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https://github.com/baymac/command-keeper

A gnome shell extension that store your shell commands and code snippets
https://github.com/baymac/command-keeper

Last synced: 12 months ago
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A gnome shell extension that store your shell commands and code snippets

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README 

          
# command-keeper

A gnome shell extension that store your shell commands and lets you copy to your clipboard. We use various commands frequently and it is sometimes difficult to remember the exact syntax. You can easily store your commands, scripts, snippets etc on this extension and copy it whenever you like. 😃



# Getting Started



There references to start with gnome extension development assuming zero

previous knowledge. Also has an example extension to get some inspiration. ☺



#### Gnome Extension Basics:



Generate a skeleton gnome extension which adds an ‘Hello World’ item on your

panel.



    gnome-shell-extension-tool --create-extension



Follow screen instructions to provide details of extension such as name,

description, uuid etc. UUID should be a unique name, convention is to follow an

email address pattern e.g. *command-keeper@Baymax*



Below is the output of the above command, green underlines are the fields you

have to enter yourself.



![](https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/800/1*9MYLpw64oIAdTurh3RNK-Q.png)

Generating skeleton extension



If you plan on to publish this extension to Gnome’s library you need to adhere

to their UUID schema. To verify UUID is correct, open a Python shell:



    $ python

    >> import re

    >> re.match(‘[-a-zA-Z0–9@._]+$’, ‘extension-name@username.me’)



#### Extension files:



Gnome shell extensions are typically stored in following locations:



Local:



Systemwide:



When you open your hello-world extension folder you will find the following

files:



    extension.js

    metadata.json

    stylesheet.css



The **extension.js** file is simply a JavaScript file; it must however have a

function called **init**, which will be invoked at most once directly after your

source JS file is loaded. You should modify all user interfaces in a separate

**enable** function, and remove all custom functionality in a **disable**

function.



You may optionally include a stylesheet file, **stylesheet.css**.



To understand the code refer to this

[gist](https://gist.github.com/baymac/9708f3af9e34cf5552aba433973c9cac) which

consists of well written comments for each function.



#### Extension Preferences:



To enable the generated extension run the following command inside your

extension directory



Extensions may be configured in a consistent manner using the

`gnome-shell-extension-prefs` tool. To hook into it, provide a simple javascript

file called **prefs.js**. It must contain a function labeled

**buildPrefsWidget**, which should return some sort of GTK+ widget. Whatever is

returned from there will be inserted into the Preferences widget screen. Beyond

that, a function named **init** may also be provided, and will be invoked after

the file is loaded but before **buildPrefsWidget** is invoked.



#### Development:



For more development setup and basics, see

[this](https://wiki.gnome.org/Projects/GnomeShell/Development).



Style Guide —

[https://wiki.gnome.org/Projects/GnomeShell/StyleGuide](https://wiki.gnome.org/Projects/GnomeShell/StyleGuide)



#### Gnome API:



For all the API references of various Gnome components see

[this](https://developer.gnome.org/references).



If need some inspiration from Gnome Source JavaScript Files, see

[this](https://github.com/julio641742/gnome-shell-extension-reference/blob/master/REFERENCE.md).



To start development just familiarise with these components:



* The [Clutter UI library](http://developer.gnome.org/clutter/)

(`imports.gi.Clutter`)

* The [GLib](http://developer.gnome.org/glib/)(`imports.gi.GLib`)

* The [Shell Toolkit](http://developer.gnome.org/st/) (`imports.gi.St`)



#### Debugging extensions:



On *systemd*-based systems (like Debian), you can see error and log output of

extensions using `journalctl /usr/bin/gnome-shell -f`. On other systems, logs

might be written to `~/.xsession-errors`.



You can log messages from an extension into this log for informational or

debugging purposes using `log(msg)`.



[Looking Glass](https://wiki.gnome.org/Projects/GnomeShell/LookingGlass) is

GNOME Shell’s integrated inspector tool and JavaScript console useful for

debugging. It can be run by typing ‘lg’ in the `Alt+F2` prompt.



### Command Keeper:



I frequently used complex terminal commands and I can’t write a script for each

one of them. So I need to keep them in a place where I can search, add, copy

from my commands list.



![](https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/800/1*6ktyLmjTnVWYXyOO6YqLmw.png)

Command Keeper



This extension is a panel menu button with the following functionality:



1.  **Add:** Type your command on the text box and add it to the `commands` table

1.  **Search: **Search for your command by typing it to the text box

1.  **Delete: **Delete a command from menu and also remove the row containing the

command from the `commands` table

1.  **Copy: **Copy a command to your clipboard on selection



Initially, I planned on using a plain text file to store my commands but file

handling in this case got complicated once I started to do crazy things with the

items I was storing. Switching to a database helped me track the menuitems with

their ids with `autoincrement` so that I could query them with their ids. There

are of course other advantages of a database over a file system.



You can start with looking at the codebase of this extension, it has well

written comments. Find the code

[here](https://github.com/baymac/command-keeper). There are some UI issues that

I see.



For example,
 1) The panel menu is not aligned properly and floats around

could be aligned with the right edge of the screen.
 2) On entering a long

text (long enough to exceed the size of the text box) then the text pierces

out.
 3) Cannot added multiline commands in one menuitem since during parsing

it is done using the newline spliting



If you want to improve the extension, your PRs will be most welcomed. If you

have any problems/confusion feel free to comment below.



This extension was heavily inspired from the

[clipboard-indicator-extension](https://github.com/Tudmotu/gnome-shell-extension-clipboard-indicator).



#### Using SQLite with Gda library:



To be able to use SQLite in gnome extension you need to install the GDA library.

You can find it [here](https://github.com/GNOME/libgda). On Ubuntu you can

install using:



    sudo apt-get install libgdal-dev



Checkout the APIs here:

[http://library.gnome.org/devel/libgda/stable/](http://library.gnome.org/devel/libgda/stable/)



#### Known Issues:



Installing the library is a painstaking process in itself. Took me about half a

day to figure out to get it working. There are multiple dependencies that you

need to install. Listing below some possible errors and their workarounds.



#### Typelib file for namespace Gda not found:



Install this library:



And add the following to your `.bashrc`



    export GI_TYPELIB_PATH=/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/girepository-1.0



#### Libpcre.pc not found:



Add the following contents in a file `libpcre.pc`:



    # Package Information for pkg-config

    prefix=/usr

    exec_prefix=${prefix}

    libdir=${prefix}/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu

    includedir=${prefix}/include

    Name: libpcre

    Description: PCRE - Perl compatible regular expressions C library

    Version: 8.12

    Libs: -L${libdir} -lpcre

    Cflags: -I${includedir}



And save it in the following path:



    /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/pkgconfig/



Add the path to your `.bashrc` :



    export PKG_CONFIG_PATH=/usr/lib/pkgconfig



#### References:



[Gnome Shell Extension Reference and

Tutorial](https://github.com/julio641742/gnome-shell-extension-reference)


[Example SQLite

Extension](https://developer.gnome.org/gnome-devel-demos/stable/record-collection.js.html.en)



**Aloha.**