Hi,
I noticed that you now distribute as snap… Are you considering supporting Flatpak as well? It’s a lot more used IMHO and having both Snap and Flatpak would likely cover most Linux distros.
Hey, thanks for signing up!
Flatpak isn’t on our radar at the moment but I’m certainly not against supporting it in the future if it seems viable.
Feel free to create a GitHub issue so we don’t lose track of it 
Hey there! I’ve been out of the loop with Quelea for quite a while, but I thought I’d come back and see how development has gone since last I used the program.
So, I went to install it. I see there are no longer .deb files for Linux. I get that, as I remember you being very Ubuntu-centric back then as well. I see only Snap and crossplatform .jar available.
Snap: I’m using Linux Mint, which can technically use Snap, but I avoid that thing like the plague, because when I took the snapd block off of a previous Linux Mint install, it messed with my system and things got really slow. On my current system, I refuse to remove the snapd block. So Snap is a no-go for me. I refuse to use the thing.
Cross-platform: Trying out the crossplatform .jar installer, it says that it requires Java 8, and requires it to be the default Java. This messes with another program I have installed that needs a newer Java version to be default. I tried it without Java 8, but obviously it didn’t work. So, I can’t use this installer, either.
I see that Flatpak has been requested here and on Github. If my opinion counts for anything (which I admit it probably doesn’t), I also vote for a Flatpak package. Snap, as noted above, is very much Ubuntu-centric, and many more security/FOSS-focused Linux distros either can’t use, disable, or won’t allow snapd because of its proprietary nature on Ubuntu’s Snap servers. Because of this, Flatpak is a much more widely adopted Linux standard than Snap is, and is also available for Ubuntu, so your Ubuntu folks can still be just as well-supported. Using Flatpak would bring many more users to the table. Even AppImage would be more generally usable than Snap.
Again, this is just my own opinion. For now, until something more easily usable for my system is made available, I’ll just pass on Quelea this time around, and wish you guys the best of luck and God’s blessings on your project!
With respect to the crossplatform version:
- Quelea-2020.0 : jre-8
- Quelea-2021.0 : jre-8
- Quelea-2022.0 : jre-11, jre-21
- Quelea-2024.0 : jre-11, jre-21
On my debian test system I have installed all these Quelea cross-platform versions and jre versions. I start Quelea, with the required jre, using a .sh with essentialy the following statements (in this case: Quelea 2024.0 running with zulu jre-21):
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sudo update-alternatives --set java /usr/lib/jvm/zulu-fx-21-amd64/bin/java
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cd /usr/local/Quelea-2024.0/
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java --add-exports=javafx.graphics/com.sun.javafx.css=ALL-UNNAMED --add-exports=javafx.base/com.sun.javafx.runtime=ALL-UNNAMED --add-exports=javafx.base/com.sun.javafx.event=ALL-UNNAMED --add-opens java.base/java.lang=ALL-UNNAMED --add-opens javafx.controls/javafx.scene.control=ALL-UNNAMED -Dfile.encoding=UTF-8 -Dprism.dirtyopts=false -jar Quelea.jar
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sudo update-alternatives --auto java
Blessings,
DeeTigIT
I’ve just created a prototype Flatpak and submitted a PR request to change the CI/app build to enable Flatpaks to be submitted to Flathub.
You could follow the instructions in my PR if you want to run the Flatpak now, but this isn’t an official method yet, and will require some technical knowledge. If you don’t understand/can’t audit the Flatpak manifest, I wouldn’t recommend building it, and would recommend to wait until it might be published to Flathub.
Why don’t you have a look at my fork. I would be interestested in a distribution.
Realistically don’t expect much from the upstream. There is no response from the main dev anyway.
At least i am doing active development at the moment.
Hi Jessy, thanks for the offer. Cool features! 
I admire how much work you’ve put in and engage in the community, but for now I’ll stick to Quelea since I don’t necessarily need them and wish to get Official Quelea to a more stable place. It’d be cool if the stable release of Quelea had a plugin system where you could plug your additions in.
I do agree the development of Quelea has slowed down a lot, but I haven’t found it to be completely abandoned. I did see Berry pulled/merged a PR this/last week, so I’m a little hopeful, and of course, this isn’t his job, so I dont mind waiting a few weeks.
I do think maybe the core maintainer team could be expanded a little bit? 2/4 maintainers listed on the quelea-projection Github Team seem to be completely inactive in Github the last couple of years, and Berry is the only one that has continued to work on the project at intervals. Arvid also hasn’t been actively engaged in the project in the last couple of years.
I understand your intention, but I do have to note that “as slowed down a lot” is a significant understatement given a memory leak size of the Atlantic ocean has been hanging around for more than a year.
Regarding “It’d be cool if the stable release of Quelea had a plugin system where you could plug your additions in.” well, I already have that (90% there probably) but don’t have plugins to test with. If you are actually interested in that, it can be discussed.
Generally a well defined, convenient API (context) would be needed. The RChandler can sort of be used but it needs to be split into API handler and http handler to make it work properly.
As for the merge last week, I am not as optimistic as you. Where I am from we have a saying that one bird doesn’t make it spring.
It’s his project with 90% being his code and 1 significant contributor, there is no team.
It’s just him and everything it’s up to him.
Naturally, if as you say, he does an update for this year, great! That’s also good for me, I can merge, it’s fantastic.
But … after numerous messages, posts, emails, he remains mostly MIA.
Of course no one would blame him if his priorities changed. That’s normal life.
What is frustrating though, is that there was no announcement of any kind, or maybe a provision for someone to take over for him, or partner with him.
In this situation what the community really needed was a clear statement of what the intentions for the next one year or so are.
Then again, I really do hope you are right. Of course that would be ideal.
P.S. I am pretty much compatible with upstream. Consider making the same MR to my fork as well if nothing happens in a few weeks.
Yep I’ll definitely keep it in mind!