SNAP Tutorial 03. Start snap application from a graphic environment

snap

Greetings to all on the continuation of the topic of self-contained snap packages.
In today's part, we will discuss how to configure the application so that it can be launched not only in the console, but also in the graphical environment (KDE, GNOME, XFCE, and so on).

There are 2 options:

Option 1

This setup will require 2 files, managetime.desktop and managetime.png. We add these files to the snap / gui directory. That is, you just need to put these files in the correct directory, that's all.

The previous article showed the tree structure of directories and files based on my application.

Consider what is the managetime.desktop file.

[Desktop Entry]
Encoding=UTF-8
Categories=Application for time management
Comment=Applique for those who want to control their time
Exec=managetime
GenericName=Application for time management2
Icon=${SNAP}/meta/gui/managetime.png
Name=TimerProject_desktop
Type=Application
Terminal=false

The most basic is 5 and 7 lines. Line 5 is the name of the application itself.

apps:
    managetime:

7 the same line indicates the path inside the snap package where the icon is located.
Also in this file there is a description of the application itself, whether to open it in the console or not.

Option 2

This option already works through the setting in the file snapcraft.yaml
We indicate among the other settings of the application, where we have the files.

name: managetime
version: "0.1.0"
summary: timer
description: |
    Application for time management
confinement: strict
grade: stable
architectures: [amd64]
 
base: core18
 
icon: snap/gui/managetime.png
 
apps:
    managetime:
        desktop: share/applications/managetime.desktop
        command: bin/projecttimer
        plugs: 
            - home

As you can see, we have added 2 points:

• the first is the icon where the file remains in the same place.
• But the app.desktop file has migrated to another directory and we have already through the desktop: we specify its location.

How it works you can look at my finished application. snap

Thanks to all.
To be continued)