[maemo-community] [maemo2midgard] Re: Application catalog feature request

[From: Guillem Jover]

Hi,

On Thu, 2006-11-23 at 09:41:33 +0200, Devesh Kothari wrote:
> On 2006-11-22 at 17:16, Ferenc Szekely wrote:
> > Once Devesh Kothari wrote:
> > > What I would like is that maemo has a nice place where
> > > people can find applications, and now the new capability
> > > of the application installer, makes it possible for single
> > > click install.
> > >
> > > I would request following features from your excellent project :)

> > > - application catalog page is auto built from many sources
> >
> > The auto build functionality will not be implemented in Phase
> > 1, unless we have time, plus some budget left according to the
> > current project plan. The idea was to finalize the migration this week.

I think the catalogue thingy in general is a workaround for the lacking
of a proper repository where the "community" can upload packages after
whatever reviewing steps may be needed, or whatever trust has been
given to known members of such community.

Also some of those "ports" are just recompilations, which I grant is
Debian's "fault" (or ours depending on how we look at it ;) for not
providing an armel arch, this should be comming soon now, I hope.

So all this makes the user need/want to add 3rd party repositories
at will, which may descend into:

  <http://soijabanaani.net/tmp/the_trevino_story>

> > > - current hand edited info (mostly would be used by single stand
> > >   alone deb packages)
> > > - maemo extra repo (based on IT OS edition version)
> > > - other configurable 3rd party repos
> >
> > In theory the "autobuilding" is doable, you only need Debian
> > repository information. All these are available today.

Yes, not all the information you may be including right now (like icons,
or screenshots, etc) but enough to get a good idea of what's there, also
that'd imply not needing to maintain all this manually. Check:

  <http://packages.qa.debian.org/>
  <http://packages.debian.org/>
  <http://qa.debian.org/developer.php>

Examples of this:

  <http://packages.debian.org/dbus>
  <http://packages.qa.debian.org/dbus>
  <http://qa.debian.org/developer.php?login=sjoerd>

> > > - application catalog is searchable
> >
> > Yes, this will be implemented. See above.

Supported already by packages.d.o.

There's also:

  <http://debtags.alioth.debian.org/cloud/>
  <http://debtags.alioth.debian.org/ssearch.html>
  <http://debtags.alioth.debian.org/fts.html>

> > > - application catalog is able to see relevant changelog section
> > >   (possibly by clicking a link)
> >
> > It was not planned, and I am afraid it will only be done when
> > we have the automatic catalog updatig. Do you by the way refer
> > to standard Debian changelog entries, or something else?

> I don't remember where I read, but I think you can also organize
> dedicated changelog repos Guillem might know more

  <http://packages.debian.org/changelogs/pool/main/d/dbus/current/changelog>
  <http://packages.debian.org/changelogs/pool/main/d/dbus/current/copyright>

regards,
guillem