/gnome-shell-extension-mconnect

KDE Connect/MConnect integration for Gnome Shell

Primary LanguageJavaScriptGNU General Public License v2.0GPL-2.0

NOTICE

I have all but abandoned working on this extension, in favour of my newer extension GSConnect which is a complete implementation of the KDE Connect protocol that doesn't rely on the KDE Connect server or MConnect server. This is for the following reasons:

  • This was originally intended to be a MConnect-only extension, however the developer is busy with other projects and it remains largely incomplete.
  • Interacting with the KDE Connect server over DBus is very restrictive and makes many features hacky and other impossible to implement or fix.
  • Trying to support two different backends (properly) requires almost as much work as writing one.
  • I grew tired of having ~500MB of KDE dependencies installed for a tiny program

I use GSConnect full-time without problems, however it only officially supports Gnome Shell 3.24+ and has not been reviewed on the extension website yet. Thanks for your understanding and support in developing this extension, and hopefully the next.

Overview

This extension integrates KDE Connect and/or MConnect into Gnome Shell.

KDE Connect uses an Android app and a desktop server to securely exchange data, allowing file sharing, notification forwarding, sending of text messages and many other features.

MConnect is a work-in-progress implementation of that protocol in Vala/C, with no KDE dependencies.

For those not using Gnome Shell, consider indicator-kdeconnect which is very stable, actively developed, supports all the same features, more file managers and should work on any desktop with Gtk.

Installation

The extension is now available on the official extension website! The latest stable release can always be found in the releases page.

For instructions on how to build from Git, details about KDE Connect vs MConnect and dependencies for optional features, please see the Installation Page in the Wiki.

Features

Credits and Acknowledgements

@albertvaka and friends for creating KDE Connect, and @bboozzoo for developing MConnect based on their protocol.

@Bajoja and the indicator-kdeconnect developers, for advice and code I frequently reference.

@hugosenari for his Python shim for libgee, making support for Folks possible and who graciously donated his time helping to make it work.

@RaphaelRochet for application-overview-tooltip that was adapted to provide tooltips.

The Numix project and Google's Material Design project, some of whose icons are included in this extension.

And to anyone who has submitted a Pull Request or translation, opened an issue, helped to debug, offered their opinion or expertise - thank you for visiting my little stand at the bazaar.

Special Mention

Joey Sneddon, who was the first to star this project, wrote a great article on OMG! Ubuntu and helped raise awareness of MConnect.

@ptomato for the work and the bright future he has contributed to GJS, as well as help on StackOverflow.

@pwithnall and @nielsdg for helping me out and tolerating my harassment on the Gnome Bugzilla.

The screenshot of the extension features the Vimix Dark Laptop Gtk & Gnome Shell theme with the Numix Circle icon theme.