Glimmer "store"?

[rubyFeedback]

Hey Andy,

Just another semi-suggestion or so - perhaps it may not make as much sense right now
but who knows, in some months.

I was recently looking at some games again (can't take the games away from me!).

I noticed Glimmer Klondike Solitaire on SWT/jruby, I suppose.

However had, I was thinking that this could be done in ruby-gtk, ruby-tk, perhaps even
ruby-libui? I am not sure. Perhaps via the drawing area and if we can respond to mouse
on drag events (or even without that, buttons could perhaps substitute for this).

But then I was wondering ... do we actually have some kind of "central database" to
look up what is supported and where? So kind of like a "glimmer store", like the
Microsoft app store. I don't actually really suggest a website as such, per se, could
all be handled via some glimmer-app locally. But kind of like some listing to see
which games are available and which other apps are available. Like some search
entry, and people then also get a simple "is supported on xyz". I guess the SWT
glimmer apps are the most advanced since you seem to use these for many
projects, such as your editor. And obviously time is a limited resource so you can't
invest as much time into every project equally, I understand that.

The idea could be kind of that people could "build up on the glimmer world", like
a bit how Minecraft allows people to build stuff in the Minecraft universe. :D

Or perhaps if "store" is the wrong name then a "glimmer add-on server".

You can say that this may be a chicken-egg problem (more users equate
more applications) but I just think the idea of being able to have some kind
of store or add-on server may be nice. And perhaps being lazy too, like
just install solitaire. (And be able to answer the question whether it works
on the www too, without having to ask you, or search through different
websites. You provide a LOT of documentation in general, but some of it
is spread onto different websites and it may not always be easy to track
all that disparate documentation.)

Anyway - that is just a loose idea, don't worry too much about it and please
feel free to close it at any moment in time as you see fit.

[AndyObtiva]

I actually considered the idea of building a Glimmer App Store and documented it in the Glimmer DSL for SWT TODO.md:
https://github.com/AndyObtiva/glimmer-dsl-swt/blob/master/TODO.md

"Provide a Glimmer App Store for Windows and Linux with Automatic Update support given that Glimmer only supports Mac App Store. Consider expanding to the Mac too with the selling point over the Mac store being that it does not require notarization."

The idea can be developped without the use of a server at all. We can just build a Glimmer App Store desktop application that pulls various applications from Ruby Gems and/or GitHub based on a YAML list of all available applications, which is updated regularly. The Glimmer App Store simply helps users discover and install Glimmer applications on their machine by browsing application names and screenshots (including video too). The idea can be started small, like focusing on Glimmer DSL for SWT to start, and then expanding to cover other Glimmer libraries eventually.

It would be nice to explore this idea, and you are welcome to get it started if you like. As you mentioned, I have other priorities to tend to at the moment.

In any case, today, every Glimmer library links to all its known applications, so it shouldn't be an issue for users to discover them:

• Glimmer DSL for SWT: https://github.com/AndyObtiva/glimmer-dsl-swt#in-production & https://github.com/AndyObtiva/glimmer-dsl-swt/blob/master/docs/reference/GLIMMER_SAMPLES.md#external-samples
• Glimmer DSL for LibUI: https://github.com/AndyObtiva/glimmer-dsl-libui#applications
• Glimmer DSL for Tk: https://github.com/AndyObtiva/glimmer-dsl-tk#applications

I'll keep this issue open until further work is done for it. I might move it to the general Glimmer project though.

Thank you for reporting.

[AndyObtiva]

I forgot to answer this question earlier:

I noticed Glimmer Klondike Solitaire on SWT/jruby, I suppose.

However had, I was thinking that this could be done in ruby-gtk, ruby-tk, perhaps even
ruby-libui? I am not sure. Perhaps via the drawing area and if we can respond to mouse
on drag events (or even without that, buttons could perhaps substitute for this).

Yes, with the new enhancements done to Glimmer DSL for LibUI using the Perfect Shape gem, you can definitely now implement Klondike Solitaire in LibUI. I plan to add even more enhancements that will make that easier (like Custom Shape support and declarative area shape Drag & Drop support). Once I do so, I will implement a simple version of Klondike Solitaire (without flashy graphics) in Glimmer DSL for LibUI. I’ll open a separate issue for it under that project and close it once I’ve implemented the game.

Cheers!