Backport Geary 0.4.1 to Ubuntu 12.04 (Precise Pangolin) / elementary Luna

We have had a number of requests from users to backport Geary 0.4 to Ubuntu 12.04 and elementary Luna (which is itself a flavor of 12.04). This is not a trivial task, as the libraries Geary depends on have significantly improved since 12.04, in particular WebKitGTK. Also, Geary 0.4.1 now relies on libraries unavailable in 12.04.

This task is being offered on Bountysource.com at https://www.bountysource.com/issues/1070853-backport-geary-0-4-1-to-ubuntu-12-04-precise-pangolin-elementary-luna Anyone can take on this work -- even a group of people can take this on. If they meet all the stipulations listed below, they will collect the bounty. Whomever accepts the task there should let us know on this ticket they are beginning work. They should also use this ticket to ask the Geary developers questions about the process.

(Note that Geary 0.4.1 has not yet been released, although it should in one week's time. The changes between 0.4.0 and 0.4.1 are mild; see our Geary 0.4.1 Roadmap for more information.)

In order to receive the bounty, the following requirements must be met:

• The backported binary version of Geary must be available on a public Launchpad PPA. Any user of Precise Pangolin (12.04) and elementary Luna should be able to subscribe to the PPA and download and install Geary 0.4.1.
The backport PPA may rely on other Launchpad PPAs for build and/or runtime software. For example, the Vala PPA may be used to build with the latest version of Vala and install on the user's system the latest Gee 0.8 runtime library. However, the end-user should not have to manually install any other software in order to install and run Geary (i.e. installing Geary from your Launchpad PPA should be the only step they need to take).
• The backported version should have all the functionality available in 0.4.1, including system keyring support and Unity notifications.
• The backport does not have to fix bug regressions caused by using older software versions.
• All code must be available on a public source code control repository (i.e. Launchpad, github, etc.) We suggest hosting it on Launchpad itself to ease creating the PPA, but that's not a requirement.
• There is some latitude we're willing to allow. For example, some of the GTK widgets and styling in Geary 0.4.1 may not be available in GTK 3.4 (the version available in 12.04). The basic requirement is that all of Geary's functionality is roughly available. Please ask all questions on this ticket.

Some details we know will have to be addressed by whomever backports Geary to 12.04/Luna:

• Precise offers versions of Vala and Gee that are too old for 0.4.1. As mentioned above, the backport may use the latest versions from the Vala PPA
• Some work will need to be done to get Geary working with WebKitGTK 1.8 and GTK 3.4, the versions available on Precise
• libsecret is not available for Precise, so keyring managment will need to be reverted to gnome-keyring (see c7618b3c)
• Geary 0.4.1 uses libmessaging-menu for Unity notifications. The backport will need to use libindicate (see 3198df0d)
• Also see this page for information on how to get Geary 0.4 to build on Precise. Note that this should only be used for reference; the bounty will not be rewarded if the user has to build and install newer versions of software or themes, modify their configuration, etc.
• There may be other work not specified here
• Note that Yorba may or may not merge the backported code into our master. We'll evaluate that when the final branch is ready.