Hello,
Some time ago (not really sure when) the GNOME shell integration Firefox add-on stopped working. That made it impossible to install or update extensions from extensions.gnome.org and users had to either settle for the extensions provided by GNOME software or hunt down zipped packages from the extension creators and install them manually. Then internet posts started appearing, telling people to install this add-on: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/gnome-shell-integration/ which obsoletes the Fedora-provided add-on of the same name and which also requires Fedora users enabling a copr repo and installing the connector. However, the version of the connector in copr is buggy and crashes firefox on shutdown. Even the current github snapshot has its issues, e.g. on startup you get these messages:
firefox.desktop[30690]: 1486903163318 addons.webextension.chrome-gnome-shell@gnome.org WARN Loading extension 'chrome-gnome-shell@gnome.org': Reading manifest: Error processing background.persistent: Event pages are not currently supported. This will run as a persistent background page. firefox.desktop[30690]: 1486903163324 addons.webextension.chrome-gnome-shell@gnome.org WARN Loading extension 'chrome-gnome-shell@gnome.org': Reading manifest: Error processing author: An unexpected property was found in the WebExtension manifest. firefox.desktop[30690]: 1486903163325 addons.webextension.chrome-gnome-shell@gnome.org WARN Loading extension 'chrome-gnome-shell@gnome.org': Reading manifest: Error processing externally_connectable: An unexpected property was found in the WebExtension manifest. firefox.desktop[30690]: 1486903163325 addons.webextension.chrome-gnome-shell@gnome.org WARN Loading extension 'chrome-gnome-shell@gnome.org': Reading manifest: Error processing optional_permissions: An unexpected property was found in the WebExtension manifest.
and it too leads to Firefox crashes, albeit fewer and farther between.
Has there been any "official" recommendation regarding this situation? I have been getting input from users frustrated because either they can't update their extensions or their Firefox crashes whenever they close it. Given that Workstation comes with GNOME and that GNOME extensions are really important to the user experience, we can't have a semi-official, un-reviewed package popping up to provide core functionality, halfway through a stable release.
Best regards
On Sun, Feb 12, 2017 at 03:29:42PM +0200, Alexander Ploumistos wrote:
Has there been any "official" recommendation regarding this situation? I have been getting input from users frustrated because either they can't update their extensions or their Firefox crashes whenever they close it. Given that Workstation comes with GNOME and that GNOME extensions are really important to the user experience, we can't have a semi-official, un-reviewed package popping up to provide core functionality, halfway through a stable release.
They actually show up in the Software center, under Add-Ons.
Hmmm. Was this approved by the WG as a third-party source? Do we have a formal record of those somewhere? We should have that. Also, in F25, I'm not seeing a clear indication that this is a third party source.
On Sun, Feb 12, 2017 at 03:29:42PM +0200, Alexander Ploumistos wrote:
Has there been any "official" recommendation regarding this situation? I have been getting input from users frustrated because either they can't update their extensions or their Firefox crashes whenever they close it. Given that Workstation comes with GNOME and that GNOME extensions are really important to the user experience, we can't have a semi-official, un-reviewed package popping up to provide core functionality, halfway through a stable release.
They actually show up in the Software center, under Add-Ons.
That only seems to show those which are directly packaged in Fedora as RPMs, but not anything else that's available at extensions.gnome.org.
On Mon, 2017-02-13 at 13:24 -0500, Kamil Paral wrote:
On Sun, Feb 12, 2017 at 03:29:42PM +0200, Alexander Ploumistos wrote:
Has there been any "official" recommendation regarding this situation? I have been getting input from users frustrated because either they can't update their extensions or their Firefox crashes whenever they close it. Given that Workstation comes with GNOME and that GNOME extensions are really important to the user experience, we can't have a semi-official, un-reviewed package popping up to provide core functionality, halfway through a stable release.
They actually show up in the Software center, under Add-Ons.
