Guys
after the terrific response to my Cobra Apps website
This comment got me thinking..
I'm wondering if there would be any interest from developers in seeing their apps on a communal website
I know @april.brandt was thinking along these lines
So.. before I spend too much of mine & @Royski's time looking at this I would like to run a quick survey to gauge support for this idea.
I'm a developer and would like to have my apps on a portal
I'm a developer and am not interested in this idea
I think a community apps portal would be useful
I think this is a good idea
I do not think this is a good idea
0voters
Obviously, when I say apps I also mean drivers
If anyone has any alternative ideas then please post them, always interested in others' ideas.
The main thing I'm trying to establish here is the dev community's willingness to have their apps on a portal
There is no point creating this if there are no apps/drivers on there (apart from mine)
Maybe tag some of the other devs in the group so they see this. This wouldn't hurt for DH's too. I don't know how accessible the Hubitat community repository is?
The plan at the moment is for each dev to have a couple of text files which are automatically imported into a template.
This would build a complete page.
You will be able to update the files easily by updating the text files.
Not all the details are worked out yet.. just an overall idea.
Just really wanting to gauge interest before spending too much time & effort on it
As a user who has looked around at using community developed apps; I think a central, uniform, and organized āportalā of any type would be a huge benefit to users.
Hunting around for information and links is not fun and can dissuade potential users. Just as bad, it keeps current users from knowing about or trying community developed apps.
Even if a portal just has links to individual Git pages, that would be better than searching in the dark.
But itās only as good as the participating devs.
All my apps and drivers will make it to my website, and the content will be maintained but I canāt speak for others.
As @csteele says, he tried the same idea with a github based repository and received little interest from developers.
It wouldnāt be much of a āportalā if other devs are not interested in putting their apps/driver info there.
github has what they call GitHub Pages. It's a static website, basically. It's purpose is pretty much identical to @Cobrahubitat.uk site. Documentation of what's in a repository.
GitHub Pages is a static site hosting service and doesn't support server-side code such as, PHP, Ruby, or Python.
In other words, a portal can be hosted on github to document and point to various repositories.
Therefore, the hosting side of a portal is available, two are available.
All that's left is content
Might not be hard to show the number of "users" using said app...and a way to like/dislike the app much like any other "store" that's kind of vetting.....
I could see a portal being useful, but threads aren't terrible for announcing new apps and drivers. Ideally the the hub itself should be able to check for updates, perhaps via remote repository integration, and should be able to load relevant metadata (release notes, version info, etc.) from the app/driver repository.
Documentation and release notes should ideally stay near the source code, and developers shouldn't have to update this information in multiple places unless there's a significant benefit. Basically, I recommend keeping developer effort in mind as well as user effort when coming up with a distribution platform. The easier it is to maintain something, the more likely it will be well maintained.
I agree. Update support in the hub would be great, and threads are great for discussing different drivers and apps.
Perhaps each "App" in the App Portal could link back to the parent threads for discussion & support. I should start including that URL in the header section of my releases...
I'd presume most of us keep our code updated in GitHub (I've only ever seen that, and code copied/pasted into threads). So another link to the code (or a button that can automatically copy the text to your clipboard from github?) would be cool to see, as well.
In either case---I'd be sure to include support for an app/driver portal into whatever I release
Not being a developer but being involved in a lot of IT projects that involves user adoptation I can say straight away, that the way that is being described here will have very erratic adoptation.
It's not only about content but that this content is accessible to the user in the most easy and practical way. So as important as the content is User Experience.
From an User Experience standpoint I believe a community drivers and apps store (reachable with the HUB UI) where you would have the following information is the easiest and user friendly way to gain user adoptation:
Short summary of what the app does or what is the driver for
With an included changelog for latest version. Versioning will be important.
Link to download, or ideal a self-Install feature directly on the hub would be nice.
