gitk: fix MacOS 10.14 "Mojave" crash on launch

On MacOS, a "wish" application started from the terminal opens in the
background, thus doesn't match user expectation that a newly-launched
application ought to be placed in the foreground. To address this
shortcoming, both gitk and git-gui use Apple Events to send a message to
"System Events" instructing it to foreground the "wish" application by
PID.

Unfortunately, MacOS 10.14 tightens restrictions on Apple Events,
requiring explicit granting of permission to control applications in
this fashion, and apparently such granting for "Automation" is not
allowed at all[1]. As a consequence gitk crashes outright at launch time
with a "Not authorized to send Apple events to System Events" error,
thus is entirely unusable on "Mojave".

In contrast, git-gui does not crash since it deliberately[2] catches and
ignores Apple Events errors. This does mean that git-gui will not
automatically become the foreground application on "Mojave", which is a
minor inconvenience but far better than crashing outright as gitk does.

Update gitk to catch and ignore Apple Events errors, mirroring git-gui's
behavior, to avoid this crash.

(Finding and implementing an alternate approach to foregrounding the
"wish" application on "Mojave" may be desirable but is outside the scope
of this crash fix.)

[1]: https://lore.kernel.org/git/D295145E-7596-4409-9681-D8ADBB9EBB0C@me.com/
[2]: https://lore.kernel.org/git/CABNJ2G+h3zh+=wLA0KHjUn8TsfhqUK1Kn-1_=6hnXVRJUPhuuA@mail.gmail.com/

Reported-by: Evgeny Cherpak <cherpake@me.com>
Signed-off-by: Eric Sunshine <sunshine@sunshineco.com>
Signed-off-by: Johannes Sixt <j6t@kdbg.org>

diff --git a/gitk b/gitk
index 6e4d71d5852533687dd7165d8605008036118df7..cc2eab454c716b84e7b5de2578d40db347d3088f 100755 (executable)
--- a/gitk
+++ b/gitk
@@ -12460,11 +12460,13 @@ namespace import ::msgcat::mc
 
 # on OSX bring the current Wish process window to front
 if {[tk windowingsystem] eq "aqua"} {
-    safe_exec [list osascript -e [format {
-        tell application "System Events"
-            set frontmost of processes whose unix id is %d to true
-        end tell
-    } [pid] ]]
+    catch {
+        safe_exec [list osascript -e [format {
+            tell application "System Events"
+                set frontmost of processes whose unix id is %d to true
+            end tell
+        } [pid] ]]
+    }
 }
 
 # Unset GIT_TRACE var if set