Fwd: RE: Offer to help put inkscape on windows store
Fw'd (fro some reason David can't send to the ml):
-------- Forwarded Message -------- Subject: RE: [Inkscape-devel] Offer to help put inkscape on windows store Date: Fri, 7 Apr 2017 16:58:32 +0000 From: David Washington <David.Washington@...3499...> To: Amelia Bellamy-Royds <amelia.bellamy.royds@...400...>, Inkscape Devel List inkscape-devel@lists.sourceforge.net CC: Marc Jeanmougin <marc@...3062...>, Reza Alizadeh <rezaali@...3499...>, John Alioto <John.Alioto@...3499...>, James Earle <James.Earle@...3499...>, Jerry Nixon (XAML) <Jerry.Nixon@...3499...>, Joe Shirey <Joe.Shirey@...3499...>
Thanks for summarizing the benefits of publishing to the Windows Store Amelia. As you’ve called out, there is no need to re-write your existing app, as you’re simply creating a new trusted installer package on the Windows Store. This would be easy for folks to find, easy to install, and would essentially be “blessed” by Microsoft as being virus free.
As I offered in my original email to Marc, Microsoft would be happy to help do all the technical work required to get this packed up and published to the store. Our team has done initial testing and we haven’t identified any issues with the Windows Desktop Bridge version of Inkscape. We’d like to validate that with you, and guide you through the process of publishing it to the Windows Store. I’ve included some folks from my team who can help answer some of your technical questions in depth, but here is an initial set of answers to your questions.
*What additional maintenance work is required by having a second installer package?*
/We’d help you get the initial package published to the Windows Store. Which is a web form where you specific your product store description, tags, an feature information, along with upload your initial app package. The Windows Store has a system for differential/autoupdates which you could take advantage of every time you create a new version of the app. That would re-publishing any updates to the app to the Windows Store when you have new updates. If you have an existing build process we can help guide you thoruhg some best practices for building for Windows Store in an automated way. /
/ /
*Will inskcape scripts and extensions still work, cmd etc?*
/I believe these features will work, but we’d love your support testing these out. If there are any gotchas with the Windows Store version, these can be communicated on the product description page where the users download/install the Inscape app. We could set up a virtual machine with the a version of the Inkscape app Windows Desktop Bridge that you could party on to identify if there are any issues/
/ /
*Does the windows store provide a way to give information about Inkscape and the organization*
/Yes, you’ll have full control over the text content that you list on the product description page for Inkscape, including icon, screenshots, description, system requirements, and category, developer website and support links. There wouldn’t be a way to provide a “donate” link directly in your description page but you could mention that Inkscape is an Open Source community supported project, and people could use the Publisher link to provide donations. After your initial publish, in the future, you could experiment with publishing a second “paid” version of the app to collect donations, but I recommend that we first proceed with free version so you can evaluate and learn from the process. You could make changes to your app to ask for donations on initial launch, but that wouldn’t necessarily be specific to the Windows Store app (unless you wanted it to )./
_Next steps_
* I recommend we get together for a skype/phone discussionwith one or more people from the Inkscape community who would want to drive this. Would that be *Amelia and Marc? *We could meet on the phone next week at a time that is convenient to you. * If you’d like we can provide a remote Virtual Machine where you can play with the Windows Desktop Bridge version of Inkscape we created for initial testing. This way you can identify if there are any feature gaps * Besides the documentation, another example of a Windows Desktop Bridge app that we helped publish is the Arduino IDE, can see the product description page, and install it (if you have a Windows 10 PC) here: https://www.microsoft.com/store/apps/9nblggh4rsd8. Inkscape is a fairly low-level Win32 app with USB device and command line access so it’s a fairly good proof test for an app like Inkscape
Since the Windows Desktop Bridge is newly launched, there is a fairly limited time window we have developer resources to commit to helping here, so if you’d like to proceed, we’d love to help you in April or late May at the latest.
I hope this answers your questions and we look forward to opportunity to help you make this happen.
David Washington
Director Developer Experience
Microsoft
206-605-2062
dwashin@...3499...mailto:dwashin@...3499...
*From:*Amelia Bellamy-Royds [mailto:amelia.bellamy.royds@...400...] *Sent:* Thursday, March 30, 2017 10:52 AM *To:* Inkscape Devel List inkscape-devel@lists.sourceforge.net *Cc:* Marc Jeanmougin <marc@...3062...>; David Washington <David.Washington@...3499...> *Subject:* Re: [Inkscape-devel] Offer to help put inkscape on windows store
It seems to me there are two benefits of the Windows Store:
- Discoverability. You may not know a lot of people who use the app store, but you're probably coming from a biased perspective of an experienced computer developer. For less tech-savvy users, this is one way they discover new programs.
