Bug 507330 - KIO::highlightInFileManager does not work in Flatpak apps
Summary: KIO::highlightInFileManager does not work in Flatpak apps
Status: CONFIRMED
Alias: None
Product: frameworks-kio
Classification: Frameworks and Libraries
Component: general (other bugs)
Version First Reported In: 6.16.0
Platform: Other Linux
: NOR normal
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: KIO Bugs
URL:
Keywords:
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
Reported: 2025-07-21 19:26 UTC by Nate Graham
Modified: 2025-07-25 18:02 UTC (History)
5 users (show)

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Description Nate Graham 2025-07-21 19:26:28 UTC 
This is because it calls out to org.freedesktop.FileManager1, which is blacklisted by default in Flatpak.

Instead of whitelisting it in each one of our apps (manual and error-prone) or our SDK (over-broad and controversial), we can change the DBus call from:

org.freedesktop.FileManager1 /org/freedesktop/FileManager1 org.freedesktop.FileManager1 ShowItems

to:

org.freedesktop.portal.Desktop /org/freedesktop/portal/desktop org.freedesktop.portal.OpenURI.OpenDirectory

…but only if we detect we're in a sandbox.
Comment 2 David Edmundson 2025-07-21 21:18:42 UTC 
>…but only if we detect we're in a sandbox.

I can't see a reason to do that. It should work with anything.
Simpler code is better code.
Comment 3 Nate Graham 2025-07-21 21:44:52 UTC 
I guess it's a trade-off between code complexity vs internal implementation complexity. Always going through the portal means:
- A de facto dependency on xdg-desktop-portal in KIO
- A more complex internal path to opening the file manager, and therefore potentially lower speed and higher vulnerability to the portal functionality being broken
Comment 4 David Redondo 2025-07-22 09:02:54 UTC 
OpenDirectory only supports one File and you have to have an open fd to it