maemo.org/downloads automatic updates from Extras

The maemo.org downloads section now automatically picks up updated versions from the Maemo Extras repository. The 'Fresh' list will show the applications that were recently uploaded or promoted to Extras. Developers used to need to update their application entry themselves. By doing the updating automatically, users should not see outdated information about applications.

For the automatic update to work your application needs to be:

1. Available in Maemo Extras
2. Available in the maemo.org downloads section where the 'Project ID' equals the name of your debian package.

Package updates are fetched from the most recent repository for each OS we support. Diablo for OS2008, Bora for OS2007 and gregale for OS2006.

One enhancement I would like to add is automatically update the 'Changes in latest version' field for the entry in downloads. I would like comments from the community on how developers should supply this information.

One option would be to fetch it from the changelog. Problems here are that there aren't many packages using a changelog at the moment and we would need to filter out the real changes from the packaging revision updates.

Another option would be to let the developer enter this data while promoting the package to extras. We could add this step to the promotion interface.

Comments are appreciated.

Application in Extras-Devel OK? Promote it!

Now that we have the autobuilder in place for Diablo, it is a good time to talk about how to get your package from Extras-Devel into the Maemo Extras repository.

Before a package will end up in Extras and is installable for end-users on their device, it will go through a few steps:

1. source package uploaded to autobuilder incoming queue
2. autobuilder builds package and moves it into the incoming queue from Extras-Devel
3. queuemanager for Extras-Devel will put the package in the Extras-Devel repository
4. developer checks packages from Extras-Devel and if the package is OK:
5. promote the package to Extras using the Promoter.

Step 5 is the step where you can use the Promoter to promote your package. Make sure you test your application while it is in Extras-Devel, so you don't promote a broken package. After promotion and a bit of patience, your package will show up in Extras and everybody will be able to download it.

We have two Promoters is place:

• Diablo Promoter
• Chinook Promoter
  

The Promoter is a community project on garage.maemo.org. The code can be found in the svn repository. If you have any suggestions on how to improve the interface or would like to add functionality, please propose and discuss it on the maemo-developers mailinglist.

We are still working on documenting Extras and Uploading to extras in the wiki and of course work towards The Big Plan. Feel free to edit the wiki and improve the articles, this is a community project.

Let's work together to get more applications available in Maemo Extras!