[maemo-developers] Enriching the Application Manager scripting experience

[From: Marius Vollmer]

"ext Kees Jongenburger" <kees.jongenburger at gmail.com> writes:

> I think the .install system should follow such guidelines
> [...]
> -not allow booth the repository name and location to be changed
> separately(security)

Security is an important issue, but I am not trying to address it
right now.

> -I should be able to click a .install file and I should be presented
> with a list of proposed changes.

This is being done already.

> -Should really not contain "relative" path and other vague fields that
> are hard to test

Yeah, that part was  not well thought out.

> -Should have a "uninstall", I was not happy that when I removed canola
> a lot of different canola bases packages remained on the system (this
> is a debian problem)

If you use the AM exclusively, it should remove non-visible packages
as well when you remove the visible package that brought them in in
the first place.  I have not tried Canola myself, so maybe there is a
bug somewhere.

> in other words , what is the problem with the current .install
> format?

I want to use .install files in more situations: for backing up /
restoring the list of installed applications, when delivering
software on a memory card, and maybe to control updates to the system
software.