Synapse

Still alive?

Asked by Giovanni De Francesco

Hi everyone, I really like this software and I particularly love the fact that is written in vala, making it a perfect match for ElementaryOS. However, the project seems no longer maintained, can somebody confirm this?

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Manfred Hampl (m-hampl) said : 		#1

I see some recent changes (a month ago) in https://launchpad.net/~synapse-core/+archive/ubuntu/testing and https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/synapse (new version 0.2.99.3 for bionic)
So I assume that the project is still alive.

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Hrotkó Gábor (roti-al) said : 		#2

+1 to keep it alive!

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tellapu (tellapu) said : 		#3

I would write +100 to keep it alive. It is/was so much better than the other launchers.
But it seems that there is not much activity lately and no answers to crucial bugs. It does not work well for me in Ubuntu 18.04 as it does not find many (recently used) files :(. But I still hope for a sign of life and hopefully soon some bug fixing!

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Manfred Hampl (m-hampl) said : 		#4

Just an additional remark:

If the version of a package in Ubuntu does not have "ubuntu" in its version number (e.g. "0.2.99.4-1" versus "0.2.8.2-1ubuntu1.1"), then this package has just been copied from Debian without the need of any Ubuntu-specific modification.

I see that the latest versions of synapse in Ubuntu have been copied form Debian, so maybe it would be better to contact the maintainers of synapse in Debian for information about developments in and around synapse.

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tellapu (tellapu) said : 		#5

Manfred, thanks for the remark, very helpful!
I tried to find the maintainers of Synapse. I only found this page:
https://packages.debian.org/jessie-backports/synapse
Which links back to launchpad.

But there are two names indicated:
    Tomasz Buchert
    Andres Salomon

I might try to email them.

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tellapu (tellapu) said : 		#6

It seems Synapse is not actively developed anymore :( . I will miss it dearly!
Andres wrote: "Sorry, I stopped using it a few years ago. "
I still have a slight hope somebody will turn up and maintain this great piece of software!

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Chigozirim Chukwu (eugenerjones) said : 		#7

Looks like an unofficial fork is actively maintained here:

https://github.com/MichaelAquilina/synapse-project

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tellapu (tellapu) said : 		#8

Thank you Eugene! This looks promising although there seems to be no update for a year. It would be great if there would be an easier to install it on Ubuntu. Have you installed it on Ubuntu (18.04 and later)?

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tellapu (tellapu) said : 		#9

I just installed the deb-file (already two years old):
https://github.com/MichaelAquilina/synapse-project/releases/
It boots up correctly but I will see if Synapse will behave better than before.

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tellapu (tellapu) said : 		#10

The forked Synapse version is better than the older version on Launchpad/Repository but no updates for two years as well. There are similar issues it seems:
https://github.com/MichaelAquilina/synapse-project/issues/18

But I have not found a different launcher which is as good in finding recent files as Synapse did in the past :( .

Can you help with this problem?

Provide an answer of your own, or ask Giovanni De Francesco for more information if necessary.

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