So you want to contribute to Ubuntu’s Unity desktop, but you’re not a software developer? No problem, there are still plenty of things you can do. And not just in terms of documentation and translations either, there are ways to contribute directly to the desktop without having to know any programming languages. One of these is adding Quicklists to application launcher.
Quicklists can be added dynamically from within the program code, but they can also be defined statically outside of it, in a simple text file. It’s these static Quicklists that anybody can contribute.
For this post, I’m going to walk through the process of adding a Quicklist to Geany, my personal programming editor of choice. You can add one for your favorite app, of choose from one of the following popular applications that are in need of a Quicklist:
Empathydone!Gimpdone!Braserodone!- LibreOffice
- SMPlayer
- K3B
Totemdone!- More target applications…
Step 1: Getting the package code
Everything in Ubuntu exists in bzr, which makes getting the source for the package easy. just “bzr branch ubuntu:<project>”. For geany, this is what I ran:
bzr branch ubuntu:geany
Step 2: Add your Quicklist items
The first think you need to do is locate the .desktop file for your application. For me, it was located in the root of the branch in a file called “geany.desktop.in”. If you don’t see it in the root of your project’s branch, try running this command:
find ./ -name "*.desktop*"
This may not look exactly like the file in your /usr/share/applications/, since some processing is done to add translated strings for the application name and comments. But as long as you are just adding the Quicklist items to the bottom of the file you shouldn’t have to worry about that.
The next step is to add your Quicklist shortcuts following this specification:
mhall@mhall-laptop:~/projects/Ubuntu/unity/quicklists/geany$ bzr diff === modified file 'geany.desktop.in' --- geany.desktop.in 2011-05-28 19:49:19 +0000 +++ geany.desktop.in 2012-02-22 01:18:55 +0000 @@ -10,3 +10,9 @@ Categories=GTK;Development;IDE; MimeType=text/plain;text/x-chdr;text/x-csrc;text/x-c++hdr;text/x-c++src;text/x-java;text/x-dsrc;text/x-pascal;text/x-perl;text/x-python;application/x-php;application/x-httpd-php3;application/x-httpd-php4;application/x-httpd-php5;application/xml;text/html;text/css;text/x-sql;text/x-diff; StartupNotify=true +Actions=New + +[Desktop Action New] +Name=Open a New Instance +Exec=geany --new-instance +
(UPDATE 2012-02-28: A new XDG spec has been approved to make Quicklists desktop agnostic. The Unity documentation has the new examples, and I have update the snippet above to match.)
As you can see in the example above, there isn’t much you need to do to add a Quicklist shortcut. Calling the application’s binary with a different argument (as I did here with –new-instance) is a common and easy shortcut. You can usually find all the available arguments to your application by calling with with –help.
Step 3: Submitting your changes
Now that you’ve made your changes, we need to get them back into the main package. Chances are you don’t have permission to apply them directly (otherwise you wouldn’t need this tutorial), so instead you’re going to put it somewhere else.
bzr commit -m "Add a Unity Quicklist" bzr push lp:~mhall119/ubuntu/precise/geany/add_quicklist
This will put your changes on Launchpad in a place that the people who actually can apply it to the main packages can see your work. But just because they can see it doesn’t mean they will see it, at least not without a little prompting from you.
To open the page on Launchpad that you just created (with your bzr push), run the following:
bzr lp-open
On that page you’ll see a link labeled “Propose for merging”, click that and fill out the form on the next page to create your merge proposal.
Step 4: Recompiling your kernel
Just kidding, there is no step 4. You’re done! You’ve contributed to making Ubuntu and Unity a better experience for millions of users. Congratulations, and thank you!
Is there a list of things you’d like added in the quicklists? I didn’t see a list anywhere, and I’m not creative enough to think of anything to add.
Run –help for a list of possible things you can add.
Hello there,
The New York State Ubuntu Local Community (LoCo) Team is having there Ubuntu Jam today and I/we would like to work on
filezilla
virtualbox-ose
smplayer
supertuxkart
Maybe more. One of us will post when we have finished each one.
Hello there after putting together a bunch of quick tags I got stuck at Step 3: Submitting your changes
I keep on getting error that I can not write to your ppa that I am not Michael or something like that. Should I upload to my own ppa? Then try to merge with yours ?Thanks for your time. I also looked at what Jorge Castro had to say and would like to help out with some of the work that they have already done on ask-ubuntu aka uploading/pushing there changes.
Thanks again,
Joseph & the New York LoCo team
You will need to change the “push” location, using your own launchpad username and the name of the project you are working on. It takes the following form:
lp:~<launchpad_username>/ubuntu/precise/<project_name>/add_quicklist
I am especially glad for step 4!
Don’t forget the “submit upstream” part. Some upstreams took this kind of patch like gnome-screenshot :)
I tried making a quicklist for Tomboy but it didn’t work as I would like it to be. If the application wasn’t already open, I could create a new note. But if it is already running, it doesn’t create a new note.
And, the network here blocks every port other than 80. So, pushing through bzr is not the preferable way to submit patches for me. I am still looking for alternative, better solution to the problem in hand.
Yeah, not all programs will let you run them again with a different flag. If Tomboy won’t, file a bug against it for that and try another one.
