Patchmanager is a tool that can be used to modify the Sailfish OS user experience. It is based on AUSMT (Auto-Update System Modification Technology), a set of scripts that enables system file patching.
Patchmanager does not have application icon on the launcher. After installation Patchmanager can be found inside Settings.
To install Patchmanager you first need to install Storeman (https://openrepos.net/content/osetr/storeman-installer), then install Patchmanager 3 from OpenRepos using Storeman. Alternatively you may download the recent Patchmanager RPM from OpenRepos (https://openrepos.net/content/coderus/patchmanager-30) and install it manually.
RPM patches can be installed from OpenRepos per Storeman or manually downloaded from https://openrepos.net/category/patches
Patches available via Web Catalog are listed and detailed here: https://coderus.openrepos.net/pm2/projects/
To write a patch, you need to provide at least two files: a patch file and the JSON metadata
The patch file must be a diff of all the files to be patched in the filesystem.
It will be applied on the root of the filesystem, with the -p1 flag.
It must be named unified_diff.patch.
Usually, you can generate one of these patch files using the following command
diff -ur original/ patched/ > unified_diff.patchwhere original and patched contains the original and modified files.
The metadata file contains information about the patch. It is a simple JSON file, that must be named patch.json.
This file contains the title of the patch, a short description of the patch, a category, and other information. Here is a sample of a metadata file.
{
"name": "My super patch",
"description": "Some description.",
"category": "other",
"infos": {
"maintainer": "Foo Bar"
}
}The category entry must be one of the following list:
- browser
- camera
- calendar
- clock
- contacts
- gallery
- homescreen
- media
- messages
- phone
- settings
- silica
- others
Some of these entries allow specific actions to be triggered, such as relaunching the homescreen or the preloaded services.
A maintainer can be registered inside the JSON metadata file to claim maintainership of a patch. Either use your real name, as displayed on Github or Twitter, or use your usual nickname.
Patchmanager starting from version 2.0 can utilize additional files to provide better users experience. All files shall be placed in the same folder.
- main.qml - QML page with some additional info about patch and/or configuration. Will be shown when user taps on the patch entry inside Patchmanager.
- main.png or main.svg - Icon for the patch, which will be displayed at the list of patches, at right corner after patch name.
- translation_<LANG_CODE>.qm - Translation files for QML page, to allow patch developers to translate texts to various languages.
- Any additional .qml, .js, .png files used by QML page are allowed.
Patchmanager supports installing patches from its web catalog. Patch developers can upload patches to https://coderus.openrepos.net/pm2 to make them visible inside Patchmanager Web Catalog list. When uploading a patch to web catalog, the patch developer should not provide a patch.json file with metadata, but should fill the necessary fields on the webpage before uploading, instead.
Patches can be too complex for Patchmanager's Web Catalog. In this case the developer can package the patch as an RPM and upload it at https://openrepos.net
For RPM patches, the patch content shall be installed in a directory /usr/share/patchmanager/patches/<patch-name>/; additional files (see above) for this patch shall also be placed there.
Additionaly, when a patch developer decides to package a patch as an RPM, the compatibility of patch (to SailfishoS versions, instrastructure it uses etc.) shall be properly defined by RPM spec file dependencies ("Requires:", "Conflits:" etc.).
Sample RPM patch project: https://github.com/CODeRUS/sailfishos-disable-glass-avatar