3. Gnome Extension vs Sia-UI plugin vs both

Gnome Extension vs Sia-UI plugin vs both

  • I
    Global Moderator

    How many here like the idea of a Sia Gnome Extension? I'm starting work on a Sync plug-in for Sia-UI, but as both Gnome and Sia extensions/plug-ins use JavaScript the core can be used for both. I intend to develop both.

    Question bogs down to: Should I develop first as Gnome Extension or Sia plugin? I'm in favour of the first as it will hit potential newcomers vs all you old-boys.

    EDIT: Sia GNOME shell extension now available at https://github.com/pmknutsen/gnome-shell-sia

    EDIT: Update for 0.5.x. Versions < 0.5.x are no longer supported!

    EDIT: Single-click installation now possible through the Gnome Shell Extensions website

    Sia GNOME Extension Sia GNOME Extension

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  • Global Moderator

    Will this only work on Gnome, or other desktops as well? What about desktops based on Gnome like Unity?

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  • I
    Global Moderator

    It would be a gnome-shell extension so, no, it would not be compatible with Unity.

    I intend to keep the core JS code as platform independent though, so recycling in other frameworks would be possible, e.g. as a Chrome extension.

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  • I
    Global Moderator

    How does one write Unity extensions anyway?

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  • Global Moderator

    I have no clue, I read somewhere that it all goes through D-Bus but I couldn't find any examples anywhere. And I searched a lot.

    I know that the media players in the sound menu are managed through MPRIS, which you can read up about here: http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Specifications/mpris-spec/
    Just found out about that today actually

    EDIT: It seems like a lot of the documentation aims at Java developers: http://dbus.freedesktop.org/doc/dbus-tutorial.html. It's my lucky day!

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  • I
    Global Moderator

    GNOME shell extension is now ready. See top post for GitHub link and screenshots. I consider this a BETA, as there are still features I'd like to add and features to depends on the upcoming 0.5.0 to work properly (like files in sub-folders being displayed properly in the Sia-UI wallet).

    This extension obviates, to some extent, the need to use the Sia-UI if you're running the GNOME desktop. It auto-starts siad, syncs the Sia folder in your home-directory (recursively) and indicates file upload progress and health (i..e redundancy) on the Sia network.

    Also, you can send funds and create addresses for receiving funds.

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  • L

    Cool stuff. What about a GFS (GNOME Virtual Filesystem) driver?

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  • I
    Global Moderator

    @LjL said:

    Cool stuff. What about a GFS (GNOME Virtual Filesystem) driver?

    Must admit its the first time I hear about GVfs. Not even sure where to start reading up on this. How is it different from FUSE?

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  • L

    @in-cred-u-lous FUSE requires kernel support and becomes transparent to the applications, while GVFS has no kernel requirements but applications must link against it. GNOME applications of course do, and you can load things that are on a GVFS "mount" from GNOME file dialogs.
    At least that's what I knew; according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GVfs it now integrates with FUSE in some ways to create a "hybrid" that also allows non-GVFS-aware software to access GVFS mounts, so it could be the best of both worlds, at least if you don't mind the things it's built upon (GLib, DBus).

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