This misses important steps like adding one’s SSH keys to launchpad and so on, if one has not done so!
A fair point.
You can learn about setting up your ssh keys with Launchpad at https://help.launchpad.net/YourAccount/CreatingAnSSHKeyPair
And you can learn more about using bzr with Launchpad at http://doc.bazaar.canonical.com/beta/en/tutorials/using_bazaar_with_launchpad.html
I really want to submit quicklist patch for totem and brasero. However I have some questions.
– For brasero, the option are to open a project file, or cover image which requires a url path in the arguments. But this cannot be implemented in a quicklist, can it?
– For totem, there are arguments for play, pause, mute, full screen etc. But these are only valid when totem is open. When totem is closed, these are redundant. What do I do in this case?
Unfortunately with static Quicklists, you really are limited to hard-coded values, so you can’t pass URLs or filepaths.
I think it’s okay to leave the player controls in the Quicklist, even if the app isn’t open. The music player Clementine does the same thing. Clicking on one of them just open the app.
I have one more question (more a request), the ubuntu software center should have the following quicklist.
Update Manager
Add/Edit PPA
———————————
Ubuntu Software center
———————————-
unlock from launcher
Can I implement this?
If you can do those things from the command line (update-manager I know you can, not sure about a GUI for add/edit PPAs), then you sure can, and it would be a very nice addition too!
With the command gksu software-properties-gtk you can show the software sources windows directly.
Michael, I really need your help. I finished the totem quicklist. I also committed it. Now, in this line bzr push lp:~mhall119/ubuntu/precise/geany/add_quicklist do I replace your name with mine or just use this command?
Looking forward to getting my first upload :)
Replace my Launchpad username (mhall119) with yours, and then replace “geany” with “totem”, and you should be all set
DONE! Waiting for merging to reviewed and then merged. Thanks for your help!
Here’s a bunch of community donated ones; it’d be swell if someone went through these and worked on shipping the sane ones in Ubuntu!
http://askubuntu.com/questions/35488/what-custom-launchers-and-unity-quicklists-are-available
Jorge, I am right looking at it and implementing the one I can. I have already also finished the ubuntu software center quicklist. Uploading it and waiting for merging :)
You are awesome dude.
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Uploaded Brasero quicklist. DONE
I have pushed a quicklist for GIMP as well as Empathy. I may do another in a bit. Cheers!
I cannot branch libreoffice. The command bzr branch ubuntu:libreoffice gives me the error message “Not a branch”. I tried different combinations like libreoffice-writer but to no success.
Also Empathy only provides option to start minimized and to not connect on startup. Is a quicklist still necessary? If yes, I can get started on this.
If there aren’t any useful options for a Quicklist, then I’d say don’t worry about it (or better still, file a bug requesting some useful options).
Michael, do you have any other default applications that deserve quicklist? I also added quicklists to Transmission (still need to upload)
Yeah, I’m working on writing up another post with some more candidates, you made your way through the current list much faster than I expected
The new list is up at http://mhall119.com/2012/02/more-unity-quicklist-targets/
I already made one for Empathy to open in the background. :)
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I’m going to work on K3B.
Added these quicklist items to K3B:
Create a new video DVD project
Create a new data CD project
Create a new audio CD project
Create a new video CD Project
Create a new mixed mode CD project
Create a new eMovix CD project
Wow, that’s a great list! Don’t forget to propose your branch for merging when you’re done with it.
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added Quicklist Create new File in Scribes Editor
I had a heart attack when I first read #4. You dirty rascal.
as far as I can tell, Unity in Precise currently lacks support for the new XDG specification. :(
hopefully this gets fixed soon, it would be nice to have a healthy set of quicklists ready (for base image installed applications at the least) by the time Precise ships.
Unity trunk has support for it, I believe it’s coming in Unity 5.6, which should be in Precise soon.
excellent! :D
Wow, thank you!
gedit-common
[ Nekhelesh Ramananthan ]
* debian/patches/02_add_keywords.patch:
– add new keywords for unity and gnome-shell
* debian/patches/03_add_unity_quicklist.patch:
– add static quicklist for unity
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Hey, Michael, what do you think about these quicklists?
http://www.theopensourcerer.com/2012/03/16/unity-window-quicklists/
Alan Bell is such an awesome dude, what can I say?
There are two problems I do see with trying to do this:
1) Multi-tabbed windows, you only get the title of the active tab (if you’re lucky), so for things like Firefox/Chromium, and even gnome-terminal, you’re only getting a part of the information about the window.
2) Context, or lack thereof. As you see in Alan’s screenshots, he has several terminal windows with the title “alanchicken@alanlaptop:~”, which really doesn’t help you find the one you want. For that you’d need clues like bash history, windows location and even window size.
This isn’t to say Alan’s work is bad, on the contrary I think it’s really cool what he’s been able to do, especially as an add-on package and not a hack into Unity itself. But Quicklists are a pretty narrowly scoped feature, and they just don’t have the ability to give a really good window switching experience. I think the upcoming Spread feature is going to make window switching a much nicer and easier experience.
I see, those are two good points I haven’t thought about… But I agree, it still is pretty cool! Cheers!
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