Bug 207594

Description Susan McCourt 2007-10-26 11:55:20 EDT

This bug tracks the idea discussed originally in bug #203115, which proposes accessing IU's in a metadata via a URL.  This would allow "aggregators" to build web pages that direct people to "cool add-ons" without having to use the repository API.  From that bug...
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>In this case, do you think all repositories should be able
>to make their IUs through a URL, or do you think this is something that can
>only be achieved on certain kinds of repositories?

I was imagining it was supported by URLMetadataRepository.  That you could get
links to all of the IU's in the repo, and from each link you could get the
properties of the IU's, etc. (Yes, a REST architecture).  At some point you can
actually download the IU.

>For example would we expect people authoring web pages referring to IUs being
>able to craft categories as complex as what you would find in a rich UI?

I see it as being another tool for grouping IU's into categories, and don't see
a reason it would be any less rich.  If categories are just a property on an
IU, then a web client could look for that property and know that a particular
IU was just a category from the repo producer's point of view.  They could
incorporate it or ignore it.  They also would know that something was a group,
and therefore is a candidate to be installed.  The main thing is that they
could then refer to any IU they wanted, keep favorites lists, group them
however they want on a web page.  They could do it dynamically or statically,
whatever they wish.