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!