Install extensions from GitHub

[rauldipeas]

It's possible to implement something like this?

Since gnome.org is offline sometimes, would be great to have an command line option to install directly from GitHub releases or something like this.

[essembeh]

Hi this could be a good feature to implement.
But the key feature of this project is to use dbus to tell gnome to install an extension.

Do you know if it is possible to install an extension from a GitHub repository with your browser?

An alternative would be to download the latest release zip from GitHub and install it with the file backend instead of the dbus backend... and to be honest I don't like this that much.

[rauldipeas]

I think that install from file is the only possible approach...

Why don't you like this? Some security concern?

[essembeh]

Not really for security reason, but more from a design point of view.

In Gext there are 2 backends with an abstraction (see here) to allow common actions with both backends: dbus backend if you are running a graphical session, file backend for ssh/tty sessions...

Having a feature only for one backend breaks this design a little ... but why not.

I would go for something like gext sideload https://github.com/foo/bar/release-v4.2.zip?
I'm not sure for the sideload verb, but as exeplained, I don't want to reuse the install verb since this feature would only be available with the file backend.

[rauldipeas]

Great, I think it could be implemented in this way.

Instead of full path, maybe, you can use only gext github-install user/repo or something short like this.

[essembeh]

The problem with short url (like owner/repo for github) is that it is not easy to "guess" the zip url from it.
I first thought using the main branch zip would be enough but some extensions need to be built / packaged...
Moreover using the latest version might not be stable and not compatible with your current gnome version.

Do you have an example of extension you would like to install from GitHub as an example?

[rauldipeas]

I don't think this should be so abrangent.

It should have a disclaimer that work only on zip or tar.gz/tar.xz availiable extensions, ready for install through unpack.

That's my example list...
#arcmenu
arcmenu@arcmenu.com
#blur my shell
blur-my-shell@aunetx
#debian-updates-indicator
debian-updates-indicator@glerro.pm.me
#emoji copy
emoji-copy@felipeftn
#extensions-sync
extensions-sync@elhan.io
#forge
forge@jmmaranan.com
#notification banner reloaded
notification-banner-reloaded@marcinjakubowski.github.com
#pano
pano@elhan.io
#status area horizontal spacing
status-area-horizontal-spacing@mathematical.coffee.gmail.com
#tray-icons-reloaded
trayIconsReloaded@selfmade.pl
#user themes
user-theme@gnome-shell-extensions.gcampax.github.com

[essembeh]

These extensions are available in the Gnome Extensions Website I guess.
I would like to have an example of an extension you want to install from Github directly ?

[rauldipeas]

That's exactly my point, Gnome Extensions Website was offline sometimes on the past few weeks.

In this moments, there's no alternative to install extensions.