Packaging Application Metadata

[Mark Fortner]

So to sum up, for the sake of the JIRA issue, we're asking for:

A single cross-platform application packaging specification that would:

   - Allow the application developer to specify common cross-platform
   attributes (i.e. application name, description, splashscreen, dock/desktop
   icon, app store categories, etc). *-- Need as complete a list as
   possible here.*

   "The appx stuff has better definition than jnlp around OS integration
   points and awareness of more modern (or old but oft used and not in jnlp)
   application concepts:
    - file type specifiers (ability to specify that the app is associated
   with a given os file type extension).
    - localizable app name strings (e.g. an Italian name for an app as well
   as an English one).
    - ability to override default load/save dialogs with custom
   implementations.
    - ability to hook into notification systems (e.g toast pop-ups).
    - ability to specify app types as long running services
    - set desired initial orientation (e.g. landscape, portrait).
    - ability to differentiate between touch capable devices and provide
   info that an app requires touch support.
    - ability to customize device lock screens, with application specific
   data.
    - fine grained auth info (e.g. specify app needs to make use of a
   camera use, microphone, gps services, etc)."[John Smith]


   We might also include support for Mac OS X dock menus and some of the
   other features mentioned here:
   https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#documentation/Java/Conceptual/Java14Development/00-Intro/JavaDevelopment.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP40001911-SW1

   - Since dock/desktop icons may be platform-specific, the user should be
   able to specify a PNG or JPG, and the packaging tool should handle the
   conversion of those resources to platform-specific file types. (Apache
   Commons Imaging seems to support most of the formats that Danno mentioned).

   - The packaging tool should be able to generate platform-specific
   artifacts from the specification, including plists for Mac apps, appx's for
   Windows apps, etc.

   - I'm probably in the minority here, but I would like to be able to
   generate JNLP from the specification. For this I would like to be able to
   specify a Maven repo, where dependencies are stored, in addition to being
   able to specify single JARs to be served up from a web server.  This would
   let me serve *myapp.jar* from my web server, and all of it's
   dependencies from whatever internal/external repos they're stored in.

   - Platform-specific attributes may be specified (stealing again from
   Danno's post: "such as Mac app ids, windows GUIDs, gatekeeper sigining
   keys, entitlements, etc.").


Since we may not know apriori what platforms the application is being built
for, the specification should permit the app developer to specify
attributes as generically as possible, and the packaging tools should
handle any conversion, or placement of application resources into a
directory structure as needed.

I wonder if it might be possible to define a common set of attributes and
have a delegateable set of platform-specific attributes?  You could have
separate platform-specific packagers that would parse and deal with their
attributes.  If you need to support a new platform, you plug-in the
packager for it. Something like this:

<application>
  <platform type="java" supported-java-versions="" app-version="">
   <name language="en">My App</name>
   <description language="en">...</description>

   <icon type="dock" src=""/>
   <icon type="desktop" src=""/>
   <libraries> ... similar to what you see in JNLP with
platform-independent and platform-dependent lib references
    </libraries>
    <security> ... a list of the privileges the app asks for (although it
might be better for the packager to determine this).
    </security>

<platform type="deb">
  ... any non-redudant, platform-specific attributes go here
</platform>
<platform type="windows" version="">
  ... support attributes for specific versions of the OS
</platform>
</application>

Feel free to edit as needed.  And be as specific as possible. This will
make it easier for whoever gets assigned the task.  Thanks to Mark Howe for
creating the issue.  https://javafx-jira.kenai.com/browse/RT-29229

Cheers,

Mark



On Mon, Mar 25, 2013 at 1:42 PM, Richard Bair <richard.bair at oracle.com>wrote:

> >> Having said that, I'd personally leave JNLP and Applet completely alone
> and
> >> only look at the newer deployment options for this sort of stuff. They
> are
> >> likely to be unusable options before too long as browsers stop plugins
> and
> >> OS's lock into app stores. The horrid legacy of JNLP and Applet hinder
> all
> >> the new options (app stores, native installers, mobile, etc) from
> evolving
> >> quickly. Some people will likely object to that though, just my opinion.
> >
> > I think that is the right way to go.  Start fresh and it should be
> possible to generate the legacy format information for JNLP or Applets from
> the new format.
> >
> > It would be nice for icons to have the tool do the conversion from plain
> old image files (32-bit PNG).  Supply various size and let the tool
> generate any missing sizes that might be needed so a reasonable .ico or
> .icns file is created for both Windows and Mac.
>
> That is my preference as well. If you can supply the right stuff
> specially, then we will use it, but to the extent reasonable we should just
> automatically handle a lot of these more annoying differences.
>
> Richard