That only seems to show those which are directly packaged in Fedora as RPMs, but not anything else that's available at extensions.gnome.org.
No, it shows extensions from extensions.gnome.org as well. You can see that e.g. when searching for AlternateTab: it will show up twice, once with the "Source: extensions.gnome.org" line that marks it as 3rd party software.
On Mon, Feb 13, 2017 at 01:42:35PM -0500, Matthias Clasen wrote:
That only seems to show those which are directly packaged in Fedora as RPMs, but not anything else that's available at extensions.gnome.org.
No, it shows extensions from extensions.gnome.org as well. You can see that e.g. when searching for AlternateTab: it will show up twice, once with the "Source: extensions.gnome.org" line that marks it as 3rd party software.
That's a lot less visible than the mock-ups I'd seen. Are there plans to implement more clear labeling? Even as a technical user, it's not clear to me that "Source" means "Where you're gonna download this from when you push install" rather than "The upstream source the Fedora Project got this software from before carefully reviewing it, packaging it, and making it available to you."
On Mon, Feb 13, 2017 at 8:42 PM, Matthias Clasen mclasen@redhat.com wrote:
No, it shows extensions from extensions.gnome.org as well. You can see that e.g. when searching for AlternateTab: it will show up twice, once with the "Source: extensions.gnome.org" line that marks it as 3rd party software.
Are you talking about F25? Because this is what I get when I search for AlternateTab: https://alexpl.fedorapeople.org/screenshots/g-s_search.png
And these are all the extensions listed in Software: https://alexpl.fedorapeople.org/screenshots/g-s_all.png
On Mon, 2017-02-13 at 21:46 +0200, Alexander Ploumistos wrote:
On Mon, Feb 13, 2017 at 8:42 PM, Matthias Clasen mclasen@redhat.com wrote:
No, it shows extensions from extensions.gnome.org as well. You can see that e.g. when searching for AlternateTab: it will show up twice, once with the "Source: extensions.gnome.org" line that marks it as 3rd party software.
Are you talking about F25? Because this is what I get when I search for AlternateTab: https://alexpl.fedorapeople.org/screenshots/g-s_search.png
And these are all the extensions listed in Software: https://alexpl.fedorapeople.org/screenshots/g-s_all.png _______________________________________________ desktop mailing list -- desktop@lists.fedoraproject.org To unsubscribe send an email to desktop-leave@lists.fedoraproject.org
Here is my screenshot, using gnome-software-3.22.5-1.fc25:
On Mon, Feb 13, 2017 at 03:56:13PM -0500, Matthias Clasen wrote:
that e.g. when searching for AlternateTab: it will show up twice, once with the "Source: extensions.gnome.org" line that marks it as 3rd party software.
Note that that "Source" line does not show up in the high-level view if you browse; you have to click and then pay attention to the Details section.
On Mon, 2017-02-13 at 16:28 -0500, Matthew Miller wrote:
On Mon, Feb 13, 2017 at 03:56:13PM -0500, Matthias Clasen wrote:
that e.g. when searching for AlternateTab: it will show up twice, once with the "Source: extensions.gnome.org" line that marks it as 3rd party software.
Note that that "Source" line does not show up in the high-level view if you browse; you have to click and then pay attention to the Details section.
Given that the only way to install the thing is to go to the Details view, it doesn't seem necessary to plaster "3rd party, danger!" onto every tile in that view.
Also, you get a pretty prominent dialog asking you to confirm that you want to install software from a 3rd party source, if you go ahead and click install. Sadly, system modals don't show up on screenshots it seems, so you'll have to try yourself to see it.
On Mon, 2017-02-13 at 17:00 -0500, Matthias Clasen wrote:
rm that you want to install software from a 3rd party source, if you go ahead and click install. Sadly, system modals don't show up on screenshots it seems, so you'll have to try yourself to see it.
Oh, found the screenshot
On Mon, Feb 13, 2017 at 05:00:16PM -0500, Matthias Clasen wrote:
Given that the only way to install the thing is to go to the Details view, it doesn't seem necessary to plaster "3rd party, danger!" onto every tile in that view.
