google-chat-linux Roberto Fasciolo

An electron-base client for Google Hangouts Chat.

README

Tray has changed ... again https://github.com/electron/electron/pull/36472 https://github.com/electron/electron/pull/36333 https://github.com/electron/electron/issues/36602

broken again on electron 22+

See below Changelog 5.24.19-1

google-chat-linux-git

An electron-base client for Google Hangouts Chat, since Google didn't see fit to provide one.

upstream project : https://github.com/robyf/google-chat-linux clever other for : https://github.com/ankurk91/google-chat-electron

See Systray support notes.

Windows support

Electron is cross platform. I added the minimum required tweaks to have a decently working app on Windows. You can install the Setup.exe from releases.

There will be "SmartScreen" warning about how unsafe this .exe is, Windows pretending it has detected something nasty and is protecting you. I Don't Care and won't buy a certificate.

If you're not happy with this, build from sources with npm install && npm run dist or get a proper OS with a proper distribution system.

Linux dependencies

Starting with 5.14.x, xdg-desktop-portal must be installed. It's probably already the case on most distributions. see here

Dependency is taken care of in AUR Arch package and Debian package.

Custom CSS

To inject custom CSS, create a file called custom.css in ~/.config/google-chat-linux for Linux or %APPDATA%\google-chat-linux\ for Windows.

To find out how Google Chat makes their themes, go to Developer Tools (Ctrl + Shift + I) > Sources > gtn-roster-iframe-id (world) > (no domain) > the large purple CSS file (begins with /_/scs/mss-static/_/ss/k=boq-dynamite.DynamiteWebUi...). The file is pretty scattered, but searching for terms such as

• color-scheme: light;
• :root {
• [data-theme=dark] {

can prove to be helpful.

Open Google Chat URLs from web browser in the app

You can configure your web browser to detect Google Chat URLs and open them in the Google Chat Alt application:

Step 0: Install Google Chat Alt.

Step 1: Install a user script manager. See Step 1 on Greasy Fork for various options.

Note: the script manager must be able to cope with content security policy (CSP) headers. Tampermonkey on Firefox is known to work.

Step 2: Install the user script Google Chat Alt landing page by clicking the green install button on the user script's page, and your user script manager will ask you to confirm the install.

Step 3: Try it out by navigating e.g. to https://mail.google.com/chat/ in your web browser. If the user script is working correctly instead of Google Chat web UI your browser should ask you:

Allow this site to open the gchat link with Google Chat Alt?

You can check the checkmark:

Always allow [...] to open gchat links

Once you press the button Open Link, Google Chat Alt will be either started or (if you have it already running) restore its window. You can then close the tab in your browser.

Note: If navigating to Google Chat opens Google Chat web UI the user script manager might not be compatible with the user script, Google might have changed something on the web site or you might have failed to install the script properly.

Note: If navigating to Google Chat opens landing page that says "Launching Google Chat Alt" but web browser doesn't ask to open the link in the application, verify if you have installed Google Chat Alt. Running gio mime x-scheme-handler/gchat should display google-chat-linux.desktop as a default application.

On technical level this functionality works in following way: Google Chat Alt uses XDG Desktop file to claim to support URI scheme gchat://. No browser is able to handle this (made up) URI scheme but we use this to pass URI to the app. App looks for URI with this scheme and if found, it replaces gchat:// with https:// and navigates to that address. This should work for channel and direct message links out of box.

Wayland support

TL/DR;

Improved with electron 29 : declare environment variable export ELECTRON_OZONE_PLATFORM_HINT=auto (values can be auto, x11, wayland), for instance in .zshenv, no need to use --ozone-platform flag, so no need to use custom .desktop file !

Improved with electron 27 : WaylandWindowDecorations is now enabled by default.

Run with --ozone-platform=wayland.

Detailed story

Electron 20 introduced a command line to mimic chromium way to switch to Wayland if available. Simply run electron ap with --ozone-platform-hint=auto to make it use Wayland if available, Xorg else. The default value is default and does not try Wayland at all.

This has side effects on window decoration (absent on Gnome for instance, fixed with electron 27).

Another side effect is the lack of notification in systray. (Which only works already with a workaround on Gnome, see further).

So you have to enable yet another feature flag (see https://github.com/electron/electron/pull/29618) --enable-features=WaylandWindowDecorations

So, feel free to enable both options if you want, it will work with this lmitation.

I first enforced the ozone flag in the .desktop shortcut, bad idea sorry about that ;-), forget the 5.21-18-2 version.

I didn't find a way to make this a runtime option, this setting must be taken into account very early in electron startup I'm not even sure it's possible to do that.

So, to use electron's Wayland rendering edit /usr/share/applciations/google-chat-linux.desktop and add --enable-features=WaylandWindowDecorations --ozone-platform-hint=auto.

