Funding for a Linux release [$1,500 of $1,500]

[cztomczak]

For those interested in sponsoring a Linux release. This initial Linux release would include basic functionality - only some of the options in the settings.json file would be supported. With time more settings may be added. For now let's just make it work on Linux!

Funding will be carried out using bountysource.com website. Multiple people can post bounties and make up for the goal ($1,500). See the issue on bountysource:

https://www.bountysource.com/issues/53303038-funding-for-a-linux-release

Related issue: #77 ("Linux support").

Fundings for other features presented on the PHP Desktop Pro wiki page are also possible.

[beshoo]

So there is no BETA to test ?

[cztomczak]

Pull requests are welcome.

[phpengine]

Great, In regards to testing with different OS's, thats something I can definitely do. I do DevOps bits, so I've started looking at creating a pipeline that can run tests automatically after a commit/tag, getting them to run on multiple OS's should be reasonably simple. I'll hopefully have something useful in about a week. I'll also create a VM dev environment for it too.

[phpengine]

Also as an FYI, I'll be meeting either half or all of this next week. Thanks

[cztomczak]

Okay, great.

[somasekhard79]

I am waiting for linux support release,

[phpengine]

Hey @cztomczak , I've just posted half the bounty for this job - Unfortunately a bit late... I'll get the rest in over the next couple of weeks. Thanks in advance :)

[cztomczak]

@phpengine Thank you :-) I will take on step one, which is to investigate the best option for the GUI framework to use. As described in Issue #77, either CEF Views can be used (these unfortunately are not supported on Mac, so cannot be reused) or GTK API can be used. CEF Views have some nice features and easy integrate with CEF without any focus/keyboard issues. When using GTK the code is more complex, but has no limitations on CEF limited API, however there are known keyboard issues as reported here.

[cztomczak]

I've been testing CEF views and everything works fine. You can run upstream cefclient sample application in views mode by passing --use-views flag. Views API is very straightforward and its api is available in CEF's include/views/ directory. Classes that interest us are CefWindow and CefBrowserView. CefWindow has some useful methods that will make easy to expose these features via settings.json: CenterWindow, SetAlwaysOnTop, SetFullscreen, SetWindowIcon, SetWindowAppIcon. I've run performance tests in both normal mode in cefclient and with views and both modes have the same performance. (ran tests > webgl).

CEF on Linux unlike CEF on Windows doesn't have all the features built-in. For example there is no default implementation for dialogs on Linux. These need to be implemented by app. When running cefclient > tests > dialogs you can see that they don't work. This includes things like:

• js dialogs such as alert/confirm/prompt
• file dialogs (open, save)
• print dialog (from mouse context menu or when called via window.print)

Each of these (js dialogs / file dialogs / print dialog) need to be implemented separately, so these are three tasks in total. @phpengine Which of those are essential for you?

Drag and drop within window works out of the box. However drag and drop from external sources doesn't work. I don't think dragging files from external sources works neither on Windows.

[cztomczak]

I've asked question on the CEF Forum in regards to implementing dialogs when using CEF Views. CEF topic for reference: https://magpcss.org/ceforum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=15778

[phpengine]

Hey, sorry it took so long to repond. I've spent most of the last week bedbound by flu. Thanks for these, I've had a look, and I think we'd need them all. Having said that though, I've already written replacements for the JS Dialogs, so we could do those last. I'd also be happy to put as much more in the bounty as we need, if it could be possible get them all in at some point. I would say file dialogs would be most important for me, as one of the first apps we'll try to build is like Office. Thanks, Dave

[cztomczak]

Sorry to hear that you're sick. I wish you a fast recovery. Okay so file dialogs are priority no1. Hopefully these can be easily integrated with CEF Views using existing implementation in cefclient, will see.