It doesn't need to say "3rd party, danger", but it does need to communicate "3rd party: please be aware".
Also, you get a pretty prominent dialog asking you to confirm that you want to install software from a 3rd party source, if you go ahead and click install. Sadly, system modals don't show up on screenshots it seems, so you'll have to try yourself to see it.
That does help, and I don't remember if that was part of the design discussion. I don't think it's sufficient just list where the *download* comes from, though, because I can download official Fedora content from, many places (mit.edu, kernel.org, etc.), and it's not clear that I'm downloading non-Fedora code just because it's downloading from extensions.gnome.org. I think there's room for incremental improvements to make this better.
I'm *really* not trying to be difficult. I just want to make sure that users are aware of the choice they're making and know where to get help when they have problems.
On Mon, 2017-02-13 at 18:07 -0500, Matthew Miller wrote:
On Mon, Feb 13, 2017 at 05:00:16PM -0500, Matthias Clasen wrote:
Given that the only way to install the thing is to go to the Details view, it doesn't seem necessary to plaster "3rd party, danger!" onto every tile in that view.
It doesn't need to say "3rd party, danger", but it does need to communicate "3rd party: please be aware".
Also, you get a pretty prominent dialog asking you to confirm that you want to install software from a 3rd party source, if you go ahead and click install. Sadly, system modals don't show up on screenshots it seems, so you'll have to try yourself to see it.
That does help, and I don't remember if that was part of the design discussion. I don't think it's sufficient just list where the *download* comes from, though, because I can download official Fedora content from, many places (mit.edu, kernel.org, etc.), and it's not clear that I'm downloading non-Fedora code just because it's downloading from extensions.gnome.org. I think there's room for incremental improvements to make this better.
This feels like moving the goalposts, tbh. Downloading random rpms off the internet is not part of the UX supported by gnome software.
And I'm fairly confident that if you ask the mythical 'novice' user what it means that it is downloading from extensions.gnome.org, they will say that it means 'its not from fedora'.
On Tue, Feb 14, 2017 at 08:43:00AM -0500, Matthias Clasen wrote:
This feels like moving the goalposts, tbh. Downloading random rpms off the internet is not part of the UX supported by gnome software.
But neither was downloading shell extensions. From a user point of view, I don't see anything that makes it clear that these _aren't_ random RPMs off of the internet. There's nothing that shows what they actually are or how they'll be installed.
I *like* the functionality of adding and removing Extensions in Software. That's cool and seems like the logical place for it. I just want users have a good understanding of a) support expectations and b) quality expectations — where to go for help, and what rules the third-party repository plays by. I know I said this to Allan from the very beginning in the design discussions we had, so I don't think that that's moving any goalposts.
And I'm fairly confident that if you ask the mythical 'novice' user what it means that it is downloading from extensions.gnome.org, they will say that it means 'its not from fedora'.
I'd be happy to support some UX studies.
I realized it might help if I step back to the big picture here.
Fedora as a project is an integrator; we don't write a lot of new code specifically for the distro — at least not for Fedora alone. One of our marketing points is that Fedora is more than the sum of its parts¹. We tell users that the integration work we do is one of the key reasons to pick Fedora over another distribution.
In many ways, GNOME Software is the face of that promise in Fedora Workstation. It's where you can see all of the software we make available. This is one of the reasons I strongly support the initiative to only show applications which meet high standards for things like icons and screenshots — those details are part of the polish.
I think it's okay to also present third-party software, but it needs to be clear to users how that software fits into the promise. It's not just where they are downloading it from, but what it means to download software from somewhere else. If it's included in Software, does it mean that we are making the same promises about integration quality? Does it mean the software will follow (at least) Fedora's support lifecycle? Does it mean that I can ask Fedora for help?
