nm-tray is missing a native Qt UI for editing connections

[Chris Guiver]

Lubuntu 18.10 and on is using nm-tray for network connections. Unfortunately it lacks a native connection editor and instead loads `nmtui-edit` in a terminal. This is substandard and makes dealing with things like VPNs impossible.

To be clear, with the switch to LXQt from LXDE, Lubuntu is attempting to use applications that do not require GTK. The Ubuntu Release Team imposes a requirement that prevents us from using cmst, otherwise it would be a better choice.

Lubuntu is tracking development of this here:
https://phab.lubuntu.me/T29

Currently a workaround is implemented in 19.10 that can be applied to 19.04. See https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/nm-tray/+bug/1782579/comments/4

[Chris Guiver (guiverc)]

I just clicked NM dialog on main screen on a daily image & noticed the 'connection info' & 'edit connections' boxes appear; xterm is not installed, so the issue has been fixed I believe.

(it's possible its been fixed for days; and I just noticed; my current daily image was downloaded about 18 hours ago)

[ԜаӀtеr Ⅼарсһуnѕkі (wxl)]

Chris, the issue of those menu options failing to work correctly because
(A) they were hardcoded to use xterm to open nmtui and (B) because xterm
wasn't installed and (C) because the default window size for qterminal
was too small has been solved for days. See
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/nm-tray/+bug/1786978 for more
on that bug and the package versions that fixed them.

The issue of needing a normal, native GUI interface is still there,
though. That's what this bug is about. I guess more realistically, it's
a wishlist item.

[ԜаӀtеr Ⅼарсһуnѕkі (wxl)]

Though the bug as described is still relevant, the workaround intended for Lubuntu 19.10 has been implemented— use GTK:

nm-tray (0.4.1-0ubuntu2) eoan; urgency=medium

  * Changed connection editor to nm-connnection-editor

 -- Hans P Möller <email address hidden> Mon, 01 Jul 2019 10:28:06 -0400

We've also made a change to the Lubuntu seed to include network-manager-gnome. We still need to change nm-tray to include this as a recommend, though, for other non-Lubuntu users of the package.

To fit this change to an existing install of, e.g. 19.04:

 1. Install network-manager-gnome
 2. Edit /usr/share/nm-tray/nm-tray.conf so that connectionsEditor=nm-connection-editor