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[Bug 1612767] Re: Drop appmenu-qt5 from default installations

To: dx-packages@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
From: Dmitry Shachnev <mitya57@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2016 16:47:44 -0000
Reply-to: Bug 1612767 <1612767@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sender: bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxx

Thanks Timo! I committed the changes last week.

Unfortunately I get tests failures when trying to build qtbase, but they
seem unrelated to my changes
(https://launchpad.net/~mitya57/+archive/ubuntu/test2/+build/10643352, I
get the same locally). Do you know anything about this?

** Description changed:

Currently we are using appmenu-qt5 as our platform theme on desktop,
however it has many disadvantages, which make me want to get rid of it:

1) Its design is a hack: instead of the using normal QPA API for getting
the menu, it retrieves the menu bar using QWidget::findChild, and then
casts the pointer to QMenu*. The normal methods (which are getting
called by Qt) remain empty stubs.

2) It is preventing applications from using GTK+ theme integration, such
as dialogs (I reported this as bug 1378935, but there is no easy way to
fix that).

3) It is not working with Qt Quick applications (because it expects a
QtWidgets window; see also bug 1323853). The standard implementation
will work with i.e. Qt Quick Controls 2 using apps (implemented in
https://codereview.qt-project.org/142733).

- 4) Finally, it is mostly unmaintained: most patches since 2014 are
+ 4) It breaks other environments such as Plasma when installed: see bug
+ 1434516.
+
+ 5) Finally, it is mostly unmaintained: most patches since 2014 are
authored by me, however I see no point continuing to develop that code.

Recently, Shawn Rutledge and I have written a native implementation of
what appmenu-qt5 provides (global menu and system tray), which is part
of Qt. That code uses the normal API, is well maintained, and works
better than appmenu-qt5 (or at least not worse).

So I propose to drop appmenu-qt5 from default Ubuntu installations, and
maybe later from archive too.

Unfortunately we use Qt 5.6, and some of the needed patches are only in
Qt 5.7, so I would like to backport them to our packaging:

https://code.qt.io/cgit/qt/qtbase.git/commit/?id=f199bb9133fe0446 (will be in 5.6.2 / 5.7.0)
https://code.qt.io/cgit/qt/qtbase.git/commit/?id=488cf78e44947eff (will be in 5.7.0)
https://code.qt.io/cgit/qt/qtbase.git/commit/?id=b6a824d0a3b4fabd (will be in 5.7.0)
https://code.qt.io/cgit/qt/qtbase.git/commit/?id=e4d79e1fdeb6b26b (will be in 5.7.0)

Timo: if you have no objections, I will commit those patches to the
packaging Git.

After we do that, I will remove the appmenu-qt5 recommendation from
indicator-appmenu (that is the only package referring to it).

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1612767

Title:
Drop appmenu-qt5 from default installations

Status in indicator-appmenu package in Ubuntu:
New
Status in qtbase-opensource-src package in Ubuntu:
New

Bug description:
Currently we are using appmenu-qt5 as our platform theme on desktop,
however it has many disadvantages, which make me want to get rid of
it:

1) Its design is a hack: instead of the using normal QPA API for
getting the menu, it retrieves the menu bar using QWidget::findChild,
and then casts the pointer to QMenu*. The normal methods (which are
getting called by Qt) remain empty stubs.

2) It is preventing applications from using GTK+ theme integration,
such as dialogs (I reported this as bug 1378935, but there is no easy
way to fix that).

4) It breaks other environments such as Plasma when installed: see bug
1434516.

5) Finally, it is mostly unmaintained: most patches since 2014 are
authored by me, however I see no point continuing to develop that
code.

So I propose to drop appmenu-qt5 from default Ubuntu installations,
and maybe later from archive too.

Unfortunately we use Qt 5.6, and some of the needed patches are only
in Qt 5.7, so I would like to backport them to our packaging:

Timo: if you have no objections, I will commit those patches to the
packaging Git.

After we do that, I will remove the appmenu-qt5 recommendation from
indicator-appmenu (that is the only package referring to it).

To manage notifications about this bug go to:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/indicator-appmenu/+bug/1612767/+subscriptions

References

[Bug 1612767] [NEW] Drop appmenu-qt5 from default installations
From: Dmitry Shachnev, 2016-08-12