App launcher that isn't qmlscene

Bug #1155634 reported by Stuart Langridge
18
This bug affects 4 people
Affects Status Importance Assigned to Milestone
Ubuntu UI Toolkit
Invalid
Undecided
Unassigned
ubuntu-ui-toolkit (Ubuntu)
Raring
Won't Fix
Undecided
Unassigned

Bug Description

qmlscene is a developer tool, but it is not great as an app launcher. It would be worthwhile creating an app launcher which is better than qmlscene:

1. integrates better with unity. For example, it does not seem possible to run a QML app with qmlscene and specify a Launcher icon for it, without "installing" the app by copying .desktop files into specific hardcoded directories
2. is better documented: qmlscene has no man page; the --help text does not mention the --desktop_file_hint option at all

See also http://qt-project.org/doc/qt-5.0/qtquick/qtquick-qmlscene.html ("The qmlscene utility is meant to be used for testing your QML applications, and not as a launcher in a production environment. To launch a QML application in a production environment, develop a custom C++ application or bundle the QML file in a module.")

All 'qmlscene' tagged bugs regarding the wrapper: https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/+bugs?field.tag=qmlscene

Tags: qmlscene

Related branches

Changed in ubuntu-ui-toolkit:
importance: Undecided → Wishlist
status: New → Confirmed
description: updated
Bill Filler (bfiller)
Changed in ubuntu-ui-toolkit:
assignee: nobody → Florian Boucault (fboucault)
importance: Wishlist → High
Revision history for this message
Martin Kaistra (djfun) wrote :

With using only qmlscene you have also no way of changing the user agent string that is being used e.g. by XMLHttpRequest and XmlListModel.
Building an app launcher would bring the opportunity to maybe set the user agent string based on the app name or let the developer do it from QML.

Revision history for this message
Timo Jyrinki (timo-jyrinki) wrote :

Qmlscene also has a problem that it being considered a developer tool by upstream, it's installed under /usr/lib/*/qt5/bin, making a bit hard to call it from various places as the architecture needs to be inserted in the path (unless shell expansion supported like in shell scripts).

It's only available from /usr/bin if qtchooser is installed and either qt5-default is also installed (pulls in development packages) or it's called with eg. qmlscene -qt=qt5 to instruct qtchooser where to run it from.

Revision history for this message
Timo Jyrinki (timo-jyrinki) wrote :

(correction, also qmlscene -qt=qt5 only works if the Qt5 qtchooser configuration from qtbase5-dev is installed)

Revision history for this message
Florian Boucault (fboucault) wrote :
Revision history for this message
Timo Jyrinki (timo-jyrinki) wrote :

Given we want a replacement sooner, a temporary minimal 'qmlrunner' is to be added, symlinking to /usr/bin/qmlscene to be a replacement (needs Conflicts: qtchooser). I propose also adding a 'qml' symlink so that users of qmlscene may update only once to the final binary name, and the qmlrunner would be just replaced by the upstream tool when ready.

Revision history for this message
PS Jenkins bot (ps-jenkins) wrote :

Fix committed into lp:ubuntu-ui-toolkit at revision 504, scheduled for release in ubuntu-ui-toolkit, milestone Unknown

Changed in ubuntu-ui-toolkit:
status: Confirmed → Fix Committed
Changed in ubuntu-ui-toolkit:
status: Fix Committed → Fix Released
Revision history for this message
Launchpad Janitor (janitor) wrote :
Download full text (23.9 KiB)

This bug was fixed in the package ubuntu-ui-toolkit - 0.1.46daily13.06.05.1-0ubuntu1

---------------
ubuntu-ui-toolkit (0.1.46daily13.06.05.1-0ubuntu1) saucy; urgency=low

  [ Zoltán Balogh ]
  * update the example app for the latest UI Toolkit.
  * A simple app to check few locales.
  * Add qttools5-dev-tools to build dependencies to provide
    qhelpgenerator for creating QtC help files from documentation.
  * Build documentation and publish the qch file.
  * Offer symlinks for qmlscene via 'qmlrunner' package. See package
    description for usage instructions. (LP: #1155634). (LP: #1155634)

  [ Loïc Molinari ]
  * [UbuntuShape] Correctly stored the current material. (LP: #1132771)
  * [UbuntuShape] Ensured the texture is available in updatePaintNode().
    (LP: #1171437)

