Provide command line args to register Tor Browser as a Linux desktop app

I realized that it might be handy for Linux users to have a way to add/remove Tor Browser to their desktop from the command line, so I created arguments --register-app and --unregister-app.

I tested this out on Gnome3 and Unity. It works perfectly on Gnome with just the simple copy, but on Unity even the update-desktop-database command doesn't manage to fully update the Applications view. You get the icon but not the "Tor Browser" text. The only fix for this seems to be restarting Unity after local app installation.

Still, I think providing this is an improvement.

added TorBrowserTeam201504R component::applications/tor browser owner::mikeperry priority::medium resolution::fixed status::closed tbb-4.5-alpha type::enhancement labels

https://gitweb.torproject.org/user/mikeperry/tor-browser-bundle.git/?h=bug15672 is ready for review. Tested on Unity and Gnome3. Works modulo the "Tor Browser" text missing until desktop restart on Unity (which I am inclined to believe is a Unity bug in Ubuntu 14.04, since Gnome3 is not so braindamaged).

Trac:
Status: new to needs_review

Looks good to me (I don't see that Unity bug on an Ubuntu 12.04 btw). Two things that I was thinking about while looking at the code and testing:

1. Why not allowing --debug and, say, --register-app at the same time? I.e. being able to use more than one command line argument might be handy.

2. Instead of copying start-tor-browser.desktop again and again if a user is starting with --register-app several times you could do the same as in the "unregistering" case: check if the file already exists and if so saying that to the user and otherwise copying the .desktop file.

Replying to gk:

Looks good to me (I don't see that Unity bug on an Ubuntu 12.04 btw). Two things that I was thinking about while looking at the code and testing:

1. Why not allowing --debug and, say, --register-app at the same time? I.e. being able to use more than one command line argument might be handy.

I think we should file another ticket for multiple arg support if we really want that. It is a bit risky to try at this point for 4.5. Right now though, --register-app and --unregister-app do not squelch output of the script or the commands it calls, so --debug seems unnecessary.

2. Instead of copying start-tor-browser.desktop again and again if a user is starting with --register-app several times you could do the same as in the "unregistering" case: check if the file already exists and if so saying that to the user and otherwise copying the .desktop file.

I thought about this, but I wanted to make the usecase where the user has relocated their TBB and needs to reregister the app as a result (to update the paths) not require multiple steps. Simply running the register step without existence checks seemed the simplest way to accomplish this.

Replying to mikeperry:

Replying to gk:

Looks good to me (I don't see that Unity bug on an Ubuntu 12.04 btw). Two things that I was thinking about while looking at the code and testing:

1. Why not allowing --debug and, say, --register-app at the same time? I.e. being able to use more than one command line argument might be handy.

I think we should file another ticket for multiple arg support if we really want that. It is a bit risky to try at this point for 4.5. Right now though, --register-app and --unregister-app do not squelch output of the script or the commands it calls, so --debug seems unnecessary.

Ah, you got me wrong. What I really had in mind was something like registering the app and then starting Tor Browser in debug mode just with ./start-tor-browser.desktop --register-app --debug or maybe a user just wants to unregister the app + using debug mode from now on with ./start-tor-browser.desktop --unreigster-app --debug

2. Instead of copying start-tor-browser.desktop again and again if a user is starting with --register-app several times you could do the same as in the "unregistering" case: check if the file already exists and if so saying that to the user and otherwise copying the .desktop file.

I thought about this, but I wanted to make the usecase where the user has relocated their TBB and needs to reregister the app as a result (to update the paths) not require multiple steps. Simply running the register step without existence checks seemed the simplest way to accomplish this.

Good point. I merged your branch in commit 44e59e8d6e91bab002d93a978b8a4e36fbb5b9fb.

Trac:
Status: needs_review to closed
Resolution: N/A to fixed

closed

moved to tpo/applications/tor-browser#15672 (closed)