ubuntu-appstore-developers team mailing list archive

[Michael Hall <mhall119@xxxxxxxxxx>]

During last week's sprint, after going over all of the pro's and con's
of naming conventions, it was decided that the next Click framework
version would be called "ubuntu-sdk-14.04".

We want to start having app developers target the latest set of APIs,
but since they are still in development and subject to change, we also
decided to use a interim framework version called
"ubuntu-sdk-14.04-dev".  This framework version would match the APIs as
they are right now, but because they are not the final version of the
14.04 APIs we won't make any guarantee that this specific framework
version will be supported.  If we get to the release of 14.04, and we
haven't made any API changes that would break backwards compatibility
with the 14.04-dev APIs, we can continue to support it, otherwise we
will drop support for that framework and app developers will need to
update their apps accordingly.

I would like to note that we don't plan on doing this every cycle, but
there are so many additions to the set of supported APIs already that we
want app developers to be able to take advantage of them, properly using
the Click framework definitions, without having to wait until April.
After 14.04 is stable, we will likely support only that version (and the
previous 13.10 version) until the next stable release in 14.10.

Below are the list of things that need to be done in various places in
order to support the ubuntu-sdk-14.04-dev framework version:

1) [bzoltan] Update QtCreator plugin and/or templates to use
"ubuntu-sdk-14.04-dev" in the Click manifest.json for all *new*
projects.  Existing projects using "ubuntu-sdk-13.10" will still be
supported, and the framework version doesn't need to change unless the
developer adds the new APIs to the app, in which case it's their
responsibility to update their manifest.json

2) [beuno] The Click store needs to accept Click package uploads using
both the "ubuntu-sdk-13.10" and "ubuntu-sdk-14.04-dev" frameworks. It
also needs to accept queries (coming from the Click scope) containing
one of both framework versions. Work will need to be coordinated with
the Click scope developers on the format for passing more than one
framework version.

3) [alecu] The Click scope will need to include both "ubuntu-sdk-13.10"
and "ubuntu-sdk-14.04-dev" in the query it sends to the Click store.
The current scope, which is in the process of being re-written, uses a
hard-coded value for this, and I propose that we just change that
hard-coded value for now and add proper multi-framework support and
detection into the new scope only.

4) [cjwatson] New device images need to have a file named
ubuntu-sdk-14.04-dev.framework placed in /usr/share/click/frameworks/ to
let the Click tools know that it is a supported framework version.

5) [mhall191] The online API docs need to be updated for the 14.04 APIs.
 I have already done this for the QML docs, and am working on the HTML5
docs this week.

6) [mhall119] Once all of the other items have been completed, I will
write a blog post on developer.ubuntu.com detailing the changes that
were made, and their implication to application developers.

In front of each item I put the IRC nick of the person who I think will
be responsible for implementing it, if you have questions about one of
them please contact that person.  If you are listed there and you are
not the right person, please let us know who is.  And if you have
questions about the reasons or implications of this change, or have
questions that can't be answered by the posted person, please ask me.

Thank you.

-- 
Michael Hall
mhall119@xxxxxxxxxx