  [ Kaleo ]
  * QML_IMPORT_PATH is deprecated for QtQuick 2.0. Switch to
    QML2_IMPORT_PATH.
  * Added syntax description for CHANGES file in CHANGES.syntax.
  * UCScalingImageProvider: respect 'requestedSize' parameter. That
    ensures that the 'sourceSize' property of Image is respected even
    when the toolkit automatically scales the asset for the device. (LP:
    #1130120)
  * Added documentation for bitmap suffixes in the resolution
    independence page. (LP: #1092051)
  * Revamped component showcase now called 'Ubuntu UI Toolkit Gallery'.
    Works on Ubuntu Touch. (LP: #1130603)
  * Benchmarks for time critical components.
  * Added ListItem.ValueSelector example. Fixed incorrect 'Multi value'
    label. (LP: #1172663)
  * Toolkit Gallery: added examples for Sheets.
  * Automatic rotation of applications depending on the device
    orientation. For applications that are using MainView, they opt-in
    by setting 'automaticOrientation' to true. New component
    OrientationHelper for applications that do not use MainView but
    still need an easy way to automatically rotate.
  * UbuntuShape: fix slight distortion of image when set. This
    distortion was quite disturbing when the content has text in it, as
    it is often the case in Popups and Popovers. (LP: #1170878)
  * Use standard animation ubuntu snap beat for popups fade in.
  * Removed unnecessary clipping from Tabs, Popover, Dialog and
    MainView.
  * All ListItems: set default contents right and left margins to 2 gu.
    ListItems Base, Standard and ValueSelector: deprecated private
    properties __leftIconMargin and __rightIconMargin IconVisual
    (private): removed properties leftIconMargin and rightIconMargin
    Standard: removed ugly progression highlight background when there
    is no split.
  * ListItems: constrain size of the icon by default. Deprecated private
    properties __iconWidth and __iconHeight.
  * Ubuntu UI Toolkit Gallery tweaks: - Made window wider and left
    column the width of the phone: 40gu. - Removed 'slider.' from Slider
    example's labels. - Renamed 'Switches' into 'Toggles'. Renamed
    'Progress Bars' into 'Progress and activity'. - Use resolution
    independence for navigation example screenshots.
  * Support source with quotes in .sci files. (LP: #1080719)
  * Reverted unjustified changes to ubuntu-ui-toolkit-gallery.desktop.
  * Popover: simplified com...

Changed in ubuntu-ui-toolkit (Ubuntu):
status: New → Fix Released
Revision history for this message
Timo Jyrinki (timo-jyrinki) wrote :

Reopening, qmlrunner will be removed as qmlscene now also works without qt5-default et cetera on saucy.

New bugs which would be feature requests for the new replacement (upstream qml or hacking qmlscene) would include the following permission / storage related bugs:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu-qtcreator-plugins/+bug/1197056
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu-qtcreator-plugins/+bug/1197051
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu-qtcreator-plugins/+bug/1197049
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu-qtcreator-plugins/+bug/1197124

Changed in ubuntu-ui-toolkit (Ubuntu):
status: Fix Released → Confirmed
tags: added: qmlscene
Changed in ubuntu-ui-toolkit (Ubuntu Raring):
status: New → Won't Fix
Changed in ubuntu-ui-toolkit:
status: Fix Released → Confirmed
description: updated
Revision history for this message
Cris Dywan (kalikiana) wrote :

All of the aforementioned bugs have been fixed without requiring a particular launcher. Is this bug still valid? Are there use cases that can only be solved by extending the launcher?

Changed in ubuntu-ui-toolkit:
status: Confirmed → Incomplete
Changed in ubuntu-ui-toolkit (Ubuntu):
status: Confirmed → Incomplete
Changed in ubuntu-ui-toolkit:
assignee: Florian Boucault (fboucault) → nobody
importance: High → Undecided
Revision history for this message
Cris Dywan (kalikiana) wrote :

And for completeness I don't think wanting to run applications that aren't installed is a notable use case because fundamentally apparmor confinement and upstart integration already require it.

Zoltan Balogh (bzoltan)
no longer affects: ubuntu-ui-toolkit (Ubuntu)
Zsombor Egri (zsombi)
Changed in ubuntu-ui-toolkit:
status: Incomplete → Invalid
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