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creating-actions.md

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Creating New Action Types for Fly-Pie

There are two fundamental item types in Fly-Pie: Actions and Menus. Actions have an onSelect() method which is called when the user selects them; Menus can have child Actions or child Menus.

If you want to create a new Action type for Fly-Pie, this guide is made for you! As an example, we will create an Action which shows a notification with a user-defined message whenever it is selected.

Before you start, you should read the Software Architecture Page to get an overview of the components of Fly-Pie. Then create a file src/common/actions/ExampleAction.js with the following content. You should read the code, most of it is explained with inline comments!

//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
//                               ___            _     ___                               //
//                               |   |   \/    | ) |  |                                 //
//                           O-  |-  |   |  -  |   |  |-  -O                            //
//                               |   |_  |     |   |  |_                                //
//                                                                                      //
//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

// SPDX-FileCopyrightText: Your Name <[email protected]>
// SPDX-License-Identifier: MIT

"use strict";

// This is required for localization support.
const _ = imports.gettext.domain("flypie").gettext;

// We have to import the Main module optionally. This is because this file is included
// from both sides: From prefs.js and from extension.js. When included from prefs.js, the
// Main module is not available. This is not a problem, as the preferences will not call
// the createItem() methods below; they are merely interested in the action's name, icon
// and description.
let Main = undefined;

try {
  Main = imports.ui.main;
} catch (error) {
  // Nothing to be done, we're in settings-mode.
}

// Some extension-local imports we will use further down.
import { debug } from "../utils.js";
import { ItemClass } from "../ItemClass.js";
import ConfigWidgetFactory from "../ConfigWidgetFactory.js";

//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
// This simple example action shows a desktop notification when selected. The text of   //
// the notification can be defined in the Menu Editor of Fly-Pie.                       //
//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

// This should be always named 'action'.
var action = {
  // There are two fundamental item types in Fly-Pie: Actions and Menus. Actions have an
  // onSelect() method which is called when the user selects the item, Menus can have
  // child Actions or Menus. In this example we create an Action!
  class: ItemClass.ACTION,

  // This will be shown in the add-new-item-popover of the settings dialog.
  // It should be translatable.
  name: _("ExampleAction"),

  // This is also used in the add-new-item-popover.
  icon: "accessories-clipboard",

  // Translators: Please keep this short.
  // This is the (short) description shown in the add-new-item-popover.
  subtitle: _("Foo."),

  // This is the (long) description shown when an item of this type is selected.
  description: _("Bar bar bar bar."),

  // Items of this type have a custom user setting for the text to show in the
  // notification. The 'config' property below defines how this data can be set.
  config: {
    // This is used as data for newly created items of this type. You can add any
    // number of properties to this defaultData object. Just make sure that you use
    // the same properties in the updateCallback further below.
    defaultData: { message: _("Hello World!") },

    // This is called whenever an item of this type is selected in the menu editor.
    // It should return a Gtk.Widget which will be shown in the sidebar of the menu
    // editor. The currently configured data object will be passed as first parameter,
    // the second parameter is a callback which should be fired whenever the user
    // changes something in the widgets.
    getWidget(data, updateCallback) {
      // Our data parameter *should* be an object containing a single "message"
      // property (like the defaultData above). In order to prevent a crash
      // when that's not the case (e.g. when the user edited the menu configuration
      // by hand and made a mistake) we check this here.
      let message = data.message || "";

      // You can use Gtk here to create any widget you want. In this tutorial we will
      // use the ConfigWidgetFactory to do this job. Feel free to look into this method
      // to learn the details.
      return ConfigWidgetFactory.createTextWidget(
        _("Message"), // Shown on the left above the text entry.
        _("Shown when this is activated."), // Shown on the right above the text entry.
        null, // An optional tooltip text.
        message, // The initial value of the entry.
        (message) => {
          // Called whenever the text is modified.
          updateCallback({ message: message }); // We call the updateCallback with a new
        } // data object.
      );
    },
  },

  // This will be called whenever a menu is opened containing an item of this kind.
  // The data value chosen by the user will be passed to this function.
  createItem: (data) => {
    // This will be printed to the log when a menu is opened containing such an action.
    debug("ExampleAction Created!");

    // Handle invalid data.
    let message = data.message || "";

    // The onSelect() function will be called when the user selects this action.
    return {
      onSelect: () => {
        Main.notify(_("ExampleAction Selected!"), message);
      },
    };
  },
};

Once this file is in place, you just need to add the new Action to the src/common/ItemRegistry.js. To do this, add the following line to the other, similar-looking lines in getItemTypes().

ExampleAction: actions.ExampleAction.action,

Finally you can restart GNOME Shell with Alt + F2, r + Enter (or logout / login on Wayland). If you now open Fly-Pie's Menu Editor, you can add and configure your new Action!

That's it. Now you can start modifying the code!

Translating Fly-Pie Index Creating New Menu Types