There's a lot of different ways to answer these questions, and while I have some opinions, there's a wide range of answers the WG could come up with which I'd be perfectly happy with. We just need to make sure that the answer for any given third party repository or software is communicated as part of the user experience.
[1] https://blogs.gnome.org/uraeus/2015/04/20/fedora-workstation-more-than-the-s... [2] https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Workstation/Third_party_software_proposal
On Wed, 2017-02-15 at 07:47 -0500, Matthew Miller wrote:
I think it's okay to also present third-party software, but it needs to be clear to users how that software fits into the promise. It's not just where they are downloading it from, but what it means to download software from somewhere else. If it's included in Software, does it mean that we are making the same promises about integration quality? Does it mean the software will follow (at least) Fedora's support lifecycle? Does it mean that I can ask Fedora for help?
I have found that Software does not show third party packages, which is confusing, since it lets users add third party repos in the first place.
If I am allowed to add RPMFusion using the Software GUI, it should then also give me a list of the packages that are contained in the repo I just installed, maybe with a red watermark saying that this is a third party binary and it might break your system.
Else, just don't allow adding repos in this way and instead, force the user to do it manually, thus making it clear (in a passive aggressive way) that they have to know what they are doing, since they want to use third party packages which are not tested by the Fedora QA team.
Apart from the above issue, I am a big fan of Software :)
Alexander Bisogiannis píše v St 15. 02. 2017 v 15:10 +0000:
On Wed, 2017-02-15 at 07:47 -0500, Matthew Miller wrote:
I think it's okay to also present third-party software, but it needs to be clear to users how that software fits into the promise. It's not just where they are downloading it from, but what it means to download software from somewhere else. If it's included in Software, does it mean that we are making the same promises about integration quality? Does it mean the software will follow (at least) Fedora's support lifecycle? Does it mean that I can ask Fedora for help?
I have found that Software does not show third party packages, which is confusing, since it lets users add third party repos in the first place.
If I am allowed to add RPMFusion using the Software GUI, it should then also give me a list of the packages that are contained in the repo I just installed, maybe with a red watermark saying that this is a third party binary and it might break your system.
Else, just don't allow adding repos in this way and instead, force the user to do it manually, thus making it clear (in a passive aggressive way) that they have to know what they are doing, since they want to use third party packages which are not tested by the Fedora QA team.
Apart from the above issue, I am a big fan of Software :)
Software doesn't show packages, it shows applications and those are defined by AppStream metadata (which can be shipped in packages, flatpaks,...). So first the app needs to ship the metadata, then the repo needs to provide a database built on such metadata which is then used by Software. So if you want to see apps from RPM Fusion, they each need to ship their own appdata files and the maintainer of the repo then needs to build a database from it. I think there was some initiative led by Ankur Sinha to do it, but I'm not sure if it was ever finished.
Jiri
On Wed, 2017-02-15 at 15:10 +0000, Alexander Bisogiannis wrote:
I have found that Software does not show third party packages, which is confusing, since it lets users add third party repos in the first place.
If I am allowed to add RPMFusion using the Software GUI, it should then also give me a list of the packages that are contained in the repo I just installed, maybe with a red watermark saying that this is a third party binary and it might break your system.
If it doesn't show *applications* with valid appstream metadata provided by the third-party repo, then it's a bug that needs to be fixed. AFAIK RPMFusion does not provide such metadata. Am I incorrect?
It's not a package manager and will never show packages, nor stuff without valid metadata.
Michael
On Wed, 2017-02-15 at 11:03 -0600, Michael Catanzaro wrote:
It's not a package manager and will never show packages, nor stuff without valid metadata.
Understood and I agree that it should not become yumex or synaptic.
Still, the work flow when adding a third party repo should make it clear that the repo does not contain any metadata and thus applications will not show up in Software.
The UI is nice and contains useful information about the repo, but the fact that no applications will show up in Software afterwards can be confusing.