- Trust. Many users have rightly been warned against downloading and running arbitrary executables from the Internet. I think the Trust factor of Inkscape's official download pages is pretty good (certainly a step up from SourceForge with all its pop-up ads), but again: for new computer users, the Windows store is a strong marker that this is a real, safe program. (Which Microsoft enforces with signing requirements and sandboxing limitations.)
I would urge everyone not to get overly caught up in the "app" terminology. An app is just an application, a program, some software, renamed thanks to Apple's massive advertising campaign of the last decade. Yes, many modern apps also share other features (like relying on internet services), or a certain mobile-focused look & feel, but that isn't essential, and isn't what is being proposed here.
One way to think of the Windows Desktop Bridge seems to simply be a new installer package, one that plays well with the Windows store and modern notifications and update methods on Windows. Functionally, the main change is that the software is sandboxed when running, so that all file system access goes through the app wrapper.
Docs for Windows Desktop Bridge are here: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/uwp/porting/desktop-to-uwp-root
My remaining questions would be:
- In addition to the development time required to initially set up the Windows Desktop Bridge (Which David at Microsoft has offered to help with), how much additional maintenance work will be created by having a second Windows installer package? How much administrative complexity will be created by working with the Windows store?
- Will Inkscape scripts & extensions still work with a sandboxed application? What about command line features? If some features won't be available, how will this be communicated to users? Could there be some way to let someone upgrade to "developer mode"?
- Does the Windows store provide an environment for successfully communicating the key features of the project, linking to additional resources, and requesting donations? Alternatively, as Martin suggested, could some of this information be more effectively integrated into the app itself (such as a splash screen on load)?
(I agree with Marc that putting an obligatory price on app store downloads would effectively be penalizing new or less-savvy users. If it is possible to add an optional donation to the download page, that would be great, but it shouldn't be free if downloaded from one site and paid from another.)
Thanks for the detailed replies David.
I'm more an interested user (of Inkscape & Windows) than an Inkscape developer, so I'm probably not the person to do the follow up. But hopefully the right people will find you from here.
~ABR
Inkscape developers, what are your decision on this? I have yet to hear anything addressing this issue.
Besides forums, and reviews, I think this might help garner even more reviews and attention, and this isn't really that different than Ubuntu native app installer. I'm with it since it is assured that it'll be free on the store. The only issue is that this adds another layer of management, but if it sounds easy to do so, then I think we should proceed.
As for David Washington,
I'm not a developer here, but rather a volunteer to help with what I can to the project, and I always come up with new ideas for this project from time to time.
On 4/7/2017 2:55 PM, Marc Jeanmougin wrote:
Fw'd (fro some reason David can't send to the ml):
-------- Forwarded Message -------- Subject: RE: [Inkscape-devel] Offer to help put inkscape on windows store Date: Fri, 7 Apr 2017 16:58:32 +0000 From: David Washington <David.Washington@...3499...> To: Amelia Bellamy-Royds <amelia.bellamy.royds@...400...>, Inkscape Devel List inkscape-devel@lists.sourceforge.net CC: Marc Jeanmougin <marc@...3062...>, Reza Alizadeh <rezaali@...3499...>, John Alioto <John.Alioto@...3499...>, James Earle <James.Earle@...3499...>, Jerry Nixon (XAML) <Jerry.Nixon@...3499...>, Joe Shirey <Joe.Shirey@...3499...>
Thanks for summarizing the benefits of publishing to the Windows Store Amelia. As you’ve called out, there is no need to re-write your existing app, as you’re simply creating a new trusted installer package on the Windows Store. This would be easy for folks to find, easy to install, and would essentially be “blessed” by Microsoft as being virus free.
As I offered in my original email to Marc, Microsoft would be happy to help do all the technical work required to get this packed up and published to the store. Our team has done initial testing and we haven’t identified any issues with the Windows Desktop Bridge version of Inkscape. We’d like to validate that with you, and guide you through the process of publishing it to the Windows Store. I’ve included some folks from my team who can help answer some of your technical questions in depth, but here is an initial set of answers to your questions.
