Differences

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--- appimages [21.02.2021 08:14] – [AppImageLauncher] Pascal Suter
+++ appimages [21.02.2021 10:22] (current) – [Appimaged] Pascal Suter
@@ Line 21: / Line 21: @@
 ==== Appimaged ====
-[[https://github.com/probonopd/go-appimage/releases|appimaged]] is a tool provided by the AppImage people themselves which helps integrating app images into your desktop environment. It monitors your directories where you usualy store excutables (directories listed in your ''$PATH'' environment variable) and if it finds new AppImages, it adds them to your desktop launcher. It also removes apps that where removed from those directories.
+[[https://github.com/probonopd/go-appimage/releases|appimaged]] is a tool provided by the AppImage people themselves which helps integrating app images into your desktop environment. It monitors your directories where you usualy store excutables (directories listed in your ''$PATH'' environment variable) and if it finds new AppImages, it adds them to your desktop launcher. It also removes apps that where removed from those directories. If you right click an app in your launcher, you get further options to do various things with the appimage, including its removal or creating a portable home for it etc. It also makes any appimage it finds executable.
-what I don't like about it, it also searches your Downloads directory, to basically detect an app image as soon as its downloaded. This is of course very convenient, however, it makes your system a mess! I see my Downloads folder as a temporary storage for stuff I download. it is the first folder i delete when i run out of diskspace, so not really the place where i want to keep ym AppImage files that i need every day.
+what I don't like about it is, it also searches your Downloads directory, to detect an app image as soon as its downloaded. This is of course very convenient, however, it makes your system a mess! also keep in mind, that it automatically marks everything executable. I see my Downloads folder as a temporary storage for stuff I download. It is the first folder i delete when i run out of diskspace, so not really the place where i want to keep my AppImage files that i need every day.
-Of course i can manually copy them to a different folder, but there we ware, i need to open a file browser again and start to manage my appimages.
+here is a list of all directories that are searched for appimages, out of the source of [[https://github.com/probonopd/go-appimage/blob/master/src/appimaged/appimaged.go|appimaged.go]]
+<code go>
+var candidateDirectories = []string{
+	xdg.UserDirs.Download,
+	xdg.UserDirs.Desktop,
+	home + "/.local/bin",
+	home + "/bin",
+	home + "/Applications",
+	"/opt",
+	"/usr/local/bin",
+}
+</code>
-also I think appimaged itself needs some attention, as in placing it somewhere on your system and then making sure it autostarts when you boot etc.
+Sadly there is no configuration option that would allow us to change the directories in which appimages are searched, and looking at a comment from the developer to a request of a user to have a configuration option to disable the automatic creation of the Applications folder, he answered saying, that configurability adds complexity and he wants to avoid that.. a valid thaught, however, it does not help in this case. I personally believe that configurability does not need to add complexity, as long as everything runs with good default settings. but that's an opinion just like any other ;)
+=== Installation ===
+To install it, you simply download it, **copy it to its permanent location**, mark it executable and run it. it will then create a user systemd service in ''~/.config/systemd/user/appimaged.service'' which makes sure it autostarts every time you boot your machine. It will then scan various directories for you and add all the appimages it found to your launcher.
+It is important that you copy it first to the location where you want to keep it, as it will link to itself in the systemd service it creates. So if you run it the first time from your download folder, it will link to there and as soon as you clean up your downloads the next time, appimaged is gone! A good location for appimaged would bi in ''~/Applications''. If you don't have this directory yet, just create it, appimaged will do it for you anyway once it has been started for the first time.
+if you have started appimaged already from a folder where you didn't want it to stay, simply stop the systemd service
+  systemctl --user stop appimaged.service
+then copy the appimage file to the defintive location and start it from there, it will automatically re-create the systemd entry
+=== uninstallation ===
+unfortunately this is not documented yet on the appimaged github page. in order to remove it, you have to do three things:
+.) stop and disable the systemd service
+  systemctl --user --now disable appimaged.service
+.) remove the service (if you want to tidy up your system again)
+  rm ~/.config/systemd/user/appimaged.service
+.) delete the appimage of appimaged :)
+  rm path/to/appimaged
+.) remove all the entries it made in your launcher
+  rm ~/.local/share/applications/appimagekit_*
 ==== AppImageLauncher ====
@@ Line 46: / Line 78: @@
 if your appimage has embedded udpate information, you will see a option to check for updates if you right-click the app in your launcher, otherwise there is only the uninstall option.
+=== Uninstalling ===
+AppImageLauncher can be uninstalled via ''apt'' or whatever package manager you used to install it. However, it can be that it leaves a little bit of garbage behind, which might get in your way if you want to use the beforementioned ''appimaged''. after uninstalling it, run
+   rm ~/.config/systemd/user/default.target.wants/appimagelauncherd.service
+to remove a left over symlink from your system. you need to reboot before you can try to run appimaged