Dynamic Launcher¶

Description¶

Portal for installing application launchers

The DynamicLauncher portal allows sandboxed (or unsandboxed) applications to install launchers (.desktop files) which have an icon associated with them and which execute a command in the application. The desktop environment would display the launcher to the user in its menu of installed applications. For example this can be used by a sandboxed browser to install web app launchers. The portal also allows apps to uninstall the launchers, launch them, and read the desktop file and icon data for them.

The standard way to install a launcher is to use the org.freedesktop.portal.DynamicLauncher.PrepareInstall method which results in a dialog being presented to the user so they can confirm they want to install the launcher. Then, the token returned by org.freedesktop.portal.DynamicLauncher.PrepareInstall would be passed to the org.freedesktop.portal.DynamicLauncher.Install method to complete the installation.

However, in the rare circumstance that an unsandboxed process such as a system component needs to install a launcher without user interaction, this can be accomplished by using the org.freedesktop.portal.DynamicLauncher.RequestInstallToken method and passing the acquired token to org.freedesktop.portal.DynamicLauncher.Install.

This documentation describes version 1 of this interface.

Properties¶

org.freedesktop.portal.DynamicLauncher:SupportedLauncherTypes¶

SupportedLauncherTypes readable u

A bitmask of available launcher types. Currently defined types are:

1: Application. A launcher that represents an application.
2: Webapp. A launcher that represents a web app.

org.freedesktop.portal.DynamicLauncher:version¶

version readable u

Methods¶

org.freedesktop.portal.DynamicLauncher.Install¶

Install (
  IN token s,
  IN desktop_file_id s,
  IN desktop_entry s,
  IN options a{sv}
)

Installs a .desktop launcher and icon into appropriate directories to allow the desktop environment to find them. Please note that this method overwrites any existing launcher with the same id. If you want to present the user with a confirmation dialog in that case, you can check for it using the org.freedesktop.portal.DynamicLauncher.GetDesktopEntry method and clean up any state from the previous launcher if you want.

token must be a token that was returned by a previous org.freedesktop.portal.DynamicLauncher.PrepareInstall or org.freedesktop.portal.DynamicLauncher.RequestInstallToken call. The token can only be used once and is valid for up to five minutes.

The icon and name used for the launcher will be the ones from the previous org.freedesktop.portal.DynamicLauncher.PrepareInstall or org.freedesktop.portal.DynamicLauncher.RequestInstallToken call.

The desktop_file_id must have “.desktop” as a suffix. Except in the special case when the calling process has no associated app ID, desktop_file_id must have the app ID followed by a period as a prefix, regardless of whether the calling process is sandboxed or unsandboxed.

The desktop_entry should be a valid desktop entry file beginning with [Desktop Entry], except it should not include Name= or Icon= entries (if present, these will be overwritten by the portal implementation). The Exec= entry will be rewritten to call the sandboxed application e.g. via “flatpak run”, if the application is sandboxed.

It is recommended to include a TryExec= line with either a binary name or an absolute path. The launcher will be deleted if the TryExec binary cannot be found on session start.

The options vardict currently has no supported entries.

token: Token proving authorization of the installation
desktop_file_id: The .desktop file name to be used
desktop_entry: The text of the Desktop Entry file to be installed, see below
options: Vardict with optional further information

org.freedesktop.portal.DynamicLauncher.PrepareInstall¶

PrepareInstall (
  IN parent_window s,
  IN name s,
  IN icon_v v,
  IN options a{sv},
  OUT handle o
)

Presents a dialog to the user to allow them to see the icon, potentially change the name, and confirm installation of the launcher.

Supported keys in the options vardict:

handle_token (s)

A string that will be used as the last element of the handle. Must be a valid object path element. See the Request documentation for more information about the handle.
modal (b)

Whether to make the dialog modal. Defaults to true.
launcher_type (u)

The type of launcher being created. For supported values see the org.freedesktop.portal.DynamicLauncher:SupportedLauncherTypes property. Defaults to “Application”.
target (s)

For a launcher of type “Webapp”, this is the URL of the web app being installed. This is displayed in the user-facing dialog. For other launcher types, this is not needed.
editable_name (b)

If true, the user will be able to edit the name of the launcher. Defaults to true.
editable_icon (b)

If true, the user will be able to edit the icon of the launcher, if the implementation supports this. Defaults to false.

