Silently fails under Linux if xwininfo/xprop is missing · sindresorhus/get-windows#75

(4 comments) (0 reactions) (0 assignees)JavaScript (913 stars) (194 forks)user submission

enhancementhelp wanted

Description

Fails without further notice if xprop or xwininfo because they are either not installed, or not present in the PATH variable. If you ask me the promise should fail with a proper error when something fails (or throw an Error for the sync variant). The current behaviour makes debugging the root of the problem quite difficult.

https://github.com/sindresorhus/active-win/blob/430e6efc02823c1b04331a987012a519c360ab23/lib/linux.js#L109-L111

Also you might want to add that there is no Wayland support at the moment to the documentation especially considering the increasing popularity of Wayland.

I might PR this myself when I find the time.

Contributor guide

Tech stack: javascriptnodejs
Domain: desktop
Issue type: bug
Difficulty: 2
Estimated time: under 1 hour
Activity status: stale
Clarity: clear
Prerequisites: JavaScriptNode.jsUnderstanding of Promises
Newbie friendliness: 80
Research direction: The issue points to a specific location in lib/linux.js (lines 109-111) where the promises fail silently when xwininfo or xprop are missing. The contributor should modify that code to catch errors during execution and reject the promise with a meaningful error message, or throw an Error for the synchronous variant. Additionally, consider updating the documentation to note the dependency on these tools and the lack of Wayland support. Testing on a Linux system without xwininfo and xprop will help verify the fix.