fix: about panel crash

[clavin]

Description of Change

This code causes a crash bc the about_panel_options_ gets initialized as a base::Value, thus not a Dict, and the calls to GetDict() fail. This just changes that type to a base::Value::Dict and everything 🪄 magically ✨ works. Added a sanity test as a cherry on top.

EDIT: This PR now also unifies every platform by making showAboutPanel run asynchronously, where before it varied platform to platform. I think this would be the sensible default for the about panel (fire and forget), but if "run code after closing" is desired, either recommend users to pursue a different solution (e.g. use a BrowserWindow) or we can choose to implement the callback proper later. This will be broken into a separate PR.

Release Notes

Notes: Setting the about panel's options no longer crashes.

[MarshallOfSound]

@deepak1556 It actually crashed inside SetAboutPanelOptions --> https://github.com/electron/electron/pull/37373/files#diff-43f417c3f78558ea55277f32e1a078b6bb6c19be7699a2cf61c7020d78f1110dL540 because GetDict() was invalid on an uninitialized base value

[codebytere]

@clavin this is stalling/failing on Windows

[clavin]

Yeah I'm trying to get a build going on my Windows machine to figure out why the app is just hanging when it gets to the new tests

[clavin]

Apparently app.showAboutPanel() is a blocking call on Windows and Linux, but not on macOS 😶

[codebytere]

@clavin imo just gate it to linux for now

[clavin]

I fixed the issue by making this API non-blocking on all platforms, instead of just on one. That might mean this should have a different semver? To be clear, the docs didn't state the behavior one way or the other, but this still could theoretically cause code relying on the blocking (if there is any???) to execute earlier than intended.

[clavin]

I'm going to mark this as needing API review, just in case.

[deepak1556]

It would be good to split the async behavior change to a different PR for api-wg review, the dictionary crash fix is good to merge irrespective of it.

[erickzhao]

API LGTM

[clavin]

I did both at the same time because I wanted to add a test covering the crash, which is impossible when the method is synchronous :/

But I'm happy to split the test & async change both into a separate PR if it makes things easier :)

[deepak1556]

I think the test for setAboutPanelOptions is good enough for this PR to cover #37373 (comment), adding test for showAboutPanel can be in the async refactor PR.

[clavin]

Done 🫡 This PR now only has the crash fix and the API change will be split into a separate PR

[release-clerk]

Release Notes Persisted

Setting the about panel's options no longer crashes.

[trop]

I was unable to backport this PR to "22-x-y" cleanly;
you will need to perform this backport manually.

[trop]

I was unable to backport this PR to "23-x-y" cleanly;
you will need to perform this backport manually.

[trop]

I have automatically backported this PR to "24-x-y", please check out #37442