The following results get returned via the org.freedesktop.portal.Request::Response signal:

name (s)

The name chosen by the user for the launcher.
token (s)

Token that can be passed to a subsequent org.freedesktop.portal.DynamicLauncher.Install call to complete the installation without another dialog.

parent_window: Identifier for the application window, see Window Identifiers
name: The default name for the launcher
icon_v: A GBytesIcon icon as returned by g_icon_serialize(). Must be a png or jpeg no larger than 512x512, or an svg
options: Vardict with optional further information
handle: Object path for the Request object representing this call

org.freedesktop.portal.DynamicLauncher.RequestInstallToken¶

RequestInstallToken (
  IN name s,
  IN icon_v v,
  IN options a{sv},
  OUT token s
)

This method is intended for use only by specific components that have their application ID allowlisted in the portal backend (e.g. GNOME Software and KDE Discover). It is otherwise not guaranteed to work.

The token returned by this method can be used to avoid the need for a confirmation dialog; the token can be passed to the Install() method just as if it were acquired via the PrepareInstall() method.

The options vardict currently has no supported entries.

name: The name that will be used in the desktop file
icon_v: A GBytesIcon icon as returned by g_icon_serialize(). Must be a png or jpeg no larger than 512x512, or an svg
options: Vardict with optional further information
token: the token to be used with the org.freedesktop.portal.DynamicLauncher.Install method

org.freedesktop.portal.DynamicLauncher.Uninstall¶

Uninstall (
  IN desktop_file_id s,
  IN options a{sv}
)

This method deletes the desktop file and corresponding icon from the appropriate directories to remove the launcher referred to by desktop_file_id.

The desktop_file_id must have .desktop as a suffix. Except in the special case when the calling process has no associated app ID, desktop_file_id must have the app ID followed by a period as a prefix, regardless of whether the calling process is sandboxed or unsandboxed.

For example, Epiphany, which has the app ID “org.gnome.Epiphany” in stable builds, might use a desktop_file_id like org.gnome.Epiphany.WebApp_e9d0e1e4b0a10856aa3b38d9eb4375de4070d043.desktop In that example the desktop file would exist at the path ~/.local/share/xdg-desktop-portal/applications/org.gnome.Epiphany.WebApp_e9d0e1e4b0a10856aa3b38d9eb4375de4070d043.desktop with a sym link in ~/.local/share/applications/. The checksum at the end of the file name is an implementation detail in Epiphany and not required by the portal.

This method is intended to be called by the application that created the launcher, e.g. a web browser, so it can clean up associated data as part of the uninstallation. Consequently, the proper way for a software center to remove a launcher is by using the APIs provided by the application that installed it. For example, for GNOME Software to remove web launchers created by Epiphany, it would use the org.gnome.Epiphany.WebAppProvider D-Bus interface.

Please note that this method call will fail if the specified launcher already does not exist.

The options vardict currently has no supported entries.

desktop_file_id: The .desktop file name
options: Vardict with optional further information

org.freedesktop.portal.DynamicLauncher.GetDesktopEntry¶

GetDesktopEntry (
  IN desktop_file_id s,
  OUT contents s
)

This function returns the contents of a desktop file with the name desktop_file_id in contents.

This method only works for desktop files that were created by the dynamic launcher portal.

desktop_file_id: The .desktop file name
contents: the contents of the named .desktop file

org.freedesktop.portal.DynamicLauncher.GetIcon¶

GetIcon (
  IN desktop_file_id s,
  OUT icon_v v,
  OUT icon_format s,
  OUT icon_size u
)

This function returns the contents of the icon specified in the “Icon” key of the desktop file with the name desktop_file_id in icon_v. The icon #GVariant can be passed to g_icon_deserialize() to reconstruct the #GIcon.

The format and size of the icon are returned in icon_format and icon_size. For svg icons, icon_size is currently always set to 4096, but don’t depend on that as it may change in the future.

This method only works for desktop files that were created by the dynamic launcher portal.

desktop_file_id: The .desktop file name
icon_v: the icon as a serialized #GBytesIcon
icon_format: one of “png”, “jpeg”, “svg”
icon_size: the width and height in pixels of the icon

org.freedesktop.portal.DynamicLauncher.Launch¶

Launch (
  IN desktop_file_id s,
  IN options a{sv}
)

This function launches the app specified by desktop_file_id.

This method only works for desktop files that were created by the dynamic launcher portal.

Supported keys in the options vardict include:

activation_token (s)

A token that can be used to activate the chosen application.

desktop_file_id: The .desktop file name
options: Vardict with optional further information