| Flatpak is a software platform that runs on top of Linux. It has idiosyncrasies by design. | |
| This page provides some solutions to work with flatpak. | |
| Exactly how to use Flatpak needs to refer [Flatpak's documentation](https://docs.flatpak.org/) | |
| These solutions use [Flatseal](https://github.com/tchx84/Flatseal), but directly using the `flatpak` command or KDE's [flatpak-kcm](https://invent.kde.org/plasma/flatpak-kcm) works as well. | |
| !!! note | |
| Feel free to add new solutions by clicking the edit button on the top right. | |
| ## Add external programs | |
| Problem: Apps inside Flatpak cannot run programs on the host system directly. | |
| Solution: Use `flatpak-spawn --host`. | |
| First, add `org.freedesktop.Flatpak` to allowed session bus. | |
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| Then add application like `flatpak-spawn --host --directory=${the external program's pwd will be set to this value} ${The actual commands}`. | |
| For example, [Translate Shell](https://github.com/soimort/translate-shell) can be added to GoldenDict as `flatpak-spawn --host --directory=. trans -no-ansi %GDWORD%`. | |
| ## Uses fixed paths instead of `/run/user/1000/doc/...` | |
| Apps inside Flatpak don't have direct access to filesystem by default. A directory selected in file chooser will be exported to app as `/run/user/1000/doc/...`. The exported directories can be listed with `flatpak documents --columns=id,origin,application` | |
| If you want to use fixed paths instead, just grant GolenDict either the whole file system, the whole home or a specific path. | |
| Note that some special paths in the host system like `\tmp` cannot be accessed by flatpak apps in any way. | |
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