📱 Valent Connect Plugin for Noctalia

Integrate your mobile devices via the Valent backend. This plugin provides a seamless UI to interact with your phone, powered by Valent (an implementation of the KDE Connect protocol for GNOME/GTK environments).

What's New (v1.2.0) ✨

• 🚀 Reliable Refresh: Improved device discovery logic to ensure a single tap correctly updates the device list and status.
• 🎨 Improved Animation: Stabilized the header layout and implemented a smoother, more reliable refresh animation.
• ⚖️ License & Attribution: Properly relicensed under GPLv2 and added formal credit to the original KDE Connect plugin author, WerWolv.

Requirements

Packages:

• valent - the daemon (AUR: valent)
• gvfs - for SFTP mounting
• gvfs-mtp or gvfs-backends - GVfs backends including SFTP
• openssh - for SSH agent

SFTP & SSH Agent Setup:

Valent uses GVfs for SFTP mounting. This requires an active SSH agent to manage keys.

Enable SSH Agent: Recent GNOME installations move the SSH agent to a separate service. Enable it if not already running:

systemctl --user enable --now gcr-ssh-agent.socket

Environment Configuration: Add the following to your shell profile (e.g., ~/.zshenv or ~/.bashrc):

export SSH_AUTH_SOCK="$XDG_RUNTIME_DIR/gcr/ssh"

Verify Setup:

echo $SSH_AUTH_SOCK  # Should show /run/user/1000/gcr/ssh
ssh-add -l           # Should connect to the agent without error

Start the Daemon:

You can start Valent manually or via systemd:

systemctl --user enable --now valent
# OR
valent --gapplication-service

Niri Example (~/.config/niri/config.kdl):

If you use the Niri compositor, ensure the environment variables are imported:

environment {
    SSH_AUTH_SOCK "/run/user/1000/gcr/ssh"
}

spawn-at-startup "systemctl" "--user" "import-environment" "SSH_AUTH_SOCK"
spawn-at-startup "valent" "--gapplication-service"

Phone Setup

1. Install the KDE Connect app on your phone (Android/iOS).
2. Ensure your phone and desktop are on the same network.
3. Open the Valent Connect panel in Noctalia.
4. Select your device and click Pair.
5. Accept the pairing request on your phone.

Features 🌟

• 🔋 Battery Tracking: Real-time battery level and charging status.
• 📶 Connectivity Info: Signal strength and network type (5G, LTE, etc.).
• 🔔 Find My Phone: Ring your device remotely.
• 📡 Send Ping: Test connection with a notification.
• 📁 File Sharing: Send files from your PC to your phone.
• 📂 Browse Files: Mount and browse your phone's filesystem via SFTP.
• 💬 Notifications: View the number of active notifications on your device.
• 🔄 Manual Refresh: Trigger device discovery and update device state with a single tap.

Troubleshooting

• Device not appearing: Ensure both devices are on the same network and the Valent daemon is running (systemctl --user status valent).
• SFTP not working:
  • Verify SSH_AUTH_SOCK is correctly set.
  • Check if the phone's SFTP plugin is enabled in the KDE Connect app.
  • Manually test mounting: gio mount sftp://PHONE_IP:1739/.
• Logs: Check Valent logs for errors: journalctl --user -u valent -f.

Credits 💖

This plugin is heavily based on the excellent KDE Connect plugin created by WerWolv.

A huge thank you to WerWolv for their incredible work on the original implementation, on which this plugin is heavily based on.

Note: This plugin is licensed under the GNU General Public License v2.0. It is designed specifically for the Valent backend and does not require or use the kdeconnectd daemon.