Information for developers

Introduction

The new site works a bit differently from the previous ones. This information is supposed to get new and old desklet and control developers accustomed to the new site.

The biggest change is that desklets and controls are strictly separated. This also means that when you submit a desklet and that desklet needs a control to work you have to do two submissions - one for the control and one for the desklet.

Seems difficult? Don't worry, it's not. And the benefit we get is that controls and desklets are easier to find, control code is easier to share and automatic downloading and installing of desklets and controls enters a new millennium :) !

Very quick run through

• Don just created a desklet named desko which depends on a control named con
• He packages both in a tar.gz package with the following structure:

  desko.tar.gz:
    ->Desko/
    ->Desko/desko.display
  
  con.tar.gz:
    ->Con/
    ->Con/__init__.py
    ->Con/ICon.py

• Don then logs in to the new site and submits his desklet through the Desklet submission form and the control through the Control submission form
• Then he browses controls and finds his con control. He defines the properties the first version has
• As the last step he navigates to his desko desklet's page and enters the modifies the dependencies of his first submitted version, adding con as the only dependency.

More detailed instructions

Packaging:

• The desklet package format is tar.gz
• The package has to contain one directory named like the desklet (case-sensitive)
• The directory contains the display-file that is needed for the desklet to run and optionally other directories and files related to the running of the desklet. The package must not contain any controls.
• The image should be a simple screenshot showing the desklet in action. The format is png.

Submission:

• Submit the desklet through the website submission form. Only registered users may submit desklets.
• When the desklet reaches a new version it can be submitted through the desklet's details page.
• Remember to add dependencies to specific controls through the desklet's details page. Dependencies are version specific, so the desklet's required controls may change later if needed.