yes, it’s a rant. I don’t care.
Back in the days drag and drop was working perfectly fine, but now it’s a pain to use. I just installed mkvtoolnix dropped two files into it and it worked. Wanted to add another one and it didn’t. Guess it’s because it’s in a network share and for some reason that matters. Adding the file via the menu works though wtf? Reinstalled mkvtoolnix. Now natively instead of flatpack and now dropping from the network share works, too. Guess it’s some sandbox permission thing and who doesn’t love fiddling with permissions on a weekend.
Btw dropping a file into the file open dialog window also does not work when the program is installed as flatpack. Try explaining that to your mom and then think about why most people think linux is to complicated.
Also remember how you could drop a file instead of pasting its path? I just tried that to add the path of a video into a text file and it inserted the video into the text. Of course it froze the text editor. Great.
Also way too many times firefox opens a file then I drop it in instead of uploading it to the cloud storage I have opened and unzipping files by dragging them out of the archive manager is not possible for the last couple of years.
Honestly I don’t care about workarounds or if it’s a wayland, grnome or flatpack problem. These are basic functionality that I expect to just work
Gnome is going through growing pains right now.
I think it discovered it needed to use a different X/Y definition to be true to itself, or something.
KDE seems okay.
I see this with flatpaks, the solution might be to grant permission to the app to the part of the filesystem your dragging from with flatseal/cmdline.
HOWEVER I do think the desktop is missing a pop-up which offers to do this for you when it happens. This is how android does it when an app needs access outside its own files, you just get a prompt to allow it.
This is the sandbox future - it’s safer and you can trust that apps can’t go snooping around your system but users shouldn’t need to fiddle with perms all the time to get stuff done.
Friends don’t let friends use [flatpak|snap|etc]
True, but for some reason in the software center flatpack often is the only option even when it’s also in the repository. Sure I could install that one using the command line but then we are back at workarounds. On the other hand, not using flatpacks is also just a workaround
It’s not as black and white as they say. Flatpak is not a bad choice per se but not without tradeoffs and they can come with catches like this because of the security model. There is no one-size-fits-everyone here. If you want all your apps to have access to everything your user does and value convenience over the sandboxing, flatpaks might not be the best choice for your situation. Also like for any repo with external third-party uploads, quality varies a lot between apps and maintainers on flathub. Some are excellent and some are in a sorry state. Before installing from fllathub its a good idea to some basic due diligence on the package and maintainer before jumping in.
I agree with the IanTwenty that the UX has room for improvement in making it more obvious what’s going on and making it easier to manage customizations and overrides. For the time being, getting comfortable with Flatseal and learning more about Flatpaks seems like the best way for a user to make it work for them if defaults don’t work out.
Flatpak has tradeoffs and whatever is on flathub is not guaranteed to always be your best pick. That doesn’t make it Bad. Going as far as calling them harmful in general is hyperbole. It can still be a great option for many users.
Based on not knowing what your system looks like (OS, DE, how you’re moving files, where you’re moving them, etc), the first place I’d try is getting Flat Seal from the flatpak app store. It’s a permissions manager for flatpaks that might help you out. If you’re trying to move files into a folder that has escalated permissions, it may give you some problems. Try fiddling with the settings in Flat Seal.
I don’t really use flatpaks, so I couldn’t tell you exactly the setting to look at, sorry. Never had an issue with drag/drop myself.
Software as a whole is getting overly complicated and details are commonly overlooked or missed. It sucks I agree.
Yeah it’s always sucked and tbh the only place drag and drop has ever worked close to predictably is on the mac.
As someone who uses linux, mac and windows, if you rely on drag and drop working right you’re probably best served by using macos. Windows is a distant second but if you get familiar with its eccentricities then it’s doable too.
no
Op one of the reasons it’s frustrating for me to see so much focus put on flat packs, snaps, docker images and the like is that they manage to excel at doing their one expected thing, but throw everything else out by the wayside.
Frankly I think their prominence is a direct result of the way their goal is structured: make sure the “🚀getting started” section of the git/wiki works 100% of the time.
It’s a distillation of the poison ethos of technology companies dripping into the open source world. We are now moving fast and breaking things. Oh, the things we broke are the users environment? Well, it just so happens that we sell a premium product that integrates properly for a small subscription fee.
Comes here to rant about something…
Doesn’t even understand what he’s ranting about 🤣
Wanna give some details here, chief? Maybe someone can actually let you know what’s going on or fix it. What DE are you on, first of all?
No, you don’t understand what I’m ranting about. My point is, I should not need to fix anything. Drag and Drop is a basic feature from the 80s (?). Such big project as Wayland, Flatpack, gnome or whoever is at fault, should not release a software with such a feature not working reliably
Comes down to flatpak not really being part of your holistic system. And thus permissions.
Removed by mod
Flatpak:
Sucks
User:
Comes to linux community to complain
Maybe try submitting an issue to flatpak devs, contribute to it, or stop using it if it doesn’t work for you?
I never used flatpak and have no issues with drag and drop.
Try explaining that to your mom and then think about why most people think linux is to complicated.
Don’t rule out Wayland potentially being part of þe problem. Wayland’s security model comes wiþ trade-offs. Maybe someday all þe kinks will be worked out, but þe Wayland security-first design decision has caused many issues for Wayland users wiþ functions like screen savers and clipboards over þe years, and any inter-app or global service process communication is a potential area for quirky behavior.
Wayland’s security model comes wiþ trade-offs.
I try not to be too quick to blame the security nerds, because I’m afraid they will shut off my access. (I joke. I love you all…and please don’t shut off my access.)
But it is probably the security nerd stuff. (Thank you for keeping me safe, security nerds.)
Nah, dawg. Nah.
I don’t know if that’s really the way to go. I don’t even know if it’s a flatpack issue. Maybe it’s just this one program and the developer packaged it wrong. The archive manager is not a flatpack, so maybe it’s a completely different issue there or the same one and it’s unrelated to flatpacks at all. I have now idea and I should not have to, because, as I said, it’s a basic feature that worked for years and should still just do.
