The JSON based loading of the plugin exists since ~6 years. Maybe KF6 would be a good time to get rid of the old .protocol files?
The only usecase where the JSON metadata is not a drop-in replacement is for protocol files which only provide metadata and not an actual ioslave (like mailto), as discussed in https://invent.kde.org/frameworks/kio/-/merge_requests/362#note_246537
Some stuff still seems to use it, e.g. tags.protocol, to test https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=435586, I removed the .protocol file and that made the tags kio unreachable.
It there a way to detect code that is still using .protocol files only? (grep for some pattern?)
Some stuff still seems to use it
That is why deprecating is in the title ;) Removing it during KF5 times would of course not be possible.
It there a way to detect code that is still using .protocol files only? (grep for some pattern?)
Searching for the .protocol files itself should work fine. There is no cmake function to compile the files to JSON like there is with the desktop files.
Yes, I meant deprecate and port away from it, then remove in KF6.
I am guessing not all of them are needed, so how to tell? I vaguely remember some qCWarning() somewhere...
EDIT: removed list, not all of them are KIO slaves obviously...
OK, that's 37 (out of a total of 49 .protocol files in /usr/share/kservices5/ on my system, there could be more for stuff I don't have installed here):
about.protocol:2:exec=kf5/kio/about activities.protocol:2:exec=kf5/kio/activities akonadi.protocol:2:exec=kf5/kio/akonadi applications.protocol:2:exec=kf5/kio/applications baloosearch.protocol:2:exec=kf5/kio/baloosearch bookmarks.protocol:2:exec=kf5/kio/bookmarks bzip.protocol:2:exec=kf5/kio/filter bzip2.protocol:2:exec=kf5/kio/filter desktop.protocol:2:exec=kf5/kio/desktop filenamesearch.protocol:2:exec=kf5/kio/filenamesearch fish.protocol:2:exec=kf5/kio/fish fonts.protocol:2:exec=kio_fonts gzip.protocol:2:exec=kf5/kio/filter http_cache_cleaner.desktop:59:Exec=kio_http_cache_cleaner info.protocol:3:exec=kf5/kio/info iso.protocol:2:exec=kio_iso krarc.protocol:2:exec=kio_krarc ldap.protocol:2:exec=kf5/kio/ldap ldaps.protocol:2:exec=kf5/kio/ldap lzma.protocol:2:exec=kf5/kio/filter man.protocol:2:exec=kf5/kio/man metainfo.protocol:2:exec=kf5/kio/metainfo ms-its.protocol:2:exec=kio_msits mtp.protocol:2:exec=kf5/kio/mtp network.protocol:79:exec=kf5/kio/network pop3.protocol:2:exec=kf5/kio/pop3 pop3s.protocol:2:exec=kf5/kio/pop3 programs.protocol:2:exec=kf5/kio/applications recentdocuments.protocol:3:exec=kf5/kio/recentdocuments settings.protocol:2:exec=kf5/kio/settings sftp.protocol:2:exec=kf5/kio/sftp sieve.protocol:2:exec=kf5/kio/sieve tags.protocol:2:exec=kf5/kio/tags thumbnail.protocol:2:exec=kf5/kio/thumbnail timeline.protocol:2:exec=kf5/kio/timeline webcal.protocol:2:exec=kio_http xz.protocol:2:exec=kf5/kio/filter
Yes, I meant deprecate and port away from it, then remove in KF6.
Then I will consider this task as a go ahead!
EDIT: removed list, not all of them are KIO slaves obviously...
That confused me at first too, the slaves get installed to the plugin dir. This means that the KPluginLoader will try to load their metadata but recejt those because they contain no JSON.
https://invent.kde.org/graphics/okular/-/merge_requests/436
https://invent.kde.org/frameworks/baloo/-/merge_requests/63
https://invent.kde.org/multimedia/k3b/-/merge_requests/11
https://invent.kde.org/frameworks/kio/-/merge_requests/463
https://invent.kde.org/network/kio-extras/-/merge_requests/97
https://invent.kde.org/plasma/plasma-workspace/-/merge_requests/904
https://invent.kde.org/pim/kldap/-/merge_requests/4
https://invent.kde.org/network/krdc/-/merge_requests/17
https://invent.kde.org/utilities/krusader/-/merge_requests/48
https://invent.kde.org/plasma/bluedevil/-/merge_requests/40
https://invent.kde.org/multimedia/audiocd-kio/commit/47ec7f75b08dffca20c7f481f9e653b541760b03
https://invent.kde.org/graphics/kamera/commit/d09472c2bfca624730f12dc1b8e4088e067064bc
https://invent.kde.org/pim/libksieve/-/commit/436694ba0017b9c1b443561f155155f1964cb6d3
https://invent.kde.org/games/knavalbattle/-/commit/e03a5743d506a1e032d6bcfe0f32cbdc4057dfd9
https://invent.kde.org/system/kup/commit/fb3050dde1e2612bfb2aee91cb22bbb4581fbd10
Deprecated & internally ported with:
https://invent.kde.org/frameworks/kio/-/merge_requests/470