During some prototyping, I packaged up a few applications, mainly for testing but hopefully will be useful to others. In the process and with some discussion with cpg we have a sort of standard developing that others can also mimic. For now, these are beta packages and are sure to change, but in case you want to have a peek, see:
- Maps - for demonstration purposes only - embedding a free mapping tool that uses free map data in a simple page.
- Blog - for running a WordPress blogging environment.
- Mediawiki - for running an alternative to the built-in Amahi MoinMoin wiki. You can use the popular Mediawiki platform instead through this package.
To create these packages I do a few simple steps:
- Create a new web app alias
- Download the source application
- Install it into the alias folder and test
- Customise it, e.g. by initialising the database, adding Amahi branding, etc. Whatever it takes to make it easy to use right away for the users who will install it.
- Compress/zip the web app's alias folder
The user then simply follows a couple of the same steps:
- Create a web app alias
- Log in through shell as root
- Download and decompress the new app's package, making it overwrite or expand into the web-app alias folder
- That should be all! Test it out, etc.
Expect this to eventually be handled by a one click option at the user's side. Wouldn't that be sweet!