CHANGELOG and news

See full CHANGELOG.

5.29.23-1

bump electron to 29 with better wayland support. Define ELECTRON_OZONE_PLATFORM_HINT=auto to take advantage of it. Values can be auto, wayland, x11, with auto being a reasonable default.

Set it in .zshenv for instance, and logout / login again. Must be in a placed sourced when .desktop applications launchers are used, will certainly be DE dependant.

5.27.23-6 5.27.23-5 5.27.23-4 and 5.27.23-3

empty release - AUR only pkg release version

5.27.23-2

Add a menu in 'View' to change tray icon theme.

5.27.23-1

Add support for several iconThemes, to match some 'monochrome' desktop themes. 3 values are supported :

• default : the good old green ones
• colored : the new colored google ones
• mono : an attempt at monochrome icon theme

Edit ~/.config/google-hangouts-chat-linux.json and set "iconTheme":"colored" for instance, then restart.

No GUI setting for now.

5.27.22-4

Fix systray notification (favicon name changed on google side) see https://github.com/squalou/google-chat-linux/issues/87

5.27.22-3

Add a nice pseudo-protocol support : open gchat:// urls in client instead of browser. See "Open Google Chat URLs from web browser in the app" above. Thanks again https://github.com/pbabinca !

5.27.22-2

• Desktop shortcut name changed to Google Chat Alt
• rpm build available
• build using containers available

And thank you https://github.com/pbabinca for all this !

5.27.22-1

Update electron to 27.0.3 with Wayland improvements.

5.24.22-1

Fix https://github.com/squalou/google-chat-linux/issues/62 : thank you https://github.com/ThatOneCalculator !

Minor electron update (24.8.5)

5.24.21-1

Fix https://github.com/squalou/google-chat-linux/issues/69 : download of attachments. (was broken by a side effect of https://github.com/squalou/google-chat-linux/issues/67 )

5.24.20-2

repackage, fix vulnerabilities

5.24.20-1

Prevent several instances of google chat linux to be launched. (https://github.com/squalou/google-chat-linux/issues/67)

5.24.19-4

Clean MORE links (https://github.com/squalou/google-chat-linux/issues/66)

5.24.19-3

Clean links from google decoration before opening them (https://github.com/squalou/google-chat-linux/issues/66)

5.24.19-2

Fix open links in external browser (https://github.com/squalou/google-chat-linux/issues/65)

5.24.19-1

Update to electron 24.

Why ?

Some functionalities are blocked for older browsers, for instance "quoted-reply", which has finally arrived in google chat. (2023, hello guys, wake up)

Bad news

electron sucks with Tray ... again

gnome users will want to try https://extensions.gnome.org//extension/615/appindicator-support/

instead of Ubuntu Appindicators (if in use on the distro)

Note that ... looks like it's a crappy situation (again)

• Ubuntu Appindicator required for electron -> 21, wont work for 22+
• Appindicator and KStatusNotifierItem required for electron 22+

AND THEN AGAIN ! Double click must be used instead of single click,

and that shit is on Gnome only, and of course poor to no wayland support

Tray F***ng Icons still failing in 2023, not like it's been around since 28 years.

Weird news though : notification on application shortcut seems to work on Gnome ... only when app is launched from sources ! (./google-chat-linux.sh)

I'm probably definitively done with this electron nightmare.

Best solution is probably hte ArchLinux packagine approach : without electron embedded/packaged. go wonder.

I've added google-chat-linux-nvm-launcher.sh that uses nvm, uses nvm use --lts, then starts ./google-chat-linux/google-chat-linux.sh, it can be referenced in a local .desktop file, and it will work. That's hjow I personally launch it.

5.21.19-1

• https://github.com/squalou/google-chat-linux/issues/51 : manually set NO_REDIRECT_URL to solve login with custom OAuth SSO providers issues. Comma separated list of urls is accepted ! (see issue in github for more details)

versioning scheme

Starting with 5.11.9-1 :

• first number is internal architecture, won't change anytime soon
• second is the electron version.
• third is a 'feature' level
• dash-number is a packaging number : same features, only minor bugfix and packaging changes : no news, only better things

support native filechooser

• make sure you install xdg-desktop-portal or xdg-desktop-portal or xdg-desktop-portal-kde or xdg-desktop-portal-wlr ... depending on your DE and distrib.
• logout / login and open google-chat-linux, whenever needing to use the filechooser it should use your DE default one.

Troubleshooting

• in case nothing happens when needing to upload / download a file

  • launch from console, and check for Can't open portal file chooser: GDBus.Error. If it is displayed, then your xdg-desktop-portal is not installed.

