4 May
2017
4 May
'17
6:47 p.m.
Users are very bad at reading or following instructions. It's likely
that they will download the file, double click it, and expect it to be
installed automatically.
If the extension is .zip, then the OS will silently unpack it, and the
user won't know what to do next. But since at least something happened,
they might actually think that the file installed itself, then wonder
why it still doesn't work.
If the extension is something special, then the OS won't know what to do
with it, and present a dialog warning that the file can't be opened, and
the user is more likely to search for information about how that file
can be installed.
The downside of it not being a .zip file is that when the user should
unzip it, it's a bit more difficult to do it.
+1 for .xip, it seems that nobody else is using it.
https://fileinfo.com/extension/xip
On 05/02/2017 10:43 AM, Vincent Massol wrote:
--
Sergiu Dumitriu
http://purl.org/net/sergiu
On 2 May 2017, at 16:36, Thomas Mortagne
<thomas.mortagne(a)xwiki.com> wrote:
On Tue, May 2, 2017 at 4:28 PM, Vincent Massol <vincent(a)massol.net> wrote:
I know you said that but IMO the primary usage is for users to unzip into a given
directory and the easiest is to provide a ZIP to them. Even if we have an import UI, we
can still offer the ZIP to that UI…
So at this point, I don’t fully understand why we’d need something other than zip.
Sounds like we might be overcomplicated things. On the maven side, we could use the maven
assembly plugin to generate the zip.
Am I missing something?
Thanks
-Vincent
Hi,
I'm fine with XER.
On 2 May 2017, at 16:05, Thomas Mortagne
<thomas.mortagne(a)xwiki.com>
wrote:
Hi devs,
I'm currently working on a new package format to package a bunch of
extensions into a single file.
The first use case is to make offline install easier. We can't count on
all
in one XAR anymore (plus all in one XAR prduces
very crappy extensions)
so
I was thinking about providing a generic package
containing all the
extensions you need in it. It will simply be a zip containing extensions
in
the same format than Extension Manager local
repository so that you can
unzip it it there (or later use some UI to "import" it).
So now I need a name for this new package. Since extension descriptor
file
extension is "xed" (for "XWiki
Extension Descriptor") I was thinking
about
naming it XEP (for "XWiki Extension
Package"). Any better idea ?
For now my plan is to provide the following:
* a new Maven handler for <packaging>xep</packaging>
* a new Maven mojo "xep" in the existing extension Maven plugin
* start using it with the new platform flavor which is supposed to
replace
XE so that people can have something to use for
offline installs
WDYT ?
Sounds good.
Regarding the naming, assuming we need a file extension other than ZIP,
"XWiki Extension Package” seems like a package for a single XWiki Extension.
Some ideas. Why not something in the name that suggest it’s a repository.
For example: XWiki Extension Repository Archive or XWiki Repository
Archive for short, which, using a 3LA, would translate into XRA.
XAR = XWiki Archive = a single extension
XRA = XWiki Repository Archive = a repository of extensions = several
extensions
We could also have XWiki Extension Repository, i.e. “XER”, which would
also be one letter change from XAR:
XAR = XWiki Archive = a single extension
XER = XWiki Extension Repository = a repository of extensions = several
extensions
Now since the users will need to unzip this
binary and they won’t import
it (as they do for XAR), it would be better for it to be ZIP as otherwise
it’ll harder to unzip (no double-clicking on it for ex).
As I said I think we'll have a UI for it at some point. I just don't think
I will have time to work on that in the new platform flavor scope (or maybe
just a quick tool in
http://extensions.xwiki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Extension/Extension+Tweak). Thanks
-Vincent
--
Thomas Mortagne
--
Thomas Mortagne