Linux

46875 readers

1940 users here now

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

Rules

Posts must be relevant to operating systems running the Linux kernel. GNU/Linux or otherwise.
No misinformation
No NSFW content
No hate speech, bigotry, etc

Related Communities

Community icon by Alpár-Etele Méder, licensed under CC BY 3.0

founded 5 years ago

MODERATORS

AgreeableLandscape@lemmy.ml

nooter692@lemmy.ml

MarcellusDrum@lemmy.ml

cypherpunks@lemmy.ml

cyclohexane@lemmy.ml

d3Xt3r@lemmy.nz

145

Extensions in GNOME 45 - New import system is not backwards compatible (blogs.gnome.org)

submitted 11 months ago by pnutzh4x0r@lemmy.ndlug.org to c/linux@lemmy.ml

54 comments fedilink hide all child comments

By now it is probably no longer news to many: GNOME Shell moved from GJS’ own custom imports system to standard JavaScript modules (ESM).

Extensions that target older GNOME versions will not work in GNOME 45. Likewise, extensions that are adapted to work with GNOME 45 will not work in older versions.

You can still support more than one GNOME version, but you will have to upload different versions to extensions.gnome.org for pre- and post-45 support.

Please file bugs with your favorite extensions or have a friendly conversation with your extension writers so that we can help minimize the impact of this change. Ideally, you could help with the port and provide a pull or merge request to help maintainers.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] unionagainstdhmo@aussie.zone 21 points 11 months ago (1 children)

It's probably the best scripting language, especially for developers of C-style languages. Python has weird syntax and is slow, Lua is really fast but also has weird syntax. JavaScript looks pretty much like C syntax wise. It's also possible to use a wide range of existing JavaScript projects to make extension development less burdensome

[–] walthervonstolzing@lemmy.ml 6 points 11 months ago

The JS bindings to GTK4 (GJS) are complete, AFAIK; & allow for facilities like Gtk.Expression which the Python bindings still don't have

& they've made rapid progress in a short time. The online documentation that's available is also getting really good.

Though I'm not sure why extensions have to be in JS, since JS is acting as a 'glue language' to the GObject bindings anyway. Isn't an extension just a GTK application that talks to specific DBus interfaces?

I suspect that the issue boils down to not-so-well-fleshed-out (to put it politely) dbus interfaces on GTK apps. Probably GJS has an easier time setting/sending messages & signals over DBus, so that's why extensions are in JS.

Many languages have well functioning bindings to GObject, Gdk, etc.; some are more complete than others (lua's (lgi) are trailing behind -- but still, you can do things like subscribe to a dbus_proxy in an embedded lua that lives inside vim or neovim, and send-receive messages with that) & some even come with good documentation, tutorials, etc.