• if the wrong filechooser is displayed (gtk on kde), make sure GTK_USE_PORTAL=1 is set. It should be set by the app itself, you may want to set it yourself and check if it works better. export GTK_USE_PORTAL=1; /opt/google-chat-linux/google-chat-linux for instance

  • if necessary set GTK_USE_PORTAL=1 in your login script (/etc/profile.d/custom.sh, or $HOME/.bashrc, whatever).

configure spellcheck language

After first run, quit, then edit $HOME/.config/google-hangouts-chat-linux.json, add "languages": ["fr","en-US"] in the json to override default OS locale.

auth with third party provider

If your login redirects to some OAuth provider (other than Google), login may fail.

In Menu (Alt, or systray right click), choose use third party auth mode. Login should work but you loose some features (systray related). Use the same menu after login to restore normal mode. Repeat anytime login is required.

NEW Since 5.21.19-1 you can also set NO_REDIRECT_URL environment variable to the url (or a comma separated list of urls) of the OAuth provider.

Freeze ?

If sometimes the app looks like beeing frozen, and comes back to life after a few seconds, you may want to try --disable-gpu flag when starting the app from a terminal. It is a known issue with electron, especially with intel video drivers (you may want to try modesetting driver instead by the way).

You may want to /usr/share/applciations/google-chat-linux.desktop and add the flag on the Exec line. (do it at each new version or copy the .desktop file to $HOME/.local/share/applications/)

build and run

npm install
./google-chat-linux.sh

make it work manually

npm install electron
export PATH=$HOME/node_modules/.bin:$PATH

fix the rights on sandbox executable as the error message will suggest:

sudo chown root:root $HOME/node_modules/electron/dist/chrome-sandbox && sudo chown 4755 $HOME/node_modules/electron/dist/chrome-sandbox
electron .

OR if you're in a hurry :

export ELECTRON_DISABLE_SANDBOX=true; export NODE_OPTIONS="--no-force-async-hooks-checks"; electron .

Linux packages

Arch (Manjaro, Anarchy)

a package 'google-chat-linux-bin' is availabe on AUR for Arch Linux and derivatives.

Debian based (Ubuntu, Mint ...)

Have a look in tags section, download the relevant .deb file and install with sudo dpkg -i <package-name.db> command. (Thank you CYOSP ;-) )

Tested on Ubuntu 18.04, 20.04, 21.04, Mint 20.1

Note some environment variables are set in index.js : GTK_USE_PORTAL, ELECTRON_DISABLE_SANDBOX and NODE_OPTIONS="--no-force-async-hooks-checks". This should work. Else, set them manually.

rpm based (Fedora)

Have a look in tags section, download the relevant .rpm file and install with sudo dnf install <package-name.rpm> command.

manually build a deb package

You have two options - either install all build dependencies and then run :

npm run dist

Or install docker (or podman) container engine and then create a local container with all build dependencies :

npm run container:setup

and then create the package by running:

npm run container:build:deb

In the end you'll end up with .deb file in dist/. Run for instance sudo dkpg -i dist/google-chat-linux*.deb.

Installation of the .deb file is tested under Ubuntu, and works fine. Under Mint it installs well but react with emotes crashes the app. Go wonder.

NOTE : to run from a terminal you'll have to :

• either sudo chown root:root /opt/google-chat-linux/chrome-sandbox && sudo chown 4755 /opt/google-chat-linux/chrome-sandbox after the .deb is inYYstalled
• or run export ELECTRON_DISABLE_SANDBOX=true; export NODE_OPTIONS="--no-force-async-hooks-checks" before the launch of /opt/google-chat-linux/google-chat-linux

The provided .desktop file takes care of it, so running from your desktop launcher will work.

Windows package

A package is available in releases. Or else build it yourself :

npm run dist

A Setup.exe will be built under \dist\ directory.

rpm based distributions (Fedora)

Install podman (or docker) container engine and then create a local container with all build dependencies :

npm run container:setup

and then create the package by running:

npm run container:build:rpm

In the end you'll end up with .rpm file in dist/. Run for instance sudo dnf install dist/google-chat-linux*.rpm.

Systray Support

Note : from 0.5 on, electron 9 bring back Tray integration BUT "click" events are ignored.

Workaround for the tray 'click' event

sudo touch /opt/google-chat-linux/libappindicator3.so
sudo touch /opt/google-chat-linux/libappindicator3.so.1

this way : left click raises the window again !

These files are added in distributed packages... in hope there are no side effects.

https://github.com/electron/electron/issues/14941

More precisely:

• On Linux the app indicator will be used if it is supported, otherwise GtkStatusIcon will be used instead.
• When app indicator is used on Linux, the click event is ignored.
• https://www.electronjs.org/docs/api/tray
• There is sadly nothing I can do about it. (except cry a bit as such nonsenses and wonder how other apps (slack, telegram) deal with all this)