Gnome-inform7 6L38/6M62 IDE now running on modern Ubuntu & Fedora OS

Technical Development Development Systems
#1

Hi everyone, I recently spent time working around gnome-inform7 webkit-1.0 and libgoocanvas dependency issues and recompiling the ide for ubuntu 16.04/18.04 and fedora 29/30. Both .rpm and .deb packages install without issue on both clean / existing installations of ubuntu and fedora.

Download Link: I am currently hosting the deb and rpm test packages on github (see link immediately below), please let me know your experience if you try to install them. You should be able to double click the rpm or deb and install via software center.

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#2

I’m interested!

2 Likes
#3

Gave a shot at posting the deb / rpm here but this forum does not seem to allow zip, deb, or rpm to be uploaded. Also, waiting to hear from inform7 website on posting the packages there.

#4

Fantastic!

Did you also manage to fix the issue where the open file dialogue doesn’t let you browse folders?

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#5

Yes absolutely, that bug was pretty annoying! To work around I disabled the GTKFileFilter in story.c that was associated with file/folder chooser. Originally the intent seemed to be to exclude everything but *.inform folders from the file selector. Recent gtk builds seemed to treat that filter differently than previous builds and the effect was that it just made everything unable to be selected.

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#6

Hi Victor and Stian, I created a github repo where I am temporarily uploading a test rpm and deb. If I hear back from Inform7 website this location may change as I would prefer to have the builds hosted from that central location. Could you please let me know your experience with the deb / rpm? I am interested to know if the installation goes smoothly for you or if you encounter any issues. Installation via the software center has been my primary test approach. Basically double click the rpm or deb and follow the normal installation process via software center. Here is the link: https://github.com/interactivefiction/gnome-inform7-builds/tree/testbuilds

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#7

Hi,

I’m Philip, the maintainer of gnome-inform7, Graham Nelson alerted me to this thread. Sorry I haven’t been too responsive on this issue recently. I’ve had a lot of things going on for the past 6 months which meant I didn’t have much time to spend on Inform.

First of all I’d like to say thanks, these workarounds are much appreciated. I’m making progress on porting Inform7 to non-obsolete versions of the dependencies but it’s a tedious process made more complicated by the fact that I wrote most of the current form of the UI in 2008, and, well, I was 11 years’ worth of experience worse at programming back then. It’s progressing, but slowly.

I can upload these to the website but I’d really appreciate it if you could first share the modifications you made to make it work — ideally as a pull request to my GitHub repository so I can incorporate them in the next version.

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#8

Wow, that’s great @interactivefiction, thanks a lot!

I’ve downloaded the .deb and can confirm it works on Linux Mint 19.2 “Tina”, Mate desktop. (i.e. I’ve successfully opened an old project, and changed the settings in the IDE, the first of which the Flatpak version only sort-of managed, and the second it flatly refused to allow.)

Thanks again! :star_struck:

3 Likes
#9

Hi Philip,

I am happy to share the work. The source tree is a bit messy at the moment so I will need to tidy up a little. I am pulling together an Ubuntu 16.04 deb now and will also be attempting Fedora 30/31 rpms.

Here is a short explanation of what was done to get the program up and running:

Packaging Changes: To overcome the webkit-1.0 dependency affecting Fedora 29, I recompiled webkit-1.0 on Fedora 29 and added the specific libraries gnome-inform depended on to the gnome-inform rpm itself. So the rpm is carrying around libwebkitgtk-1.0.so and libjavascriptcoregtk-1.0.so now. To overcome the libgoocanvas dependency affecting Ubuntu 18.04, I migrated libgoocanvas into the source tree and linked statically to libgoocanvas. Essentially the same way chimara was handled in the source tree.

Build File Changes: The bulk of the dependency work around effort affected the top level Configure.ac, gnome-inform7.spec, debian control/rule files, and the Makefile.am in the src directory.

Source Changes: Generally, there are no changes to the base gnome-inform7 6L38 code except for a minor workaround I put in for what appears to be a GTKFileFilter bug (3 lines).

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#10

Hi everyone, I have prepared an Ubuntu 16.04 deb package for 64bit systems. It is available at the same link as the original test packages. As before the deb was tested on a fresh install of ubuntu 16.04 64bit, installed via a double click on the package through the software center interface.

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#11

Would you mind making a bug report about this? https://inform7.com/mantis

#12

Sure, if you’d be willing to show me how to do it. The link you gave, by the way is blocked by Firefox – well not actually blocked, I suppose, but it blanks out the whole page and requires me to click on the “advanced” button and “accept the risk.” Something about not accepting the certificate. When I did proceed, I got a 404.

You might find this thread useful:it’s where I found out about the I7 flatpak.

#13

Hi everyone, I have now completed testing on Fedora 30. The rpm is available at the same link as the original test packages. As before the rpm was tested on a fresh install of fedora 30 64bit, same install approach via software center by double clicking the rpm.

#14

Hi Dizzydonut, i had an old link in my browser for the inform7 mantis tracker. Can you see if this opens up without having to “accept the risk”? http://inform7.com/mantis/my_view_page.php

To get into the specific tracker you have to choose from a list on the top right of the web page. image

#15

Hi @interactivefiction – your new link works okay. The issue of not being able to navigate to/open an old project is already there, as no. 0001985, although it didn’t mention specifically that this was a flatpak version. I’ll create an account and log the (Flatpak) preferences problem.

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#16

Thanks, @Dizzydonut. Indeed the file browser problem is not specific to the flatpak but I think the preferences problem is.

I think the issue with the bug tracker website is a https vs http link. For now I guess we have to access it insecurely. (Don’t put your credit card number in, I guess.) I noticed that there is a bug in the bug tracker open for fixing the https: http://inform7.com/mantis/view.php?id=2057

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#17

Since the confirmation email for the new bug tracker acct didn’t immediately show up in my email account (I did check the spam folder, too) I assume some human has to send it. Is that, in fact, the case?

#18

Not that I know of! Did it show up yet?

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#19

Hi Dizzydonut, I did a quick test with the mantis tracker and created a new account. The confirmation email appears to be automated to me, it came immediately. One thing I did during registration was to click the “proceed” button that appears below where you input the initial registration information. Maybe that kicked the system to send the response, but I am not sure. This is what the email sender and subject should look like:
image

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#20

Still no activation message. I’ve gone back to the mantis site and gone through the “lost password” process in the hopes it would trigger an activation message, and although the Mantis site does actually say that a message has been sent, nothing is appearing in either my inbox or my trash folder. Now ten minutes and counting. Perhaps the webmail company mail.com is on some sort of blacklist.