Adding AppData files for frameworks

[Alexander Larsson]

On tis, 2015-12-22 at 09:54 +0000, Richard Hughes wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> I've been trying to show the frameworks in GNOME Software this
> morning, so we can click on them in the updates panel to do live
> updates. Two things are clear:
> 
>  * frameworks never seem to be marked as "current" (is that a bug, or
> by design?)

Yes, "current" means it is the version of the app that is run by
default with "xdg-app run", and the one that gets its desktop files
(etc) exported so that it will be launched from the desktop. This is
not a useful concept for runtimes, as you can have multiple versions in
active use (the app declares which exact version to used).

>  * there's not enough data to show anything meaningful
> 
> Would adding an AppData file for the frameworks be okay? e.g.
> shipping
> something like this in
> /files/share/appdata/org.gnome.Platform.appdata.xml:

That seems like a good idea to me. I'll add it to my TODO list.

> <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
> <component type="runtime"> <!-- this is new to AppStream, MatthiasK
> would need to ack this, and if he's reading this, should it be a
> .metainfo.xml file too? -->
>   <id>org.gnome.Platform</id>
>   <metadata_license>CC0-1.0</metadata_license>
>   <project_license>GPL-2.0+</project_license>

This is tricky. The runtime is a combination of many licenses. What
should it show? All? The major ones? None? "Various"?

>   <name>GNOME 3.20</name>
>   <summary>Shared runtime for GNOME applications</summary>
>   <description>
>     <p>This framework provides the core libraries and executables
> needed by GNOME applications.</p>
>   </description>
>   <releases>
>     <release version="3.20.0" timestamp="1446724044">
>       <description>
>         <p>This is the first stable release of 3.20 fixing many bugs
> and adding new features.</p>
>       </description>
>     </release>
>   </releases>
>   <url type="homepage">http://www.gnome.org/</url>;
>   <update_contact>alexl<at>gnome<dot>org</update_contact>
>   <compulsory_for_desktop>GNOME</compulsory_for_desktop>
> </component>
> 
> This could be shipped by something upstream (e.g. gnome-desktop)
> which
> makes the translations easy (which of course we *want* to have)
> although it would be odd writing update descriptions in the appdata
> that lives in gnome-desktop about new things included in the
> framework, or bugfixes in libraries like GTK. I'm open to ideas here.

I can just put it in the gnome-sdk-image git repo:

https://git.gnome.org/browse/gnome-sdk-image

Gnome people should be able to translate it there, no?


-- 
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 Alexander Larsson                                            Red Hat, Inc 
       alexl at redhat.com            alexander.larsson at gmail.com 
He's a time-tossed neurotic jungle king for the 21st century. She's a 
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