*What additional maintenance work is required by having a second installer package?*
/We’d help you get the initial package published to the Windows Store. Which is a web form where you specific your product store description, tags, an feature information, along with upload your initial app package. The Windows Store has a system for differential/autoupdates which you could take advantage of every time you create a new version of the app. That would re-publishing any updates to the app to the Windows Store when you have new updates. If you have an existing build process we can help guide you thoruhg some best practices for building for Windows Store in an automated way. /
/ /
*Will inskcape scripts and extensions still work, cmd etc?*
/I believe these features will work, but we’d love your support testing these out. If there are any gotchas with the Windows Store version, these can be communicated on the product description page where the users download/install the Inscape app. We could set up a virtual machine with the a version of the Inkscape app Windows Desktop Bridge that you could party on to identify if there are any issues/
/ /
*Does the windows store provide a way to give information about Inkscape and the organization*
/Yes, you’ll have full control over the text content that you list on the product description page for Inkscape, including icon, screenshots, description, system requirements, and category, developer website and support links. There wouldn’t be a way to provide a “donate” link directly in your description page but you could mention that Inkscape is an Open Source community supported project, and people could use the Publisher link to provide donations. After your initial publish, in the future, you could experiment with publishing a second “paid” version of the app to collect donations, but I recommend that we first proceed with free version so you can evaluate and learn from the process. You could make changes to your app to ask for donations on initial launch, but that wouldn’t necessarily be specific to the Windows Store app (unless you wanted it to )./
_Next steps_
- I recommend we get together for a skype/phone discussionwith one or more people from the Inkscape community who would want to drive this. Would that be *Amelia and Marc? *We could meet on the phone next week at a time that is convenient to you.
- If you’d like we can provide a remote Virtual Machine where you can play with the Windows Desktop Bridge version of Inkscape we created for initial testing. This way you can identify if there are any feature gaps
- Besides the documentation, another example of a Windows Desktop Bridge app that we helped publish is the Arduino IDE, can see the product description page, and install it (if you have a Windows 10 PC) here: https://www.microsoft.com/store/apps/9nblggh4rsd8. Inkscape is a fairly low-level Win32 app with USB device and command line access so it’s a fairly good proof test for an app like Inkscape
Since the Windows Desktop Bridge is newly launched, there is a fairly limited time window we have developer resources to commit to helping here, so if you’d like to proceed, we’d love to help you in April or late May at the latest.
I hope this answers your questions and we look forward to opportunity to help you make this happen.
David Washington
Director Developer Experience
Microsoft
206-605-2062
dwashin@...3499...mailto:dwashin@...3499...
*From:*Amelia Bellamy-Royds [mailto:amelia.bellamy.royds@...400...] *Sent:* Thursday, March 30, 2017 10:52 AM *To:* Inkscape Devel List inkscape-devel@lists.sourceforge.net *Cc:* Marc Jeanmougin <marc@...3062...>; David Washington <David.Washington@...3499...> *Subject:* Re: [Inkscape-devel] Offer to help put inkscape on windows store
It seems to me there are two benefits of the Windows Store:
- Discoverability. You may not know a lot of people who use the app
store, but you're probably coming from a biased perspective of an experienced computer developer. For less tech-savvy users, this is one way they discover new programs.
- Trust. Many users have rightly been warned against downloading and
running arbitrary executables from the Internet. I think the Trust factor of Inkscape's official download pages is pretty good (certainly a step up from SourceForge with all its pop-up ads), but again: for new computer users, the Windows store is a strong marker that this is a real, safe program. (Which Microsoft enforces with signing requirements and sandboxing limitations.)
I would urge everyone not to get overly caught up in the "app" terminology. An app is just an application, a program, some software, renamed thanks to Apple's massive advertising campaign of the last decade. Yes, many modern apps also share other features (like relying on internet services), or a certain mobile-focused look & feel, but that isn't essential, and isn't what is being proposed here.
One way to think of the Windows Desktop Bridge seems to simply be a new installer package, one that plays well with the Windows store and modern notifications and update methods on Windows. Functionally, the main change is that the software is sandboxed when running, so that all file system access goes through the app wrapper.
Docs for Windows Desktop Bridge are here: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/uwp/porting/desktop-to-uwp-root
My remaining questions would be:
- In addition to the development time required to initially set up the
Windows Desktop Bridge (Which David at Microsoft has offered to help with), how much additional maintenance work will be created by having a second Windows installer package? How much administrative complexity will be created by working with the Windows store?
- Will Inkscape scripts & extensions still work with a sandboxed
application? What about command line features? If some features won't be available, how will this be communicated to users? Could there be some way to let someone upgrade to "developer mode"?
- Does the Windows store provide an environment for successfully
communicating the key features of the project, linking to additional resources, and requesting donations? Alternatively, as Martin suggested, could some of this information be more effectively integrated into the app itself (such as a splash screen on load)?
(I agree with Marc that putting an obligatory price on app store downloads would effectively be penalizing new or less-savvy users. If it is possible to add an optional donation to the download page, that would be great, but it shouldn't be free if downloaded from one site and paid from another.)
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participants (3)
-
Amelia Bellamy-Royds -
Marc Jeanmougin -
Miguel Lopez