Hi people, for those who remember, years ago I had a personal website where I used to publish Haiku’s applications; well, I’m back and this time I release applications as hpkg; the fact is that the most of these apps which i publish, are compiled or patched by myself; I have a great collection and I also aim to publish some bash utilities for the every day usage of Haiku.
So i set up this website to give a contribution to the Haiku community:
(On “Software Depot” there’s also available an old version - but functional - of Scribus, which I ported years ago on Haiku: I noticed that somewhere is available an old hpkg but which unfortunately no longer works on Haiku; I repackaged Scribus and now works again like a charme).
To install these packages available on my website you need at least an Haiku PM nightly build x86_gcc2 hybrid - I compiled some apps with GCC4 and GCC5 (but sorry: no way to support the ancient Alpha 4).
I also have to mention the fact that I’m learning to use GitHub and so I will collaborate with HaikuArchives and Haikuports (I also start to do something), and currently I’m also collaborating with the friendly Michel Clasquin-Johnson.
About the repository: I am working to reorder the hundred of packages on my system and maybe, soon, I will also setup my own repository to use with HaikuDepot/pkgman.
What got me excited was the mention of Scribus. Thanks for fixing it up. Also thanks for cross-linking other existing repositories.
A few things which disoriented me with your site as I tend to surf the web from other OSes than Haiku:
It would help to know which nightly build (or build date) is the earliest one to run a given application. Using an earlier nightly which is not compatible with the application could turn off the casual user.
For the applications, I think it would help to be able to read more than the single liner description currently available on your site. When clicking on the link for more information, the download is surprisingly initiated.
When a link has been clicked, the text turns blue in some browsers making it visually disappear from the page.
My, that’s a very blue site you got there, Giovanni.
“Software Depot” is a quite generic name. Are you sure you don’t want to get a bit more fancy? I ask, because we can add it to Web+ bookmarks (and the welcome page where I also want to add BeSly’s repo). Also, if you want to add a 16px favicon to the website, it’d be nice to have that before adding the bookmark.
If you compare your hpkgs to the others in HaikuDepot, you’ll find that your SUMMARY (the bold title at the top) is very much longer. The summary is also what’s displayed in the listview of HaikuDepot. To fit into the rest of the packages, you should
limit the SUMMARY to 80 characters
don't use a full-stop "." in the SUMMARY
don't repeat the software's name in the SUMMARY
Having hpkgs built through recipes with haikuporter has advantages, as they can be automatically rebuilt if e.g. Haiku changed to make that necessary or a dependency got an update. To submit/publish recipes at haikuports makes sure that your porting work cannot be lost should your site disappear or has some other failure. If there’s no recipe, someone has to re-port the software…
You can of course still provide your own website or repo for people to download your packages, esp. if some package - for whatever reason - isn’t accepted by the haikuports folk. Packages in the default repo (haikuports) are much more discoverable by the user, though. So, to me, having a website that presents your favourite software with screenshots, usage tips, maybe a video, and a download link (either direct download from your site or pointing to https://depot.haiku-os.org) would be even better.
As I’ve stated “you need at least an Haiku PM nightly build x86_gcc2 hybrid”, so any nightly build since the PM is available (IIRC the package management was introduced three years ago) is ok to run these apps, also because I have these apps on my system since years
However, since Haiku is an Alpha stage, is always a good idea - in my humble opinion - to run a recent nightly build, so everyone can test Haiku and report bugs.
I keep it simple intentionally: I just provide the download link with a brief description.
However I can improve such thing.
In the CSS file i set the following to make the visited links with a red color:
a:visited{
color: #F62121;
}
But - for a reason that I am unable to understand - this method only works for the links under the “Useful links” section: the links which points to hpkg files, doesn’t turn to red color.
Since my site is focused only to applications I think that is the proper name
You’re right and so I will attempt to change these things, but you have to consider the fact (as you can see) that I’m not very good to express myself in the english language: any help/contributions is very welcome
I am puzzled: if a download link point, eg, to a txt file, the visited link will turn to red; instead, if the download link will point to an hpkg file, it doesn’t turn to red.
In my .htaccess file i set the mime type for hpkg files; without the mime type set in the .htaccess file, otherwise, browsers doesn’t recognize hpkg files and they will be opened by the browser itself (showing ascii characters) any hint?
I am puzzled: if a download link point, eg, to a txt file, the visited link will turn to red; instead, if the download link will point to an hpkg file, it doesn’t turn to red.
