On Fri, Apr 1, 2016 at 4:44 AM, Matthias Klumpp <matth...@tenstral.net> wrote: > Hi! > > Just adding my 2ct as AppStream maintainer: > > - Centralizing AppStream metadata is IMHO a really bad idea, since it > makes the life of people wanting to change or update it much harder, > leading to fewer changes and maybe even less metadata. > > - Using d_eds old script is also a bad idea, since both the spec and > the script have changed over time - years ago, I used it as basis for > an initial AppStream metadata push to the KDE repositories, meanwhile > projects have written and updated their metadata, it has been > translated, etc. - so using that script again would be a step back. > You can find the old metadata *templates* at > https://github.com/ximion/kde-appstream-metadata-templates , for > projects which don't have the data yet. I call them templates, because > they do need to be reviewed and changed, so it's nothing to blindly > push to a repo. That said, most repositories already have metadata. > > - AppStream metainfo files are very rich in metadata - using a > markdown document makes it hard to add the same amount of data (e.g. > that document would need to contain a way to define multiple > screenshots with descriptions, having listsings with provided items, > ...). It's not impossible, but saving some time and writing the data > in XML directly is helpful. > To make the metainfo fles in KDE more readable, one could think about > adding the translation as part of the build process (like GNOME does) > and not having them added automatically by scripty. > > - AppStream is already really well established - it's used by pretty > much all major distros, and tools[1] exist to read and write and > transform metadata. > > - AppStream is extensible - if you miss some functionality, please > just talk to me and we can discuss adding it to the Freedesktop spec, > if it's generally useful. If it's something KDE specific, you could > add arbitrary tags to metainfo files if you prefix them with "x-" (the > same way non-standard stuff is defined in .desktop files).
Out of curiosity, how are the Appstream files accessed by tools such as the various app centers? I presume some kind of repository exists? If so, it may be worth pulling the information you need Boudhayan from such a repository ( although the indexing process will undoubtedly require either source code checkouts or compiled code, in which case we'll probably have to use what the CI system has and pick a branch group to represent - probably stable-kf5-qt5. More details on this would be nice ) > > Cheers, > Matthias Regards, Ben > > [1]: > AppStream reading & writing (with limitations, no general data > transformation, screenshot downloads, etc.) & Qt bindings: > https://github.com/ximion/appstream > > AppStream distro metadata writing (includes searching icons and > downloading & resizing screenshots): > https://github.com/ximion/appstream-generator > > AppStream reading (cache-less) and writing (all modes), used by GNOME > Software, supports things like firmware & CAB extraction: > https://github.com/hughsie/appstream-glib _______________________________________________ kde-community mailing list kde-community@kde.org https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-community
