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Maniphest T6630

Platform independent starter
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Description

We would like to have a platform independent starter for GnuPG VSD, Gpg4win and the corresponding Linux AppImages.

Some customers get confused because they do not realize that they have to start Kleopatra, not GnuPG VS-Desktop. And now that we have Okular, too, it would be even more sensible to have a such a starter. In Linux, there is also KMail, which could then be easily started from the VSD - environment (if it is installed).

Can this be done similar to what Kontact does for contacts, calender and KMail?

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• ebo created this task.Aug 2 2023, 5:26 PM
• aheinecke triaged this task as Wishlist priority.Aug 3 2023, 8:21 AM
• aheinecke added a subscriber: • aheinecke.

I am pretty sure what I want to do here. There is no way around .desktop files if we want to have proper linux integration. Otherwise you cannot for example have okular gnupg in the "start with" menu. It is something like the Windows registry integration. Or make KMail with GnuPG Desktop your default Mail client etc.

We need a menu to manage this, and a way to attach our processes to an already running VSD instance. And yes this will mean that we will "install" the AppImage either as Admin or as User, by asking the user on the first start and later offer it through a menu entry. And you can scream and shout that this is not the AppImage way, I still disagree that from a users standpoint they won't care they just want to have it smoothly integrated in their environment.

It is a bit of a hen and egg problem though. Since we don't really have customers that need it right now there will be low prio given to this, but since we don't have it it might be hard to attract new customers. But I am pretty sure how to do this properly and it is not with a starter which would require extra clicks from the user.

• aheinecke added a subtask: T6612: Kleopatra can't be started from the gpg shell of the AppImage.Aug 3 2023, 8:22 AM
• ikloecker added a subscriber: • ikloecker.Aug 3 2023, 9:15 AM

I suppose you have read https://docs.appimage.org/user-guide/run-appimages.html#integrating-appimages-into-the-desktop, even though I think those two helpers don't do what you want and, on top, they are Linux-specific.

Also, I thought that there was a special command line argument for AppImages to "install" them (i.e. a desktop file), but it seems I'm confusing this with something else. At least, I didn't find it in the documentation. And it doesn't really help with our multi-app AppImage.

• werner raised the priority of this task from Wishlist to High.Aug 3 2023, 10:22 AM
• werner added a project: Windows.
• werner added a subscriber: • werner.

FWIW, we also need this for Windows. ppl often ask what to do after they installed VSD because they can't find a program. Thus a menu ala Kontact is the way to go. It would be linked directly from a GnUPG Desktop entry from Windows. We can even keep the old Kleopatra becuase it does not harm. Whether the "menu" is a container window or a detached windows can be decided by the user, like GIMP and other tools do this.

• aheinecke lowered the priority of this task from High to Wishlist.Aug 3 2023, 10:35 AM

werner I strongly disagree here. There is no need for this for our software on Windows and that is definitely not the Windows way, esp. with our current feature set. Do you really think a user wants to start "GnuPG VS-Desktop" to then have a selection between Okular, Outlook, and Kleopatra? That is not how this works at all. Definitely not High priority for us if you think Kleopatra is too hard to discover then we could add another start menu entry for Kleopatra called "GnuPG VS-Desktop" but a starter that only offers to switch between Okular and Kleopatra currently does _not_ have high priority, For windows this is solved with the windows registry, If you want to make Okular - GnuPG Edition your default PDF reader you can, similarly for Kleopatra and please also keep in mind that a user wants to "Encrypt" or "Decrypt" a file. And does not necessarily care about Kleopatra.

@ikloecker thanks for the pointer, maybe we can provide some instructions on how to use it. But something like that was indeed what I imagined.

• werner raised the priority of this task from Wishlist to Normal.Aug 3 2023, 12:52 PM

Our sales team gets the support calls and they have to explain that really often.

• aheinecke added a comment.Aug 3 2023, 1:34 PM

But shouldn't we then rather rename the shortcut of Kleopatra to: GnuPG VS-Desktop - Kleopatra ? That would make it discoverable under both names.