In my .htaccess file i set the mime type for hpkg files; without the mime type set in the .htaccess file, otherwise, browsers doesn’t recognize hpkg files and they will be opened by the browser itself (showing ascii characters) any hint?[/quote]
Sorry for the noise: I hope that some expert will give me some hints about
In my .htaccess file I set
# Set mime-types
AddType application/x-vnd.haiku-package .hpkg
In this way the hpkg files are properly recognized: If i obmit this entry from the .htaccess file, hpkg files (this occurs with WebPositive) will be showed inside the browser as ascii text.
But with the mime type set inside the .htaccess file, the links which points to hpkg files will be not set as visited (if I omit the mime type, the links will be set as visited).
There is a workaround? I miss something?
# Set mime-types
AddType application/x-vnd.haiku-package .hpkg
In this way the hpkg files are properly recognized: If i obmit this entry from the .htaccess file, hpkg files (this occurs with WebPositive) will be showed inside the browser as ascii text.
But with the mime type set inside the .htaccess file, the links which points to hpkg files will be not set as visited (if I omit the mime type, the links will be set as visited).
There is a workaround? I miss something?[/quote]
This seems to a glitch in WebPositive, so you may not be able to do much about it… (:-()
If you use BeZilla, or any other version of FireFox, the “visited” colour gets applied to all links, as it should. I was going to suggest that you use the older scheme of attributes in the body tag, but I just tested and W+ ignores them for downloads, too!
Note that it’s just the same for zip files (and I suspect any type of download). On my site, I have the same .htaccess line as you for my hpkg files, but zip files are recognized automatically – I assume because that’s set somewhere deeper in my ISP’s Apache setup.
This seems to a glitch in WebPositive, so you may not be able to do much about it… (:-()
If you use BeZilla, or any other version of FireFox, the “visited” colour gets applied to all links, as it should. I was going to suggest that you use the older scheme of attributes in the body tag, but I just tested and W+ ignores them for downloads, too!
Note that it’s just the same for zip files (and I suspect any type of download). On my site, I have the same .htaccess line as you for my hpkg files, but zip files are recognized automatically – I assume because that’s set somewhere deeper in my ISP’s Apache setup.[/quote]
Hi Pete, thank you for your feedback!
However, I have solved by making a page for each application, so the links will be marked as visited because they point to html pages
[quote=Stacked_Lambda]What got me excited was the mention of Scribus. Thanks for fixing it up. Also thanks for cross-linking other existing repositories.
For the applications, I think it would help to be able to read more than the single liner description currently available on your site. When clicking on the link for more information, the download is surprisingly initiated.
When a link has been clicked, the text turns blue in some browsers making it visually disappear from the page.[/quote]
Ok: now the website is improved: each applications, now, has its dedicated page, with a screenshot and a download link: so you can choose if to start the download:
Please let me know if is better for you, and feel free to give me any other feedback
Ok: now the website is improved: each applications, now, has its dedicated page, with a screenshot and a download link: so you can choose if to start the download:
Please let me know if is better for you, and feel free to give me any other feedback ;-)[/quote]
Yep – that works much better! Nice.
[Of course I guess I go to the other extreme. (:-)) On my site most apps get a fairly verbose page of their own, but that has its downside too. I spent most of the afternoon trying to build one new page! … And I have three or so more to go…]
[Of course I guess I go to the other extreme. (:-)) On my site most apps get a fairly verbose page of their own, but that has its downside too. I spent most of the afternoon trying to build one new page! … And I have three or so more to go…][/quote]
Many thanks to you and to Stacked_Lambda for the positive feedback!
However I discovered that WebPositive doesn’t remember visited links when you close it, at the next start: I can confirm this behaviour because on FireFox and on Chrome (on Windows) the visited links are remembered in every session.
You have arranged your apps alphabetically, which is fine, but as you add things it becomes difficult to see what has been added since my last visit. A “What’s new” page would make it easier for the user to say, “Hey, Giovanni has just ported MyGreatApp, let me go see what that is about”.
done: now, on Software Depot I also added a “news” section, and furthermore, in the main applications list I also added symbols/indicators for new or updated apps.
About the Favicon: is yet present, but I noticed that webpositive, every time that you start a new session, needs to refresh the page to see the favicon: I noticed the same behaviour also with any other website: to see the fav-icons on Web+ I have to refresh the page; instead everything is fine in any other browser (QupZilla on Haiku and any other on Linux and on Windows).
So feel free to add Software Depot to WebPositive’s BookMarks in the Haiku images
Soon I will also make a repository for HaikuDepot, and I will also add the instructions to my website (obviously I will also links any other Third-party repository).
)
