Desktop: Menu Options not working on Linux

[dymdipi]

I'm using the AUR package "standardnotes-desktop 3.0.15-1" (I appreciate that this is unofficial but I'm hoping that I can get some suggestions) on Manjaro Linux, 'Linux 5.1.18-1-MANJARO' kernel using XFCE 4.13. Everything is fully up to date.

The Maximize/Minimize/Close buttons and top left menu button are not responding and the bottom menu with "Account", "Help", "Extensions" etc is also hidden. I have to scroll down for this bar/menu to be visible. It's hidden even if I expand or maximize the window. However if I do scroll down, the bottom menu/bar does function normally.

User "ivanjara" reports the same behaviour in the comments of the AUR package:
https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/standardnotes-desktop/

I installed the application via this command:

pamac build standardnotes-desktop

The maintainer of the package "FillFeile" suggested that this sounds like an application issue rather than a packaging issue and that's why I'm raising it here.

Thanks in advance.

[dagjaneiro]

Hi @dymdipi, can you try installing the AppImage available at https://standardnotes.org and check if it behaves the same?

[TylerBrock]

I'm having the same problem recently. Since it's an electron app it should be the same no matter how it was packaged.

[dagjaneiro]

@TylerBrock afraid it's not that linear. We've also received another report recently about issues with the menu bar in the AUR package (https://github.com/standardnotes/desktop/issues/373). It turns out those issues were not present in the AppImage.

[dymdipi]

I've tried the Appimage and can confirm that it works without issue. I'll report this to the AUR package maintainer.

Thanks

[rjocoleman]

Responding here incase anyone comes across it (or is interested)

I haven't looked at this specific code but it'll probably be the same as this: https://github.com/standardnotes/desktop/issues/358#issuecomment-500160551

AUR doesn't pin dependencies, it just grabs the latest version of them. standardnotes-desktop relies on Electron to build but an older version than the electron package in AUR. The Electron API has changed between the current version referenced in the AUR PKGBUILD and the version standardnotes-desktop depends on.

It's a packaging problem. In the referenced PR above I submitted a change to standardnotes-desktop to be compatible with both versions of the API but this is more to be compatible with the new API when standardnotes-desktop updates Electron version with the added benefit of helping out people in the situation that AUR is in.

My suggestion would be applying a patch in the AUR PKGBUILD to the standardnotes-desktop source code in to adjust the relevant code (which seems to be a reasonably common pattern in AUR to deal with backwards compatibility)

It might be this deprecation: https://github.com/electron/electron/blob/master/docs/api/breaking-changes.md#menu but who knows how many else.
In general building with different versions of dependencies is a bad idea as you get unpredictable results.