AM-extras

Extensions for "AM", the package manager for AppImages and portable apps for GNU/Linux

This repository is used to extend the available AM/AppMan software portfolio by adding third-party sources to the AM database.

To know more about AM, visit https://github.com/ivan-hc/AM

---

How it works

Each database has one or more table .md with the name of the architecture that will use it.

Each table has the following format:

appname	description	site	download	version
program0	Description of program0	url-of-the-main-page	url-to-the-file	1.5
program1	Description of program1	url-of-the-main-page	url-to-the-file	0.8

Note the spaces between one separator and another (see the code below):

| appname | description | source (URL) | download (URL) | version |

To create a table, use a script named lister.sh. You can check the one in each directory of this repo as an example.

All lists available in this repository are updated every hour.

---

Database name, extension and flag

Each database must have its own simple name. This will be used:

• as a flag after two dashes, in -l, -q and -i
• as an extension after a dot, in -a and -i
• as first word into a variable name

Given the above rules, and given a database we will call "sample":

• the flag will be --sample
• the extension will be .sample
• the variables will be called sample_repo, sample_readme and sample_info (see below)

---

Variables names

Given the "sample" database and given the three variables above:

• sample_repo is the main page of the database. This will be shown in -h/help and -a/about
• sample_readme is the .md file of the targeted architecture. NOTE thst "$ARCH" is set in AM/AppMan directly
• sample_info (new) is a description of the content of your database, to be shown in -h/help

These must be added in "am-extras".

To be used in AM/AppMan, you need also to add a flag name that can be enablec if sample_readme is not empty.

Given all these info, this is how lines in "am-extras" must appear for the "sample" database:

export sample_repo="https://github.com/NAME/PROJECT"
export sample_readme="https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ivan-hc/am-extras/main/sample/${ARCH}.md"
export sample_info="This database contains amazing software in TYPE format."
export third_party_flags="$third_party_flags --sample"

NOTE, third_party_flags is a common variable needed to collect all flags of all databases. This is enriched with new flags each time it appear exported in "am-extras".

You can test your variables also from terminal, by exporting them

---

Usage in AM and AppMan

Given the table above, AM and AppMan will use awk to detect the item, in the following order:

1. appname is the name of the program, used in all interested options
2. description is the description of this app and is used in when AM/AppMan crates the lists to be used in -l/list and -q/query
3. site can be both the homepage of the project, the url of the database or an unique URL, also a fake one, in case there are multiple appname with the same name in the same table. For the latters, the option -i/install will use the multiple values of site to prompt a list from where you can pick one. We call them "families"
4. download is the direct download URL of the program. In the installation script and in the AM-updater, awk uses it to download the file, when version is changed
5. version is the version of the program or the releases (all depends on the targeted database), and it is used in the AM-updater to compare online and offline versions. If they are different, download will be called to replace the existing program

In APP-MANAGER (core script of AM/AppMan), each of these numbered columns is represented by one of these variables

export awk_name="1" awk_description="2" awk_site="3" awk_dl="4" awk_ver="5"

---

How to test

In APP-MANAGER (am) or in appman there is a function named _sync_third_party_lists that contains a line _am_extras_sources:

1. comment the line _am_extras_sources in the _sync_third_party_lists function
2. add your lines to the ~/.local/share/AM/am-extras file
3. run am -l --yourdatabase to see all available apps from your database
4. run am -i appname.yourdatabase or am -i --yourdatabase appname to install an app from your database
5. run am -a appname.yourdatabase to get more info about the targeted app from your database
6. if everything is ok, submit your pull request to am-extras