Re: Extensions Infrastructure Work

["Jasper St. Pierre" <jstpierre mecheye net>]

> Sorry if I'm late to the party with this suggestion.

I'd rather late than never. I don't want to break this if people are
unhappy with what I've come up with.

> but I think this
> is where using zero install[0] for extensions would shine:
>
>  - feeds that contain only JS (i.e no compilation required) are
> trivial to create.
>  - built-in GPG signing of feeds
>  - version requirements are supported for dependencies (before, not-before)
>  - you can depend on other extensions, or on arbitrary packages. These
> can be other (vanilla) zero install feeds, or they can be feeds that
> are a wrapper for a system package
>  - system packages can have multiple names for a given zero install
> feed. This will allow you to depend on fooBar for fedora, but
> libfoo-bar on debian
>  - 0install uses packagekit to resolve & install system packages, so
> the experience should be fairly straightforward for users
>  - doesn't require root access (unless system packages need
> installing, obviously)

I'm confused at what you want -- do you want 0install to be used for
extension packages themselves, or for their dependencies?

If you mean the former, I'll look at 0install if it does what I
need.... and here's what I need.

 * Users need to be able to click one button, and like magic the
extension instantly is downloaded, unzipped, loaded and enabled. This
is working correctly.
 * Users need to be able to click the same button in the web UI, and
the extension is disabled. This is, again, working correctly.
 * I need to be able to inspect the state of the extension so I can
enable the correct buttons. Right now this is done with the HTTP
server.

 * We need to be able to make this seamless for a simple extension
case (no dependencies). I will not allow the word "0install" on a
dialog when installing, enabling or disabling an extension.

I'm editing the screencast that shows what I have worked out right
now. Jason Clinton: what do you usually use for video editing, so I
can stop cursing PiTiVi?

> [0]: http://0install.net/
>
> I'm working up to releasing an extension that requires my own mutter
> fork (for now, I hope that won't always be the case), and 0install is
> the only way I can sanely do so. It allows my extension to
>  - have dependencies
>  - not mess with the system version of mutter
>  - work cross-platform (not a big deal when fedora is the only distro
> with GS, but will become more important later).

How does 0install make the mutter case better?

> I'd love 0install to be used for gnome-shell extensions, and I'm happy
> to help out with whatever I can to make that happen.