Flatpak Maven Plugin

Generate a Flatpak manifest and other required files from a Maven POM to create a distributable application. It will turn your Java application into a Flatpak package, which can easily be installed and launched by Linux users of any distribution that supports Flatpak.

• Generates a directory of files from which flatpak-builder can be run to build a package.
• Either copies dependencies, or links to their original locations on Maven Central (in which case the package build downloads them). This makes for a small packages.
• Generates the Flatpak manfiest using a the simple build system.
• Generates AppStream metadata from POM metadata and plugin configuration.
• Generates Desktop Entry from POM metadata and plugin configuration.
• Copies icons, screenshots and thumbnails to package data.
• Generates launcher script.
• Detects version and adds Java Flatpak SDK extension.
• Runs flatpak-builder on generated directory to create and install a Flatpak for testing.

It is not a Flatpak Build System, although this may be a first step towards that.

Note that the name of this Github no longer matches the plugin artifact ID, flatpak-maven-plugin.

Maven Goals

Two goals are currently provided.

• generate. Generates Flatpak Manifest and other data for your Maven Java application.
• create. Generates a generic Flatpak Manifest and other data.
• build. Builds and optionally install the Flatpak for testing.

Getting Started.

Add Plugin To Your POM

This plugin is available in Maven Central shortly.

<plugin>
	<groupId>uk.co.bithatch</groupId>
	<artifactId>flatpak-maven-plugin</artifactId>
	<version>0.0.3</version>
	<configuration>
		<!-- TODO add configuration -->
	</configuration>
</plugin>

Configure Your POM

The plugin takes as much information as it can from other standard POM elements, so it is important that you fill in as many of these as possible. This includes ..

• <artifactId> and <groupId>. A POM requires these anyway, they are used to derive the full namespace of the App Id.
• <name/>. Required, used for application meta-data and desktop entry.
• <description/>. Required, used for application meta-data and desktop entry.
• <url/>. Required. Used for application meta-data.
• <licenses/>. Required. Used for application meta-data. The <name> must be a valid SPDX License Identifier.
• <scm/>. Optional. Used for application meta-data.
• <issueManagement/>. Optional. Used for application meta-data.
• <developers/>. Optional. Used for application meta-data.

Add Resources

The plugin expects resources to exist in a standard location (the locations of which can be overridden by configuration).

• src/flatpak/icons should contain a single file, preferably named icon with any supported image extension (.svg is recommended).
• src/flatpak/screenshots should contain a single file, preferable named screenshot with any supported image extension (.jpg is recommended).
• src/flatpak/thumbnails should contain at least one file, preferable named thumbnail with any supported image extension (.jpg is recommended).

Configure The Plugin

For anything else that cannot be determined in any other way, you must provide plugin configuration. The bare minimum for this is the <mainClass/>.

<configuration>
	<mainClass>com.acme.Abc</mainClass>
</configuration>

You very probably want to add your own portals too. Do this by overriding the <manifest/> and the <finishArgs/> within.

<configuration>
	...
	<manifest>
		<finishArgs>
			<finishArg>--socket=x11</finishArg>
			<finishArg>--filesystem=home</finishArg>
		</finishArgs>
	</manifest>
</configuration>

You probably want to supply your own appId if the automatically derived one does not suit your needs.

<configuration>
	<manifest>
		<appId>com.acme.Abc</appId>
	</manifest>
</configuration>

A more complete example ..

<configuration>
	<mainClass>com.acme.Abc</mainClass> <!-- required -->
	<modules>false</modules> <!-- disable JPMS -->
	<manifest>
		<appId>com.acme.Abc</appId>
		<sdkExtensions>
			<sdkExtension>org.freedesktop.Sdk.Extension.openjdk17</sdkExtension>
		</sdkExtensions>
		<finishArgs>
			<finishArg>--socket=session-bus</finishArg>
			<finishArg>--socket=x11</finishArg>
			<finishArg>--socket=ssh-auth</finishArg>
			<finishArg>--device=dri</finishArg>
			<finishArg>--share=network</finishArg>
			<finishArg>--share=ipc</finishArg>
			<finishArg>--filesystem=home</finishArg>
		</finishArgs>
	</manifest>
	<launcherPreCommands>
		<launcherPreCommand>echo '(C) 2023 AwesomeSuperSofwareSolutions Ltd'</launcherPreCommand>
	</launcherPreCommands>
	<excludeArtifacts>
		<!-- not needed by flatpak version, so exclude it -->
		<excludeArtifact>com.install4j</excludeArtifact>
	</excludeArtifacts>
	<iconFile>src/main/svg/icon.svg</iconFile> <!-- icon not in standard location -->
</configuration>

Any element in either the <manifest/>, <desktopEntry/> or <metaInfo/> can generally be overridden. There are also lots of other options in the root <configuration/>.

Usage

mvn clean package uk.co.bithatch:maven-flatpak-plugin:generate

This will by default generate the Flatpak manifest and others in target/app. So from here you can build the package.

cd target/app
flatpak-builder build-dir com.acme.Abc.yml

And then test and run.

flatpak-builder --user --install --force-clean build-dir com.acme.Abc.yml
flatpak run com.acme.Abc

Find out more in the official documentation.

Bind The Plugin To A Phase

You might want to generate the Flatpak data as part of the standard Maven package phase.

<executions>
	<execution>
		<id>myapp-flatpak</id>
		<phase>package</phase>
		<goals>
			<goal>generate</goal>
		</goals>
	</execution>
</executions>

In which case you can just do mvn clean package.

Changes

0.0.3

• Support the complete manifest in <manifest>.
• Allow creation of generic flatpaks (i.e. without a Java application). I am using this to build a Flatpak for an Eclipse based product using Tycho. This already deals with dependencies and products an executable bundle for the current platform.

TODO

There is a lot still to do, some highlights include.

• Auto-detect main class.
• Publish to Flathub.
• Investigate Flatpak build systems.
• More app types.