On 15/02/17 09:03 AM, Michael Catanzaro wrote:
If it doesn't show *applications* with valid appstream metadata provided by the third-party repo, then it's a bug that needs to be fixed. AFAIK RPMFusion does not provide such metadata. Am I incorrect?
RPMFusion provides appstream data for a while although some applications lack metadata.
rpmfusion-free-appstream-data.noarch 25-3.fc25 @rpmfusion-free rpmfusion-nonfree-appstream-data.noarch 25-3.fc25 @rpmfusion-nonfree
On Mon, Feb 13, 2017 at 10:56 PM, Matthias Clasen mclasen@redhat.com wrote:
Here is my screenshot, using gnome-software-3.22.5-1.fc25:
That's interesting. Was this a clean installation by any chance?
I have been checking 4 physical and one virtual installations that I have here and even though we are on the same version of gnome-software, none of them displayed the extensions from extensions.gnome.org. The only thing these systems have in common is that they were all upgraded to F25 from F24 or F23. I have a freshly installed F25 at work, I'll check it tomorrow.
Could you please report your gsettings keys for gnome-software?
$ gsettings list-recursively org.gnome.software | sort org.gnome.software check-timestamp int64 1486980901 org.gnome.software compatible-projects ['GNOME', 'KDE', 'XFCE', 'MATE'] org.gnome.software download-updates true org.gnome.software enable-software-sources true org.gnome.software extra-sources @as [] org.gnome.software first-run false org.gnome.software free-sources @as [] org.gnome.software free-sources-url '' org.gnome.software install-bundles-system-wide true org.gnome.software install-timestamp int64 1440335174 org.gnome.software nonfree-software-uri 'https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proprietary_software' org.gnome.software nonfree-sources @as [] org.gnome.software official-sources ['fedora', 'fedora-debuginfo', 'fedora-source', 'koji-override-0', 'koji-override-1', 'rawhide', 'rawhide-debuginfo', 'rawhide-source', 'updates', 'updates-debuginfo', 'updates-source', 'updates-testing', 'updates-testing-debuginfo', 'updates-testing-source'] org.gnome.software popular-overrides @as [] org.gnome.software prompt-for-nonfree true org.gnome.software review-karma-required 0 org.gnome.software review-server 'https://odrs.gnome.org/1.0/reviews/api' org.gnome.software security-timestamp int64 0 org.gnome.software show-folder-management true org.gnome.software show-nonfree-prompt true org.gnome.software show-nonfree-software false org.gnome.software show-nonfree-ui true org.gnome.software show-ratings false org.gnome.software show-upgrade-prerelease false org.gnome.software upgrade-notification-timestamp int64 0
On Tue, Feb 14, 2017 at 1:17 AM, Alexander Ploumistos alexpl@fedoraproject.org wrote:
On Mon, Feb 13, 2017 at 10:56 PM, Matthias Clasen mclasen@redhat.com wrote:
Here is my screenshot, using gnome-software-3.22.5-1.fc25:
That's interesting. Was this a clean installation by any chance?
I have been checking 4 physical and one virtual installations that I have here and even though we are on the same version of gnome-software, none of them displayed the extensions from extensions.gnome.org. The only thing these systems have in common is that they were all upgraded to F25 from F24 or F23. I have a freshly installed F25 at work, I'll check it tomorrow.
I just checked and the fresh installation displays extensions from extensions.gnome.org. Besides the timestamps there was no difference in gsettings. Also worth noting, some users have installed extensions from extensions.gnome.org (although using the old firefox add-on) and there are also some extensions which come as default in the Workstation spin.
Matthias Clasen píše v Po 13. 02. 2017 v 15:56 -0500:
On Mon, 2017-02-13 at 21:46 +0200, Alexander Ploumistos wrote:
On Mon, Feb 13, 2017 at 8:42 PM, Matthias Clasen <mclasen@redhat.co m> wrote:
No, it shows extensions from extensions.gnome.org as well. You can see that e.g. when searching for AlternateTab: it will show up twice, once with the "Source: extensions.gnome.org" line that marks it as 3rd party software.
