smarie / env-switcher-gui Goto Github PK

This might be quite a special and niche request:

Provide a systray icon.
Offer env switching via context menu.
Indicate current env via symbol.

I do have the very problem you describe as an example:
Having to toggle proxy env setting depending on whether I'm using a VPN or not.

Working like that, one pain is what you describe: having to edit env variables.
I just prefix the keys so they don't get recognized, whenever I do not want to use certain envvars.
That makes that one way easier.

But the bigger pain for me is keeping in mind the current state.
I hope a visible indicator would catch my eyes enough that I would remember about the current settings, before the commands that need different settings fail.

So the idea would be that users can assign a certain appereance (icon? rather just color?) to certain environments and env-switcher-gui would use them whenever the environment matches the current settings.
Handling different simultaneously applying envs is not something I would consider in a first revision.
Even just keeping track of what was set through env-switcher-gui might be "good enough" for a first implementation.

The indicator should always be visible, be reasonably easy and lightweight to implement and nor disturb, nor interfere with OS features, so the systray seems a good place for me.

Thanks for reading and maybe even considering :)

The cli could for example reuse by default the last file edited with the GUI, and provide a flag to select a different file.

@smarie: Here is the small experiment you expected about your GUI tool on my Linux

benoit@mirabelle:~/Téléchargements/envswitch-1.3.0-linux-x86_64-3.5$ ls
envswitch      imageformats  libpython3.5m.so.1.0  libQt5Widgets.so.5  LICENSE       platforms  VERSION__
envswitch_gui  lib           libQt5Core.so.5       libyaml-0.so.2      LICENSE-PyQt  README.md
envswitch.ico  libffi.so.6   libQt5Gui.so.5        libz.so.1           LICENSE-Qt    resources
benoit@mirabelle:~/Téléchargements/envswitch-1.3.0-linux-x86_64-3.5$ ./envswitch_gui &
[1] 6220
benoit@mirabelle:~/Téléchargements/envswitch-1.3.0-linux-x86_64-3.5$ *** ENVSWITCH <1.3.0> ***
This application failed to start because it could not find or load the Qt platform plugin "xcb"
in "".

Available platform plugins are: linuxfb, minimal, offscreen, xcb.

Reinstalling the application may fix this problem.

[1]+  Abandon                 (core dumped) ./envswitch_gui
benoit@mirabelle:~/Téléchargements/envswitch-1.3.0-linux-x86_64-3.5$ ./envswitch --help
Usage: envswitch [OPTIONS] COMMAND [ARGS]...

  Envswitch commandline. Use 'envswitch COMMAND --help' to get help on any
  specific command below.

Options:
  --version  Show the version and exit.
  --help     Show this message and exit.

Commands:
  apply
  list
  open
benoit@mirabelle:~/Téléchargements/envswitch-1.3.0-linux-x86_64-3.5$ rm libQt5*.so*
rm : supprimer fichier 'libQt5Core.so.5' ? y
rm : supprimer fichier 'libQt5Gui.so.5' ? y
rm : supprimer fichier 'libQt5Widgets.so.5' ? y
benoit@mirabelle:~/Téléchargements/envswitch-1.3.0-linux-x86_64-3.5$ ./envswitch_gui 
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/home/travis/miniconda/lib/python3.5/site-packages/cx_Freeze/initscripts/__startup__.py", line 14, in run
  File "/home/travis/miniconda/lib/python3.5/site-packages/cx_Freeze/initscripts/Console.py", line 26, in run
  File "envswitch/gui.py", line 19, in <module>
ImportError: /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libQt5Core.so.5: version `Qt_5.6' not found (required by /home/benoit/Téléchargements/envswitch-1.3.0-linux-x86_64-3.5/lib/python3.5/PyQt5/QtCore.so)
benoit@mirabelle:~/Téléchargements/envswitch-1.3.0-linux-x86_64-3.5$ ls
envswitch      envswitch.ico  lib          libpython3.5m.so.1.0  libz.so.1  LICENSE-PyQt  platforms  resources
envswitch_gui  imageformats   libffi.so.6  libyaml-0.so.2        LICENSE    LICENSE-Qt    README.md  VERSION__

The command line interface seems to work fine but the GUI tool does not work with your Qt shared library. It does not work also with the Qt of my system (from the official Ubuntu repository) because of a version problem.

How could we integrate this

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/25611205/proxy-setting-in-windows-via-python

in envswitch, without making it a tool dedicated to proxy switching ?

https://smarie.github.io/env-switcher-gui/network_config.yml > 404

Currently if you use the CLI as in envswitch <my_env>, you need to restart your command terminal to see the change.

Hints on how to do this:

• https://stackoverflow.com/questions/171588/is-there-a-command-to-refresh-environment-variables-from-the-command-prompt-in-w
• https://github.com/chocolatey/chocolatey/blob/master/src/redirects/RefreshEnv.cmd

If the variables of the proxy exist as local environment variables and as system environment variabes, then activating the mode "no_proxy" doesn't have any effect, since only the local ones will be deleted, but the system ones persist and the proxy remains active. Maybe some automatic check whether this situation is the case should be done to provide a message to the user if this is the case.

In the status bar or an 'About' menu ..

In file envswitch/env_api_linuximpl.py the functions should perform the same thing than in envswitch/env_api_winimpl.py, that is, get/set environment variables directly on the OS, outside of the current process. Note: this cannot be done with a process fork, it really requires OS-specific knowledge about how the environment variables work.

Various possibilities exist (https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/117467/how-to-permanently-set-environmental-variables), what should we implement as a good 'default' behaviour ? (testing and switch/case is allowed if no single behaviour is acceptable)

Currently it is 40Mo ! Let's remove all useless packages explicitly in cx_Freeze