Julian Sparber

Developer, tinkerer, hacker at heart

Website: https://juliansparber.com
Blog: https://blogs.gnome.org/jsparber/

Last Notes

2025-12-17 17:26:30 UTC

Today a friend and I spend a few hours building Reflection on MacOS. App icon is missing for some reason but the rest feels pretty great 😁
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/115/736/066/886/610/281/original/90fd8bbafdf524cd.mp4

2025-09-29 17:28:27 UTC

Reflection is now actually local-first, and almost the entire code base doesn't care whether you have network, or whether your device can't establish a connection to other devices via p2panda.
Still not merged nor fully polished but we are getting there :)
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/115/288/752/049/567/211/original/a10b4a44b71a9f43.mp4

2025-02-14 10:22:52 UTC

Finally got the notification grouping merged into GNOME Shell. You should expect it in GNOME 48 🎉
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/114/001/738/878/362/986/original/b8ab48e7f5cfdb93.mp4

2025-01-09 16:38:09 UTC

Looks like it would be pretty easy to build an office suite that follows the GNOME HIG.
I recently figured out there is a LibreOffice tiled render that can be embedded into GTK, there is even a prototype in core of LibreOffice.
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/113/799/325/140/135/554/original/f5cf34d37890a803.png

2024-10-17 16:05:40 UTC

I think we reached an important milestone today about my work on modernizing notifications in GNOME and for the FreeDesktop.
Most of the improvements I proposed for version 2 of the xdg-desktop-portal got merged today. This has been a long journey and many thanks go to everybody involved, especially to those who reviewed the my changes 🎉
If you haven’t followed the journey: https://github.com/flatpak/xdg-desktop-portal/pull/1298

2024-10-06 18:05:46 UTC

Thanks for everybody for coming. I hope we will have an other Hackfest in Bologna soon.
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/113/261/796/305/119/876/original/334bc87eb832a6db.jpg
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/113/261/796/305/293/140/original/e2ee07087dce1121.jpg
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https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/113/261/796/310/684/284/original/bffc6fdf257286ef.jpg

2024-10-06 13:54:38 UTC

The first local GNOME hackfest in Bologna is going great. We are around 20 people way more then expected. People are learning, hacking and chatting.
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/113/260/800/809/267/114/original/06c960aef02a2632.jpg
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/113/260/804/701/122/179/original/8ec4ce6b0eaa2177.jpg
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/113/260/804/767/813/876/original/5101c1972fc85d3f.jpg
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/113/260/813/903/124/168/original/91873917d5bb6a18.jpg

2024-10-04 21:23:57 UTC

I'm not a UI designer, but I spend a few hours creating mockups for the app we are gonna build on Sunday.
I wend over them together with @npub1dkc…3gke, and I was surprised how few changes he suggested. I guess looking up what other apps do and copying is a good way to make an app look and feel good 😁
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/113/251/233/055/741/565/original/a5aca78b061f6354.png
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/113/251/233/072/469/567/original/941c4f96b7df5e37.png
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/113/251/234/388/355/647/original/e8cf2a56a3ac3aef.png

2024-10-04 10:35:53 UTC

Exciting update about the hackfest: We will now offer lunch for participants of the hackfest. 🍲
The lunch will cost about 8 Euros. A friend volunteered to cook for us with the deal that any extra funds would go to the local social bicycle association Efesta (https://efesta.net), which we both are part of.
The event will be so much bigger than I anticipated, already more than 15 people signed up.🎉
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/113/248/526/940/967/652/original/33ff619738883e82.png

2024-09-26 16:45:10 UTC

- reply

Same event but now with a nice graphic. 😁
If you want to participate, add yourself to the list at https://pad.gnome.org/hackfest-bologna-2024#
#gnome #bologna #italy
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/113/204/860/231/120/132/original/4b83b33bcbd70940.png

2024-09-24 13:29:27 UTC

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The first local GNOME hackfest in Bologna will happen on the 6 of October.
We will try to create a simple Rust/GTK app for the 2FA mechanism used by Lepdia a SPID (Italian's public digital identity system) provider.
If you live close by and want to join you can find more details and add yourself to the list in this [pad](https://pad.gnome.org/s/hackfest-bologna-2024)

2024-09-20 14:24:57 UTC

Ever wondered how focus stealing prevention works in GNOME Shell? Or why you see "<App> is ready" notification?
https://blogs.gnome.org/shell-dev/2024/09/20/understanding-gnome-shells-focus-stealing-prevention/

2024-09-06 15:17:35 UTC

I'm planing a Hackfest for October in Bologna (Italy) to foster a local GNOME community and to have fun working on a project with multiple people.
The idea for the Hackfest is to write a GNU/Linux app (using Rust and GTK) for the 2FA mechanism used by Lepida ID a SPID (Italian's public digital identity system) provider.
Feel free to reach out if you would like to join.

2024-08-13 10:09:10 UTC

If you missed my talk about notifications during the #miniguadecberlin the recordings are online https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RtN1EeVNa_Q