Are you talking about F25? Because this is what I get when I search for AlternateTab: https://alexpl.fedorapeople.org/screenshots/g-s_search.png
And these are all the extensions listed in Software: https://alexpl.fedorapeople.org/screenshots/g-s_all.png
Isn't it that you just installed it through a different tool (probably Firefox) and Software can only show extensions that are in the Fedora repos and that are already installed? That would explain why you can see the extension and Alexander, who doesn't have it installed, can't. I also can see the AlternateTab extension, but I also have it installed already and I'm pretty sure I didn't do it in Software. Moreover when I try to uninstall it, it gives me an error.
Jiri
Jiri Eischmann píše v Út 14. 02. 2017 v 14:00 +0100:
Matthias Clasen píše v Po 13. 02. 2017 v 15:56 -0500:
On Mon, 2017-02-13 at 21:46 +0200, Alexander Ploumistos wrote:
On Mon, Feb 13, 2017 at 8:42 PM, Matthias Clasen <mclasen@redhat. co m> wrote:
No, it shows extensions from extensions.gnome.org as well. You can see that e.g. when searching for AlternateTab: it will show up twice, once with the "Source: extensions.gnome.org" line that marks it as 3rd party software.
Are you talking about F25? Because this is what I get when I search for AlternateTab: https://alexpl.fedorapeople.org/screenshots/g-s_search.png
And these are all the extensions listed in Software: https://alexpl.fedorapeople.org/screenshots/g-s_all.png
Isn't it that you just installed it through a different tool (probably Firefox) and Software can only show extensions that are in the Fedora repos and that are already installed? That would explain why you can see the extension and Alexander, who doesn't have it installed, can't. I also can see the AlternateTab extension, but I also have it installed already and I'm pretty sure I didn't do it in Software. Moreover when I try to uninstall it, it gives me an error.
Jiri
Ok, correction: It does show some extensions from extensions.gnome.org, but it's just a subset. In my case, Software shows 55 extensions in total (both from RPMs and extensions.gnome.org) compared to ~190 on the website. Is there any filter?
What I find utterly confusing is that if the extension comes from the Fedora repositories Software says that the source is unknown. This should definitely be fixed because how can the user know that the extension comes from us and not from some random place on the Internet?
Jiri
On 16 February 2017 at 12:45, Jiri Eischmann eischmann@redhat.com wrote:
What I find utterly confusing is that if the extension comes from the Fedora repositories Software says that the source is unknown. This should definitely be fixed because how can the user know that the extension comes from us and not from some random place on the Internet?
I can reproduce this bug; fixing now.
Richard.
Ok, correction: It does show some extensions from extensions.gnome.org, but it's just a subset. In my case, Software shows 55 extensions in total (both from RPMs and extensions.gnome.org) compared to ~190 on the website. Is there any filter?
I have two F25 installations, both upgraded. In both I see the same 27 extensions available, all of them packaged in Fedora.
In a clean installation, I see 52 extensions (out of 187 extensions available on the website).
So something seems seriously broken in both cases.
On Mon, Feb 13, 2017 at 8:08 PM, Matthew Miller mattdm@fedoraproject.org wrote:
They actually show up in the Software center, under Add-Ons.
Yes, but that is 27 extensions in Software vs 28 packaged for F25 vs 182 hosted on extensions.gnome.org which are listed as compatible with GNOME 3.22. The latter also allows per-user installations.
Hmmm. Was this approved by the WG as a third-party source? Do we have a formal record of those somewhere? We should have that. Also, in F25, I'm not seeing a clear indication that this is a third party source.
Supposedly, the original GNOME shell integration add-on would stop working in Firefox 52 (at least that's how I remember it) and we would have to port it to WebExtensions by then. I remember a discussion on devel about this, but I can't find it. However, there are Fedora users who complained that the add-on stopped working in 50.1 or 51.0.
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