commit/cda212165db1
https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/autoland/rev/40234734130e
Part 2: Use ShellService.createLinuxDesktopEntry from TaskbarTabsPin.sys.mjs. r=nrishel
https://github.com/mozilla-firefox/firefox/commit/e0a192f794e8
https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/autoland/rev/e8b9e6aff102
Part 3: Show the Taskbar Tabs page action on Linux if browser.taskbartabs.enabled is true. r=nrishel
https://github.com/mozilla-firefox/firefox/commit/2d01b13f16ad
https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/autoland/rev/965e399e4d25
Part 4: Only invoke Windows-specific functions if they are available. r=nrishel
https://github.com/mozilla-firefox/firefox/commit/aff82d9902e5
https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/autoland/rev/50f7c3b8e74c
Part 5: Enable most Taskbar Tabs tests on Linux. r=nrishel
https://github.com/mozilla-firefox/firefox/commit/9a90eb89bfcd
https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/autoland/rev/12daf2d45e7a
Part 6: Use SimpleTest.promiseFocus in Taskbar Tabs tests instead of window.focus() directly. r=nrishel
https://github.com/mozilla-firefox/firefox/commit/59ad330e59a9
https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/autoland/rev/98103c824903
Post: Rename test_taskbarTabs_pin.js to test_taskbarTabs_pinWindows.js. r=nrishel
https://github.com/mozilla-firefox/firefox/commit/d1e7213ef8c7
https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/autoland/rev/232079a3aa64
Post 2: Temporarily disable Taskbar Tabs for Flatpak and Snap installations. r=nrishel

Comment 17

[Silaghi Andreea]

https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/e5fb30d23f22
https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/b022b7d28839
https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/dc3ed76faa35
https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/40234734130e
https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/e8b9e6aff102
https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/965e399e4d25
https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/50f7c3b8e74c
https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/12daf2d45e7a
https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/98103c824903
https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/232079a3aa64

Comment 18

[Dianna Smith [:diannaS]]

:dmcintosh did you want to include this in the Fx150 release notes? Feel free to nominate if so.

Comment 19

[Phabricator Automation]

Comment on attachment 9545086 [details]
Bug 1982733 - Enable Taskbar Tabs by default on Linux. r=nrishel!,hsohaney

Revision D283354 was moved to bug 2021459. Setting attachment 9545086 [details] to obsolete.

Comment 20

[Duncan McIntosh [:dmcintosh]]

Note to the people cc'd here, if you weren't aware: this has now landed and is available in Firefox Nightly! For now, it's disabled by default; you can turn it on by switching browser.taskbarTabs.enabled to true in about:config. Hopefully it'll either be enabled by default shortly or we'll figure out some non-about:config way to turn it on.

Feel free to take a look and report any bugs you find! Some quick known issues/notes:

• If your Applications menu has sections, the web apps are currently under 'Other'. You can also pin them to your dash/dock/taskbar/whatever, which is what you're meant to do, they're taskbar tabs :)
• GNOME doesn't always assign the correct application, so the icons etc might be a bit wonky. It should generally work OK, though, see bug 2021458 for details.

---

:diannaS — I'm currently thinking to hold off on putting it in release notes until we know what it'll look like in the actual Fx150 beta/release. I'll set a reminder for March 16, since it looks like March 18 is the first beta notes draft?

Comment 21

[Duncan McIntosh [:dmcintosh]]

Although, quick qualification just after I hit Submit — it isn't available yet in Flatpak or Snap builds, unfortunately, I'll be working on that shortly.

Comment 22

[Duncan McIntosh [:dmcintosh]]

diannaS: FYI current plan is unfortunately to keep pref'd off until Firefox 151, so no need for changelog entries yet. If that changes this week I'll add a nomination.