fix(linux): pass URLs through desktop launcher

[toonvanvr]

Issue

Signing in to to your SurrealDB account is not possible when using the .deb installer.

Relates to: #954

Cause

The OAuth callback URL is not passed as an argument to the surrealist executable when passing it to the .desktop launcher.

Solution

Alter the generated .desktop file by using a handlebars template to pass URLs.

[Desktop Entry]
Categories=Development;
-Exec=surrealist
+Exec=surrealist %U
Icon=surrealist
Name=Surrealist
Terminal=false
Type=Application
MimeType=text/x-surrealql;x-scheme-handler/surrealist

Choices made

• Using a handlebars template seems like the most correct way to work around this issue as there doesn't seem to be a more specific flag in the Tauri configuration to pass arguments to the surrealist command in the launcher in another way.
• Passing %U (multiple URLs) instead of %u (single URL) as the macOS seems to support multiple URLs too.
  

  surrealist/src-tauri/src/main.rs

  Line 128 in 78f7c43

  RunEvent::Opened { urls } => {

  • NOTE: I believe this isn't the case for Windows, as I think %1 means it picks only the first URL.
    

    surrealist/src-tauri/res/installer.nsi

    Line 561 in 78f7c43

    WriteRegStr SHCTX "Software\Classes\\{{protocol}}\shell\open\command" "" "$\"$INSTDIR\${MAINBINARYNAME}.exe$\" $\"%1$\""

• Added MimeType manually as it seemed missing in the variables provided by Tauri in their official documentation

Notes

• It might be worth checking out whether other arguments than URLs need to be supported, as this feature constrains the passed references to URLs and not files, for example.
• ! Signing out doesn't seem to work either. Is this a regression?

Verification

• The %U flag works when manually editing the .desktop file after installing the current official release 3.7.4
• The .deb build creates the .desktop file correctly in /usr/share/applications/Surrealist.desktop
• The .deb build works locally
• The .rpm build works

Caution

I was not able to get the .deb version to run correctly after the build due to my local setup, nor did I test the rpm version as I'm running Ubuntu.
AppImage didn't support a flag like this, and I'm not sure whether that's impacted.
⇒ Please verify these cases before merging

References

tauri.conf.json

• bundle.linux.deb.desktopTemplate (Tauri Documentation)
• bundle.linux.rpm.desktopTemplate (Tauri Documentation)

.desktop

• Exec= variables (Desktop Entry Specification)

[claude]

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[Copilot]

Pull request overview

Updates Linux bundle configuration so the generated .desktop launcher forwards OAuth callback URLs to the application, fixing Linux sign-in flows for .deb (and aligning .rpm).

Changes:

• Configure Tauri Linux deb and rpm bundling to use a custom desktopTemplate.
• Add a Handlebars-based .desktop template that appends %U to Exec= to forward URLs to the app.

Reviewed changes

Copilot reviewed 2 out of 2 changed files in this pull request and generated 2 comments.

File	Description
src-tauri/tauri.conf.json	Enables a shared .desktop template for Linux deb and rpm bundles.
src-tauri/res/desktop-template.desktop.hbs	Defines the .desktop template, including Exec={{exec}} %U to pass URLs through the launcher.

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[macjuul]

Thanks for your PR!

I was not able to get the .deb version to run correctly after the build due to my local setup, nor did I test the rpm version as I'm running Ubuntu.
AppImage didn't support a flag like this, and I'm not sure whether that's impacted.
⇒ Please verify these cases before merging

Unfortunately we don't have the capabilities internally to test the .deb version, so I will have to keep this PR open until a community member is able to confirm this fix