bug: (undocumented) gnome-terminal profile <name> must be UUID

[MichaelMMacLeod]

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Issue description

Configuring gnome-terminal requires that <name> in profile.<name>.<option> be a UUID (any UUID works), but this is not documented. If it is anything other than a UUID then the profile will not be shown in the options or activated (even if it is marked as default).

For example, the following configuration correctly creates a profile whose visible name is "profile1":

programs.gnome-terminal = {
  enable = true;
  profile."060efe23-3ab4-4c71-8a38-dd13f89b400d" = {
    visibleName = "profile1";
    audibleBell = false;
    customCommand = "zsh";
    default = true;
  };
  themeVariant = "dark";
  showMenubar = false;
};

I discovered this by running dconf watch /org/gnome/terminal/legacy/profiles:/ and then manually creating a new profile named "MyProfile". I got the following output:

/org/gnome/terminal/legacy/profiles:/:04aa0881-b94f-47a3-8f83-83bda85750aa/visible-name
  'MyProfile'

If, in the configuration, I replace profile."060efe23-3ab4-4c71-8a38-dd13f89b400d" with profile.profile1, I get the following output from dconf:

/org/gnome/terminal/legacy/profiles:/:profile1/visible-name
  'profile1'

The profile only seems to be created when the <name> in /org/gnome/terminal/legacy/profiles:/:<name>/visible-name is a UUID.

A fix for this could be to document that <name> must be a UUID.

Alternatively, given that <name> in profile.<name>.<option> doesn't have any good use other than to be a UUID, the following could be done:

1. the profile.<name>.visibleName option is removed;
2. <name> in profile.<name>.<option> is used to set /org/gnome/terminal/legacy/profiles:/:<UUID>/visible-name;
3. <name> in profile.<name>.<option> is passed to something akin to uuidgen --sha1 --namespace '@oid' --name profile.<name> to deterministically generate the UUID in /org/gnome/terminal/legacy/profiles:/:<UUID>/ for the profile.

Maintainer CC

@kamadorueda @rycee

System information

- system: `"x86_64-linux"`
 - host os: `Linux 6.1.25, NixOS, 23.05 (Stoat), 23.05.20230423.8f33856`
 - multi-user?: `yes`
 - sandbox: `yes`
 - version: `nix-env (Nix) 2.13.3`
 - nixpkgs: `/nix/var/nix/profiles/per-user/root/channels/nixos`

[ncfavier]

In addition to documentation, we could enforce that with something like

uuid = mkOption {
  default = name;
  type = types.strMatching "<uuid regex>";
};

in the profileSubModule.

Also NixOS/nixpkgs#193311 could help with this.

I'm not sure about automatically generating the UUID, I think that would cause unnecessary breakage and also would require IFD, which we generally want to avoid.

[stale]

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[rycee]

I think this got resolved in f58889c. Basically, the programs.gnome-terminal.profile option description now state that the name has to be an UUID. And there is an assertion verifying that they are UUIDs.

I'll close the issue, if you feel this is incorrect then feel free to comment and we'll reopen.