Re: I have to write a software center application
Hi!
Only a short answer, because I am currently on the run - if you need
more information on this matter, feel free to contact me off-list.
First, I recommend using PackageKit[1][2], which is an easy-to-use
abstraction layer for package managers, running on a wide variety of
distributions. This software lets you install packages (and do other
stuff) on almost any distribution (great if you want to make your
stuff available to other distros as well!). Qt and GObject interfaces
to PK are available via libpackagekit-glib2 and libpackagekit-qt. A
Debian-only and Qt-only solution would be using QApt as alternative to
PackageKit.
You will also need metadata to show in your software-center
application. That data is currently not available in Debian yet, but I
have a SoC student working on this matter (integration help is highly
appreciated!).
More information about AppStream is avauilable at [3] and [4].
You can access the AppStream data via libappstream (GObject interface)
or libappstreamqt (Qt4 interface). Both libraries are currently
available on Debian.
These libs will already provide some spare metadata (via
app-install-data). The larger chunk will come with the completion of
my student's project.
There is also a student working on a Muon[5| port to Debian and
AppStream - Sune Vuorela knows more about that.
Also, it might be worth to take a look at GNOME-Software[6] which we
might be able to make ready for Debian Jessie in time (depends on the
completion of a few prerequisite projects).
If you have further questions, feel free to ask off-list (since this
list is about the development of Debian, and this issue might be
slightly off-topic)
Cheers,
Matthias
[1]: http://packagekit.org
[2]: https://packages.debian.org/sid/packagekit
[3]: http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Distributions/AppStream/
[4]: http://www.freedesktop.org/software/appstream/docs/
[5]: http://kde-apps.org/content/show.php/Muon+Package+Management+Suite?content=137507
[6]: https://wiki.gnome.org/Apps/Software
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