Implementation of XDG Global Shortcuts

[Digitalone1]

Ticket to implement XDG Global Shortcuts.

[Digitalone1]

In the last days I tried to do this, but failed. I was curious to add this so the user has the opportunity to so something when the app UI is not visible while the service is running in the background. I thought to a shortcut to toggle the global bypass.

First I tried to follow some ChatGPT guidelines, but it was not working.

Then I tried to follow what it's done in the following two projects:

• https://git.dec05eba.com/gpu-screen-recorder-gtk/tree/src/global_shortcuts.c
• gtk: implement global shortcuts ghostty-org/ghostty#7083

I think this is the right approach since they are working (at least for Ghostty they say it's working; I don't know for sure about GTK screen recorder).

The problem is that when I test it, I don't get the Gnome popup to bind the shortcut (which I saw months ago for Chromium that was asking me to bind a shortcut for an extension in the browser).

I fixed all the returning errors, but D-Bus calls get done right, but I'm surely missing something because I don't get popup to associate to bind the shortcut (and, as a consequence, I can't test the Activated signal).

Since the Qt port is in progress, this should be done there, but I am more confident on the GTK side, so I tried on the main branch. The code is here (just the latest commit): https://github.com/Digitalone1/easyeffects/tree/bypass_shortcut

@wwmm Since it's not working, I didn't want to make a PR, but would you like to take a look? Do you want me to make a PR anyway to test on your end?

[wwmm]

Since the Qt port is in progress, this should be done there, but I am more confident on the GTK side, so I tried on the main branch.

It makes sense. I do not see any problems in backporting the whole thing to the gtk branch once we figure out how to make it work. But I will probably do the first attempts on the Qt branch.

I imagine that this will also require some way for the user to customize these shortcuts. it is one thing to have a fixed shortcut that is only used when the window is active. For global shortcuts conflicts with other apps have to be managed somehow.

I fixed all the returning errors, but D-Bus calls get done right, but I'm surely missing something because I don't get popup to associate to bind the shortcut (and, as a consequence, I can't test the Activated signal).

Hum... Usually dbus features require a dbus file installed in the system. Or does this approach works entirely one the fly when the app starts running? I will try to take a look at this this week if possible.

[Digitalone1]

I imagine that this will also require some way for the user to customize these shortcuts. it is one thing to have a fixed shortcut that is only used when the window is active. For global shortcuts conflicts with other apps have to be managed somehow.

I wanted to test this use case, but unfortunately it doesn't work even if I don't get any error from D-Bus...

At the moment the toggle bypass shortcut only works when the EE window is focused.

Hum... Usually dbus features require a dbus file installed in the system. Or does this approach works entirely one the fly when the app starts running? I will try to take a look at this this week if possible.

As far as I know, D-Bus should work on the fly. For example, GTK apps that want to inhibit idle actions (suspend, screensaver, display off) do it through D-Bus even if there's a recent Wayland protocol for the same task.

Could it be that installing the app from Flatpak adds some "portal related stuff" that does not work if I test from command line?

[violetmage]

Do the messages appear correctly in bustle?

Maybe it is necessary to add the
--talk-name=org.freedesktop.portal.GlobalShortcuts.*
permission?

I haven't kept track of which DEs have implemented GlobalShortcuts portal, though I wouldn't be surprised if it's only Plasma >=6 and GNOME >=48.

[Digitalone1]

Do the messages appear correctly in bustle?

I didn't know about that application. Will make a test...

Maybe it is necessary to add the --talk-name=org.freedesktop.portal.GlobalShortcuts.* permission?

Where should I add this permission?

[violetmage]

For a local test of a dev build of easyeffects it will be something similar to this:
flatpak override --user com.github.wwmm.easyeffects.Devel --talk-name=org.freedesktop.portals.GlobalShortcuts.*

Now that I think about it, this shouldn't be needed for a fully working setup, probably best to try only as a last resort. It would only make sense if there was some massive oversight in the dbus proxy of the system flatpak components.

[Digitalone1]

@violetmage But I don't test through flatpak. I build in the git folder. In fact I was wondering if there's something that is preventing the request to reach Gnome Shell since I'm running a dev build from the command line. It should be some portal related issue...

[violetmage]

In that case, the first place I'd look is at dbus using bustle, for anything in the user session at org.freedesktop.portals.*

[wwmm]

I implemented an initial code for this in the Qt branch https://github.com/wwmm/easyeffects/blob/eeqt/src/global_shortcuts.cpp. It always amazes me how everything related to dbus is super hard to understand even with a code example https://github.com/SourceReviver/qt_wayland_globalshortcut_via_portal/blob/main/wayland_shortcut.cpp.

So far I did not try to actually use the shortcut. But the code is already able to register it. But right now the workflow is horrible so I am not enabling this by default. At least on KDE everytime I execute EasyEffects KDE system settings is opened in its keyboard shortcuts configuration window. What is clearly quite annoying.

Something funny is that KDE system settings thinks that the shortcut is for Yakuake. I magine that somewhere I have to set an unique id for EasyEffects. As I am running it from the Yakuake terminal KDE probably thinks it is an Yakuake instance.

[violetmage]

Found a very good article from KDE developer docs:
https://develop.kde.org/docs/features/d-bus/accessing_dbus_interfaces/

[wwmm]

Found a very good article from KDE developer docs: https://develop.kde.org/docs/features/d-bus/accessing_dbus_interfaces/

Interesting. They do not recommend QDBusInterface.

[wwmm]

I did some changes to the global shortcuts class. The shortcut works. But there is still the annoyance where KDE system settings is always opened by EasyEffects. And it still thinks that the shortcut is for Yakuake 😄

[Digitalone1]

Very nice. I will test on Gnome when have time.

[Digitalone1]

I'm testing the latest changes, but I still don't see any popup from Gnome Shell. There should be something wrong on my system or something has changed in Gnome because I'm pretty sure a couple of months ago, when Gnome 48 came out, I was seeing those popups for Chromium and Brave trying to register their global shortcuts.

[violetmage]

Do you see anything when looking with bustle?