Add a snap package (https://snapcraft.io)

[evandandrea]

Hi! I put together this PR to add a snap package. I've tested it on Ubuntu 16.04 and 17.10, but it should work just as well on Linux Mint, Manjaro, Debian, OpenSUSE, Solus, etc.

If you merge and yarn run build:electron it will create electron_app/dist/riot-web_0.13.3_amd64.snap.

Copy this to a Linux system, enable snap support, then run:
sudo snap install --dangerous riot-web_0.13.3_amd64.snap

Run with riot-web or find it in the launcher.

If you create a developer account and push this to the Snap Store, it can be discovered and installed through GNOME Software and https://snapcraft.io/discover. To create the developer account, sign up here, then register the "riot-web" name.

You'll need the snapcraft command to push the snap file to the store.

• If you're on a Mac, you can brew install snapcraft
• If you're on Linux, it's sudo snap install --classic snapcraft

Then you can push Riot out with:
snapcraft push riot-web_0.13.3_amd64.snap --release stable

(You can also push to the Snap Store programmatically from Travis.)

Signed-off-by: Evan Dandrea <evan@dandrea.co.uk>

[ara4n]

oh, very cool! thanks! will check asap. (any idea if there is a synapse snap out there?)

[t3chguy]

@ara4n https://github.com/matrix-org/package-synapse-snap

[NeoTheThird]

Any news on this? I'd really like to see this become default, so i don't have to built it myself or use the dreaded browser version any more...

[musoke]

I'm also looking forward to this

[tiny-pangolin]

this would be great to have especially since it would be on package that works on most distros.

[sulliwane]

Having snap support for Riot would be awesome (atom, skype, slack all have snap support, just missing Riot.im !)

[Mikaela]

I remember asking about this some days ago on #riot:matrix.org and hearing that there isn't enough bandwitdh for supporting snap at the moment and I remember there having been some confusion, but that these points had some significance:

• Merging this PR wouldn't automatically send a snap package to snapcraft.io?
• It's possible to send packages to snapcraft.io/store as a "candidate", "beta" or "edge" in which case users experienced especially searching would be able to install the snap, but it wouldn't be advertised for normal users until it was published as "stable".

  • stable is what most users will consume and as the name suggests, should be your most polished, stable and tested versions. Snaps in this channel appear in user searches.

  • Source: Release your snaps at docs.snapcraft.io

[evandandrea]

Merging this PR wouldn't automatically send a snap package to snapcraft.io?

Correct, we have some work to do before Electron projects can use the auto-build and auto-publish every git commit to edge functionality. The good news is that it's scheduled for this cycle, so you'll see it sometime before October.

It's possible to send packages to snapcraft.io/store as a "candidate", "beta" or "edge" in which case users experienced especially searching would be able to install the snap, but it wouldn't be advertised for normal users until it was published as "stable".

Worth noting that we plan to let users search candidate, beta, and edge this cycle as well.

[jryans]

Thanks for making this contribution a while back.

At the current time, we can't commit to taking on additional distribution methods as a team. Let's use the issue to track interest in the idea and we can reconsider in the future based on that.